Removal of desktop notifications

[Rorey]

On May 15th, we will be turning off the in-app notifications "bell" on desktop. We are continuously working to improve and simplify our notifications features, and this change will allow us to shift our focus to email and push notifications. We are also working on completely new ways of keeping you up-to-date with new album releases, helping you discover new music, and know what your friends are up to.

To make sure you have your email and push notifications set up the way you'd like, check out the steps here.

Please share any feedback you have here in the Community. We're listening, and will pass it all on to the team.

[NauseaNervus]

One more time: Spotify wants to get paid from artists and labels when they release something new. If they pay, they will be promoted. In general, I support services that care about they users. They sure don't get my money! #spotifydoesntcare

[_dan_mooney_]

Hey Spotify, 

'this change will allow us to shift our focus to email and push notifications. We are also working on completely new ways of keeping you up-to-date with new album releases, helping you discover new music, and know what your friends are up to.'

any news on whats going on with the notifications? 

Release Radar doesnt let me know when MY artist have released albums. 

Release Radar is what YOU want us to listen to. 

Do I have to manually search each artist and playlist to see whether they've released anything new? 

Weekly emails are sporadic and dont include everything released by artists I follow. 

What is the point of following artists at all? 

Can you keep us in the loop on this? 

[oliveredl]

Yeah I'm really trying to embrace this release radar after months of disappointment.  One thing that really sticks in my craw is that every **bleep**ing week you show me a different song off the same album.  If you could just bring back the bell!

[oliveredl]

At least it's the most commented-on post in their FB feed.  I hope posting on FB helps somehow!

[sillyduck]

I miss this feature so much! 😢

I don't like emails and I got bombared with emails everyday to the point where I don't read most of them. This is a backwards move. Music is social I love to see what my friends are listening to and subscribing to them, I also love following my favorite artists including ones modernjukebox, Alan Walker, and Romy Wave. Boo Spotify, you are robbing yourself of a stronger music community.

[Andrew_C]

Yeah seriously. It actually makes me both angry and sad each day I open the app. I don't have time to check all my artists, nor do I want to wait for a tiny sample of new music each Friday with release radar.

What has been the most pathetic thing about this whole episode though is the response of Spotify. I've never seen such complete disregard from a company, especially a modern company. Its shows that they literally do not give two effs about their what their userbase think.

It's a really sad indictment of whoever is in charge of these things there and proof that ultimately, even progressive companies will shaft their customer base for profit.

Cheers Spotify

[Mamie]

I am also really annoyed by the loss of the bell.  I have set to be notified whenever an artist I "follow" adds a new album, but I never get any notifications. 

I use Spotify a lot, and would definitely pay for a subscription IF the subscription offered any features I value.  Instead, free Spotify keeps losing features, and paid Spotify only offers useless things like no ads (I have no problem with ads) and play-on-demand (I prefer shuffle anyway). So, please, consider bringing the bell back as a paid feature. 

[mbstrom]

Why can't you (spotify peoples) at least let the paying users have the bell?

[Spam101]

Sorry but this sucks, this is just another way to keep small artists from having a level playing field.

Getting notified of new releases & playlists of artists I follow was THE best feature of Spotify.

The push notifications don't work.. I've had maybe 1 since the switch? 

I get enough junk mail as it is.. and it's just a random summary, not a full and instant notification.

I like the release radar playlist, I am thankful for that. But this should be in addition to the original feature.

[Spam101]

it's incredible, like they've not got a license to print money anyway. They have a world of free music to advertise on and they're still not happy.

Not in the spirit of it's inception. Corrupt profit margin hunting bull**bleep**

[rednblu]

That is--

We deserve a notifications button that reveals links to the New albums for Only the artists that we follow-- Spotify had the right idea before-- and then somewhere lost the way.

[OttoJacky]

Every day getting worse, good job devs!

[DunklerStaub]

Stop marking this as solved until you finally bring us back one of the most vital features of Spotify: the ability to get informed when our beloved artists release new music! As you can see in this thread, the community is outraged and you should finally start to listen to us! The only reason I'm still using Spotify is because it's easier for me to discover music than on other services… once that changes, it's goodbye Spotify because I absolutely hate that you keep ignoring your users about this feature that is so very important to a lot of us!

[Paulgi]

my Spotify PREMIUM account is filled with spam and unwanted hideous music suggestions. i only want to block the music suggestions and get the bell notifications back. that's it. that's why i was paying this.

[sorter]

Please tell me what's the point of following artists in Spotify? I don't get any notifications of their new music. I got email and push-settings correct and still no messages occur. Today the artist I follow released a new album and I happened to find it out via other service I use. The album was given to me right away on front page as I signed in, like it should be, right? And in Spotify I have to manually search the artist to find it. I wonder how many great albums have I missed because I don't know the album is released and Spotify doesn't bother tell me that. And the best part, not a one song from this new album was included Released Radar -playlist ("Catch all the latest music from artists you care about--. Updates every Friday.") Editor's note: Today is Friday.

And now I'm questioning myself why the heck I pay for service which fails to complete such an easy and the most important task... I have to admit that Spotify does many things much better than its competitors but these are just so basic and crucial things to ace.

[Zephyr]

Third Friday in a row without an update to 'my' Release Radar. Maybe they're phasing that out as well...new releases be damned. What the **bleep** is going on, Spotify?

[brandontory]

exactly

[fond_of_squares]

Zephyr - 

I don't think Release Radar is being cancelled. What you're seeing is just more of Spotify's willful neglect of the Desktop app. They are putting little to no resources into maintaining Spotify Desktop beyond areas they can automate, and even those are breaking down. They hire people to work on mobile who have no idea how to (and no real desire to) improve or maintain Desktop.

The Spotify Desktop experience continues to deteriorate to the point that now even their OWN "Browse" pages/screens and featured playlists don't publish or sync correctly! If your Release Radar isn't updating correctly, as it hasn't been for me, you now need to shut down Spotify Desktop and let it spend that annoying 5 minutes restarting, updating, connecting, and refreshing before you can get their weekly playlists to update.

[seronez]

don't know what kind of computer you use but for me it starts within seconds and is always synced..I hate the android app much more loading very slow and does not work at critical times very often (Android 7.1.2 with wlan ac and 400mbit speed, also with best LTE connection).

[mikejadamson]

I'm with fond_of_squares. My android app is lightning fast compared to the windows desktop, which takes forever to load.