Give us your feedback - 0.9.0

[Richard]

Hey everyone,

Following on from our previous thread on 0.8.8, we've started up this thread to gather feedback from you on 0.9.0.

We want to hear what you love, what you hate, and any other emotions you have towards the app.

You'll find a list of everything that's changed in the app in our release notes here. And we'll be keeping this post updated with the changes we're making, along with where you can give us further feedback.

What we've changed:

1. The app should be a lot quicker now. So if you were affected by any slow behaviour previously, this shouldn't be an issue any more.

2. Clicking anywhere in the Now Playing box, rather than just the album art, will bring you straight to the song. This was reported here.

Where you can give us further feedback with your comments and kudos:

1. Change the white interface [we're currently reaching to users about this directly]

2. Changes to the activity feed -

     i. Bring back the old activity feed

     ii. The Favourites feature

     iii.Greater control of content in the feed: 

3. Bring back the total playlst length:

4. Filter option on artist pages

5. Go back to the old artist layout 

6. Ability to view all Facebook friends in the Follow tab:

7. View all playlist followers: 

8. Block/Remove followers 

9. Separate artists and friends

10. Remove 'who to follow'

11. Revert the font back to the original size (or provide an option to do so)

12. Restore 'View as Album List'

Thanks for all your support. We appreciate that there are a lot of changes going on at the moment and it can be a bumpy road at times. But we're confident that you'll like where we're going.

All your opinions matter and go into making Spotify the best product it can be. Keep it coming!

[BigKev57]

I am actually liking 0.6.5 so much i am sticking with it over 0.8.5. It is far quicker and more responsive. A joy to use and a pleasure to remember how Spotify used to be. I don't think i will ever have that feeling about Spotify again. I feel betrayed as a paying customer and champion of the company. 

[DennyEMufc]

085 IS BACK ?   DO U STILL NEED TO APLY THE FIX ?

[BigKev57]

@dennyelvis if you have been updated to the 0.9.0 you will have to uninstall and reinstall 0.8.5 with the workaround but otherwise you should just be able to download and the workaround will still be in place.

[Rollo_]

    BigKev57 wrote:

    I am actually liking 0.6.5 so much i am sticking with it over 0.8.5. It is far quicker and more responsive. A joy to use and a pleasure to remember how Spotify used to be. I don't think i will ever have that feeling about Spotify again. I feel betrayed as a paying customer and champion of the company. 

Ditto.  And if they ever crash 085 again with more web crap, we're ready.  I especially like the way it does new releases.  I'll miss gapless playback and a couple of little things, but thats about it.

[user-removed]

Can anyone confirm that 0.8.5 on a windows 7 64 bit system is working again without shutting down randomly?

[user-removed]

Nevermind just installed it over 0.6.5 just to check so far so good on a windows 7 - 64 bit system. Yeah yeah woohoo.

[JaspisB]

Spotify... Oh, Spotify... This is getting a rather tiresome... What are your goals? What are your ambitions? What is it youare working on? Something MUST be happening behind those doors of yours. Plase, consider this a time to share some of that! Yes, we know of the small list posted an eternity ago. Something substantial woul be nice this time around. Thanks in advance!

[silbaco]

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@JaspisB wrote:

Spotify... Oh, Spotify... This is getting a rather tiresome... What are your goals? What are your ambitions? What is it youare working on? Something MUST be happening behind those doors of yours. Plase, consider this a time to share some of that! Yes, we know of the small list posted an eternity ago. Something substantial woul be nice this time around. Thanks in advance!

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I would say Spotify's ambitions are to try to kill Pandora. They are building seemingly everything around radio and free users to try to lure Pandora users. But they are failing and those outside the US are becoming increasingly ignored due to this narrow focus.

[AbsolutelyNoFB]

@silbaco

Obviously Google saw Spotify's Premium service and decided that they wanted to make something similar. So for $10/month ($8/mo if you sign up before June 30), you get basically the same thing as Spotify Premium. Google's client support is lacking compared to Spotify's, as is their catalogue, but I'm sure both will be expanded over time to the point they match Spotify's.

