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.

[gareth8]

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@tapenoon wrote:

*ignore this*

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Sounds like an instruction to any Spotify staff reading this thread.

[Giast]

One of the best function of the whole service was stopped to be replaced by push notifications. I want the ring bell back, inside the app (especially via web) was really useful, fast and easy to discover new music.

[epitome89]

First I followed all my favorite artists, and could easily drag'n'drop their relevant news from the bell to my playlists. But they removed that possibility.

Then they had the bell, but I couldn't drag'n'drop. Oh well, I could see the list and use the links to get to the new releases, and then put into my lists. But they removed that possiblity.

Then they removed the bell. But they went back in time for their technology, to the great 80's. So they started sending me mails with all the new releases. It was hard to accept that I would have to type every new release, after reading each individual mail, into the spotify client, and THEN putting into my list. But it was a solution, for a time. But guess what. They removed that possibility.

So they introduced this new feature. An automathically generated playlists, with whatever "they" think I want to hear. But it's all wrong, and the algorithm does not get my taste in music, the way I do.

I just want control back, I want to know about the artists I decided to follow. The list of artists I've collected for many years feels useless to me. And I'm instead forced to listen to irrelevant music based on dumbed down generalization of genres, geography and what others find popular. I have invested a lot of time constantly updating my playlists on spotify since for 6 years now, and I really want to keep doing it. But you are slowloy removing my possibility to do so.

[billyrush]

It seems that the opportunities for social interaction with other users on Spotify has decreased with the increased focus on promoting Spotify and label playlists. I enjoy listening to diverse user playlists within different genres, but those playlists don't stand out like they used to.

[djswade]

My use of Spotify and my music listening has declined a lot. When you aren't being notified about your favorites artists release as they happen you aren't going to engage in the product the same way. I use to get excited from checking the bell and listening to new artists specifically as things were released. 

The sucess of discovery weekly is what really corrupted the way I use spotify I guess. With both notifications and discover weekly things were golden. But I guess they decided lets just go full steam in on the algorithm playlists. Sadly it's just not what I want for releases.

I know a lot of people have said the only way to let them know how you feel is to cancel your subscription. That is definitely true, but honestly it's just so minor and so significant all at once that it just leaves you with the hope that it will return. Hope is all thats left.

[exevil]

Can't believe you guys removed all notifications.

Release Radar for now is not cover all of releases I need to hear. I checked my swarm.fm to be sure. It's maybe not really big problem to remove the bell itself but one of the couple of reasons I switched back to Spotify from Apple Music is that great notifications. And when I switched back I just don't get it.

Well. You're now look a little bit more like horrible Apple Music. 👏

[Dissimulator]

Just adding my voice here: I really miss the notifications in the desktop application. Notifications via email are just another form of spam. I want to see my notifications when I open the app and am about to listen to music, not when I'm checking email.

[priitsiimon]

Okay, I've been trying out this new release radar for couple months now - to test out the new way Spotify suggests is better to be updated with the artists and releases coming out...
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My experience has been that it just makes things more unclear, every now and again I go there to check wether the list has changes, going through songs/artists trying to spot something I like, not even being sure it has all the releases included in there...

The other thing is that I'm used to listening through releases from beginning to end, you know like before when you bought an album and listened to the whole recording. Opposed to being presented with a playlist which to me is like a radio show... just more time goes into getting where I want...
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Now, I've just found myself going back to blogs and soundcloud... one step forward, two steps back. Release radar is a clunky way to be informed. Finding new music and being updated on releases should be two different elements...

[caryonbae]

I receive restricted and extremely rare notifications on my Mobile App but it was more comfortable for me when I had all my notifications (new songs, new album releases, playlists' updates, new followers, new playlist followers and so on..) on my desktop version. And I don't want to seem picky but as a music lover I expect always more (and not less) from my Premium subscription. And notifications were quite important to me, considering the fact that I'm trying to follow more than 500 artists and be updated somehow. So yeah, this issue is quite a bummer. 😞

[pele_ton]

Hi everyone!
I think you should bring back message notifications to your desktop app. It used to be a really good feature and it kept us informed about new messages from our spotify friends. I am personally missing it and also I am not up to date now with new songs send to me by other spotify users. I keep checking my message box but it is not comfortable at all.
I am running on 64x Windows 7, but I guess it doesn't have to do with anything. Does it?
Cheers!

[OuelletteChris]

Still waiting for this to come back.. Can't believe it's been this long and you're still trying to force people to use email or push notifications.

1. I mainly use spotify on my desktop. I dont enable mobile spotify notifications, I'm not made of data.

2. I use spotify to relax, opening your emails is not relaxing.

3. As a software dev myself, I despise how you claimed removing this feature is an improvement, c'mon man. If people don't like the bell then add the OPTION to disable it. 

[rmaloney3]

Not only are desktop notifications removed, but I haven't received an email or push notification about a new music release in about a month. I follow artists so I can be notified when they release new music. I follow 450+ artists, and in the last 2 months I've only recieved 7 emails about new music. I know that more than 7 out of 450 artists have released new music, because I've been to several artist's pages that show new music I was never notified about. 

You NEED to either fix this feature, or stop showing it as an option. New music notifications use to be consistent and accurate, but over the last year they have continued to devolve. You removed desktop notifications, and now it seems that email and mobile notifications are no longer working.

Please fix this, or offer a workaround.

[fond_of_squares]

Yeah, I noticed that too. Spotify's initial stated reason for killing off desktop notifications was "to focus on mobile", but I haven't received ANY New Album release notifications across email or mobile since early November. The only new music notifications I get now are directly related back to Release Radar, where then it's up to me to trace the song back to the actual release. 

Something is definitely fishy about this. I don't know if it's a measure to silo and punish artists who land exclusive promos with other music services, or to chip away at total payouts for new releases (which I imagine receive the highest payouts due to likelihood of upfront, full album listens), or some other unexplained dev/engineering resource reason, but it sucks for us to have to put up with.

[AviTu]

Can't hurt to add another post.  The desktop notification feature is really missing - what's the point of following anything anymore...   

Are we wasting our time complaining?

[hydrogeochick]

yes.  this thread has been going since May.  

[argelian]

Just another angry reply about the missing features. The notifications were really helpful, so that I wouldn't have to check my favorite artists one by one. The other thing I can't fathom is why you had to remove the message inbox from the desktop, isn't Spotify a community where friends can share their music with each other? As this thread has been going on since last year, this is a feature we'd like to see implemented back!

[WuMyster]

Hilarious. I've always thought it was broken that it was missing and after months I decide to google the issue and the Devs have actually removed it. YOU'VE REMOVED IT FOR WHAT. FOR NOTHING. Spotify Devs are honestly moronic. 

[user-removed]

I also want desktop notifications back! Can we make a petition or something? Finding new music is one of the main reasons for using a music streaming service! Emails are infrequent and don't include every new release. I want to be able to check on all the new releases from all the artists I'm following, whenever I want. If that's not too much trouble, Spotify!
Thanks!

[hydrogeochick]

boo.  now i think my swarm.fm is broken.  can someone please confirm if your new releases are up-to-date on your swarm.fm account?  I haven't had any notifications for my followed artists for a week....not normal.  thanks.  

spotify, i am still angry at you.

[norre01]

@hydrogeochick  Swarm.fm seems to work fine. Almost

Latest notification is about Thievery Corporation new album released Feb 10, 2017

PS! Also shows notifications from artists who I do not follow