Here's some improvements/things that can (and should at this point) be done to Spotify to make it the best music and podcasts provider possible. Let me know what you all think of these, as when I look around it seems that more people are dissatisfied with what Spotify is right now than happy with it. These are some surefire ways to make Spotify better overall as well for the consumer:
MUSIC:
- Commit to music, which means committing to lossless. Spotify is one of the only mainstream music providers not to have some form of lossless audio. Amazon Music, Apple Music, Deezer, these have ALL beat Spotify to the punch. Spotify does NOT fit the current standards for a music streaming service. A good start would be committing 100% to lossless audio. While we are aware that this will take time to implement properly, and that is something we all want, there's really no reason for someone who uses Spotify to think that it's even being worked on at all. So let's focus on getting on the same level as other services. Push everything into lossless, connect with the labels, do it right. Even if it takes time, at least give us some kind of reassurance it's even being worked on at all.
- Switch to AAC while lossless is not available. OGG Vorbis is simply not a good codec in modern days - it's quite old and just doesn't sound as good as codecs such as AAC that are commonly used. Even at the highest bitrate setting, Spotify music sounds murky, soupy and overall just not good. To the casual listener that might not be the case, but to hardcore music people, the audio Spotify provides just doesn't cut it. It's narrow and instrument separation becomes impossible when it's all mucked together. So ditch Vorbis and move to a codec like AAC - you already did that on the web player. Do it on all platforms.
- DITCH MUSIXMATCH. This is a lyrics provider that quite literally tells its users not to trust official lyrics sources and only input what they hear. This is an obviously problematic approach that leads to a lot of lyrics being wrong, and there is nothing more embarrassing than getting a lyric wrong while singing. Partner with a provider that verifies its lyrics with the artists - go back to Genius. And while you're at it, make the lyrics section a little better and do some debugging.
PODCASTS:
- Allow users to turn off embedded artwork and just show the main podcast art in the player. It's not essential, but it makes the experience better and the choice is nice to have.
- Allow users to turn off podcast recommendations on the home screen. While they're intended to be useful, they really clutter it up and for some users who don't listen to podcasts through Spotify they're just an annoyance and a detriment to the experience.
- Debug them: there are some seriously huge bugs with podcasts that most users when paying attention should be able to notice, and plenty do. Get on those, instead of making an $80 mini car screen that no one asked for.
APP:
- Go back to something more like the original layout. The current library page is far too messy and requires people to touch the top of the screen to navigate if they're on a phone, and with the size of phones these days, it should be easy to see why that just isn't good design and is inconvenient. Quality of life.
- Allow users to add individual songs to their library, either through a songs tab or adding the album in the albums tab and just adding the one song in the album there. If my memory serves me right, it used to be like that - and it was better that way. Sometimes changing things up is a bad idea, and being similar to another service like Apple or Amazon isn't always a bad thing, because they're clearly doing something right. The liked songs playlist is just not good, it's complicated.
- Debug and redesign the queue. If I had a penny for every time my queue didn't update as I wanted or didn't allow me to remove things, I would have enough to buy Spotify and implement it the right way myself.