Now Apple seems to be doing something strange, some sort of hybrid model, i.e. Pandora + purchases, perhaps to keep their iTunes music purchase revenues alive. For me, personally, I will never use a radio model. But Pandora is popular, so I see some reasoning in Apple's apparent choice to copy Pandora.

What are your thoughts on how Spotify should address the radio model vs. the all access model? Do you think they should make two separate clients?

Also, I saw the free v0.9.133 client yesterday with ads and I was aghast and how invasive and gigantic the ads were. I can't imagine using that for very long, but I hate ads more than most. What is your taken on using ads to help pay for the radio/free tier vs. going to an all pay model as Google has?

[Magenta]

Hmm. Been gone for about a week, and it seems a lot has happened. Glad to see I was right in thinking 0.8.3 would start working again after what I correctly guessed was another "screw with people's native apps to test something" stunt by whoever's in charge up there.

As for Google, I enjoy their products, and have for years, but their business ethics are hardly flawless. Their censorship on YouTube is one sign maybe people shouldn't be too trusting.  Of course, that may not necessarily translate into poor customer service, but I'd brace myself.

@maltest Sweden has an insane amount of fantastic games out now(some of which are wildly successful, especially by indie standards) and has for years. That's to say nothing of their equally impressive music/planes/cars. No need to attack a country because one of its companies is being inexplicably careless after years of delivering an amazing way to stream music.  And no, I'm not Swedish, nor have I ever been there. I'm American, and haven't gotten to go anywhere in Europe since 1993.

I still stand by my support of an option for a native app, and  I refuse to use a white UI when it's well-documented to be bad for the eyes in darkness.

For those of you who haven't looked at my idea page suggesting Spotify revert to/provide an ongoing option for a native app, please check it out here and kudo it if you like it! 

[brandAnonymous]

here is an update on my 8.7 "upgrade" I made yesterday.

Well, first of all it looks like I jumped the gun. It would have been nice to know that Spotify was actually going to do something rather than "we hear your rantings" from Spotify.

8.7 is slow, for sure. It doesn't remember your log in username. Yesterday it was working fine, it asked to sync between 20-50 of my 3333 offline tracks. This morning I get up & spotify runs a PC startup (it wasn't doing that yesterday). The worst part is that it seems to be resyncing all of my offline tracks (it was up to around 1000 when I exited to stop the inet choke) & that will not work for me & my 70kbps internet connection. i remember an older version which would never remember my synced tracks....looks like 8.7 might be the one. If only I could just re-install 8.5 back over the top of 8.7 since they fixed 8.5 overnight....maybe I'll give it a try....I woulda thought I would have to uninstall to roll back which would produce the same sync problem I have.

Well, I gotta write some music over the next 4 days, so I'll do that instead.& sync track in the background...

If the new Spotify versions are doing what feedback here is saying, it appears Spotify is enticing a new demographic of (North American) free users to sign up for paid services over supporting the loyal legacy fanbase (&, in fact, alienating the current paid subscribers). Sounds like it is time to jump ship. I have been a Spotify advocate for a long time, but it looks like the speculation for a  "get new customers who fit into Spotify's new business model, forget about the old customers" because Spotify is changing their target market. (I should say I am American but I have been living in Europe for the past 20 yeras). Hey, business is business...I get it.

Did someone say Trent Reznor?...at least I have backed up my spotify playlists now.

[mutantdog]

It would appear that going back from 0.8.7 to 0.8.5 causes an "offline access has been revoked" message and thus all offline playlists need downloading again. At least it did this for me. I had the same problem going back to 0.8.5 after The Event forced 0.9.0 on me (i think i may have tried using 0.8.7 then aswell). Probably something to consider should we have more problems.

Felix's message and the fixing of the problem has given me some hope that maybe Spotify are willing to let us be, for now at least.

