Spotify for Desktop - Release Notes (1.0.9)

[meahtenoha]

What's new in this version (1.0.9)

• Say hello to our new colour. Nice, isn't it?
• Store your music where you want. Head over to Settings to pick your cache location.
• New on touch screens: adjust volume or jump to a different part of a song by dragging your finger.
• The Friend Feed always refreshes, so you're never out of the loop.
• Small screen? The Friend Feed overlay gives the main view some extra room. 

[osopher]

As one those thoroughly ***ed off by Spotify's behaviour since they entered their black phase I was quick to sign up to Apple Music's free trial.

Turns out it's terrible - so thought I'd better share.  It's confusing to sign up for, confusing once you have, full of bugs and surprisingly poorly integrated into iTunes (which has been an ever increasing dogs breakfast since they entered their white phase anyway).  Very much gives the impression of being rushed out to a deadline by a bunch of people who never use it themselves.

To quote another commentator, "I had high hopes for Apple Music, in part because of the unique ability Apple has to integrate both music you own and music you rent; combining your own iTunes library with what you can stream. But it is a dismal failure."

The biggest issue seems to be that it's likely to mess up your owned-music library - a huge problem if you've spent a lot of time carefully curating it, adding album art etc.  That wasn't my experience (perhaps because I'm not an iTunes match subscriber), but I found it otherwise incredibly difficult to use - e.g. typing in the search box caused menu choices to pop open randomly, one album I tried to add to my library caused the cloud to disconnect until I restarted the app, bad metadata, menu items that appeared sometimes, not others... when they felt like it... etc. etc.  Shambles.

Not convinced about the quality either - 256kbps AAC is supposedly as good as 320kbps MP3 in theory, but I reckon I'm not always getting that in the stream.  My (subjective) experience was it sounded better after I'd downloaded the tracks for offline listening (which is easy to do at least...)

Some further interesting reading on Apple Music here.

It's still better than Spotify, but it's a close run thing.  Spotify still wins on library completeness but the software is (IMHO, still) a mess with little hope of ever being right.  I think Apple Music edges it through the advantages of iTunes that Apple hasn't managed to throw away yet (AirPlay! Remote control that works!).  I'll stick with it for the three month free trial, but unlikely to renew (and have already disabled the automatic renewal).  Of course Apple Music is a non-starter if you're not already using iTunes.

Jobs must be turning in his grave.  Back to Rdio for me.  Or just buying FLACs and actually having control over my music.  Sigh.

[b2kdaman]

Color wasn't changed everywhere. Does bottom notification color difference have a purpose?

[user-removed]

Ok on my windows 8.1 64 bits the Spotify app icon on the taskbar is now correctly displaying the artist and song being played. Also play controls are working now on the taskbar icon as well correctly.

But for some reason the Notification Area Icon is acting weird and not displaying information like it should, there are no player controls and no current song playing information like in the past apps, this information is usually available when right clicking on the displayed spotify icon in the windows 8.1 Notification Area Icons. The only options are to Minimize to Tray and Exit on a right click on the Icon.

[davidyork]

@JayLB - yes i noticed this too and created an "idea" to get this functionality returned:

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Desktop-Other-Return-full-functionality-to-system-tray-i...

[jlpeace]

PLEASE Change back the colour of the icon. no one likes the new shade.

[MattSuda]

@b2kdaman

The new green at the bottom for Spotify connect is definitely different than the old shade of green.

I don't think the shade of green is supposed to be the same as the other one. This is so it's not as bright and more out of the way at the bottom.

[PingvinSalat]

It seems to me that this "new" cache setting only counts for songs/playlists you chose to download, which means that the actual streaming cache is still forced to be in appdata/spotify/data

Dissapointed 😕

[stephanie1023]

• Small screen? The Friend Feed overlay gives the main view some extra room. 

Could you please make it so I don't have to hover to see what my friends are listening to? I have Spotify open on a small screen, but I have two other monitors that I'm working on, and I want to be able to glance over to see what people are listening to. I don't care about the stuff in the middle of the screen. I want to see what I'm listening to and what everyone else is listenting to. There should be an option to lock the Friend Feed open.

[eved]

QUEUE and HISTORY tabs are so laggy. Or it's just me?

[corey1234567890]

I would take laggy over doesn't **bleep**ing work at all.

Also some settings still don't save. How **bleep**ing difficult is it to make sure that the settings we chose are **bleep**ing enforced? I don't want Spotify to start on start-up. I've flipped that switch a hundred times and it doesn't save.

**bleep** off with my local files. I don't want that. I've turned off Spotify messing with my local libraries and it doesn't **bleep**ing work.

People told me 1.09 was good so I came back. That was a waste of time. **bleep** you, Spotify. You used to be cool. What the **bleep** happened to you?

**bleep**

You're wasting your **bleep**ing time adding green **bleep** and new logos and **bleep** what else but nothing that actually makes me able to use your **bleep**ing program! Fire all your **bleep**ing workers that aren't inclined to work on a **bleep**ing MUSIC PLAYER. Kick these artist mother**bleep**ers out on the streets and get some actual competent people on this **bleep**.

[user-removed]

---

@meahtenoha wrote:

What's new in this version (1.0.9)

• Say hello to our new colour. Nice, isn't it?
• Store your music where you want. Head over to Settings to pick your cache location.
• New on touch screens: adjust volume or jump to a different part of a song by dragging your finger.
• The Friend Feed always refreshes, so you're never out of the loop.
• Small screen? The Friend Feed overlay gives the main view some extra room. 

---

Yes, screen is very small, when all this no-needed garbage like sidebar elements not allow to oven use full cover size. Because then playlsit will be under cover.

[user-removed]

Anyway I was playing around and thought I would post a version of the top bar I made from a snippet and using paint. As anyone knows who is using the new Spotify app in Windows 7 and 8 the top bar is well freakish big, like double the bar width from top to the bottom, looks slightly odd on a windows app. Anyway here is some images a before and after of what I thought the top bar would look like, maybe, hopefully, eventually. I am kind of a stickler on how things look on a desktop environment, first impressions and everything and all of that.

Before Image:

After Image:

Well there it is for whomever does the images layout for Win desktop environments. I think a more slimmer narrow top bar looks better, but that is just me.

[MathewCNichols]

Thanks for pointing out that the Spotify\Data folder doesn't relocate with cache relocation! It was driving me crazy!

I just noticed the same, as my 3 GB of data in \AppData\Local\Spotify\Data didn't relocate. I can't believe streaming cache can eat up this much space. It's sad since so many people have been waiting to get these cache files off their SSD.

Everyone in this thread has been waiting for this feature: https://community.spotify.com/t5/ideas/v2/ideapage/blog-id/ideas_implemented/article-id/9782 

[Aeromir]

The whole development history of this app has been pretty bizarre. There are some pretty clear issues that are important to the community to be worked out, and it's at least mildly insulting to have updates which ignore these requests and replace them with new colors which are worse and not at all requested by the community.

I've been considering leaving Spotify since they removed important features way back when, seeing how they handle their own community, I think I'm done waiting for this to be fixed.

[ssmakris]

What about better resolution on high DPI screens in windows!! 

[TrevBlu19]

Thanks for the update to allow the cache go off my SSD!!  But, the new color although bright and will lure the apple fans.  My room is this bright green.. However i think the old green is better.  But, that's just my 2 cents.

[MattSuda]

Hey @ssmakris

A user posted this and it might help you:

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Desktop-Linux-Windows-Web/UI-on-HiDPI-display-3k-4k-etc-using-...

[yousofi]

Choosing what pressing X was a feature that was removed. It was better in the past as well as you could right click the icon in the tray and interact with the song.

So yes, we asked for something that we already had and are still waiting for the fix.

But I agree, the internet is always aggressive 😄 So I'll say something positive. I welcome the touch friendly interface! (although I vehemently vote against the new colorour)

[corey1234567890]

Spotify.

You once was a program that worked. Now you simply don't for some inexplicable reason. I'm done beta testing your new retarded-looking layouts, Spotify. I just want to stream music. Get your **bleep** together. I'll see you in a year if you've improved or if you're even still around.

[Deris]

I also dislike the "brighter" green. Is there a possibility to switch back to the "vintage" green?

BR