[AbsolutelyNoFB]

I posted this on a different thread, but I'm posting something similar here as well. Feedback on my continuing mission to explore strange new worlds, in search of a working and enjoyable Spotify client 🙂

The unexpected thing about this 0.8.5 debacle is that it got me to try out the v0.6.5 client. And wow. Using a client without ANY web browser junk embedded in it is so much more enjoyable. I miss a few small features of v0.8.5 such as gapless playback and remembering where I left off when I exit. But these are "nice to have" vs. "must have".

But the the real silver lining of v0.6.5 is the improved sound quality. It's not a huge difference, but it is noticeable.

So for now at least, I'm sticking with v0.6.5. Speed, smoothness, and sound quality. Imagine that. And then realize it took this "we don't do any testing at Spotify" debacle to open the door to the past greatness of Spotify's development team.

Alas, as BigKev57 mentioned, the company has so lost its way. Instead of making a premium client for their Premium customers, they are force feeding them a pile of junk that is optimized for monetizing the free tier of Spotify users.

While Spotify has fixed some small bugs along the way from v0.8.8, the v0.9.133 client is unfortunately still a slow, buggy junkpile that isn't nice to use. And it causes damage to the retinas if used at night or in a dark environment. I don't understand why Spotify is being so obstinate some low cost development choices, like providing customers a simple theme choice, i.e. light theme or dark theme.

Perhaps some devs at Spotify could form a small team to build a fresh new and awesome dark theme for the client --

It's not too late to get back to doing cool stuff that customers love... cheers 🙂

[AbsolutelyNoFB]

The unexpected thing about this 0.8.5 debacle is that it got me to try out the v0.6.5 client. And wow. Using a client without ANY web browser junk embedded in it is so much more enjoyable. I miss a few small features of v0.8.5 such as gapless playback and remembering where I left off when I exit. But these are "nice to have" vs. "must have".

But the the real silver lining of v0.6.5 is the improved sound quality. It's not a huge difference, but it is noticeable.

So for now at least, I'm sticking with v0.6.5. Speed, smoothness, and sound quality. Imagine that. And then realize it took this "we don't do any testing at Spotify" debacle to open the door to the past greatness of Spotify's development team.

Alas, as BigKev57 mentioned, the company has so lost its way. Instead of making a premium client for their Premium customers, they are force feeding them a pile of junk that is optimized for monetizing the free tier of Spotify users.

While Spotify has fixed some small bugs along the way from v0.8.8, the v0.9.133 client is unfortunately still a slow, buggy junkpile that isn't nice to use. And it causes damage to the retinas if used at night or in a dark environment. I don't understand why Spotify is being so obstinate some low cost development choices, like providing customers a simple theme choice, i.e. light theme or dark theme.

Perhaps some devs at Spotify could form a small team to build a fresh new and awesome dark theme for the client --

It's not too late to get back to doing cool stuff that customers love... cheers 🙂

[brandAnonymous]

ANFB, thanks for the encouragement. I am all for improved sound quality. The jump from free to premium was amazing when I first upgraded. If I do roll back (again) I will follow your suggestion of 6.5. I don't use headphones or listen to music when mobile on foot because I prefer to be always aware of my environment (walking outside or public transport).. I have cds in the car. I listen to Spotify when I work or read leisurely. I typically do not have albums from my personal collection in my Spotify playlists, it keeps the car catalogue fresh(ish).

It does appear to me, tho, that Spotify is planning to become more profitable & the old business model we were enjoying is ready for the cutting room floor because it is not sufficiently profitable. I would prefer to be wrong & that Spotify are working on a wonderful new interface for the faithful. I am grateful for the experience I have had with Spotify so far, hopefully they have the ability to cater for the old bus model & develop the new in tandem....typical branding busness sense points in the new only direction. Again, I hope I am mistaken.

[AbsolutelyNoFB]

@brandAnonymous

I'd suggest asking one of the mods (or maybe one of the old timers will chime in) as to which client is likely to work the best for offline sync -- version 0.6.5 or 0.8.5. I don't know enough about sync to give informed advice on this topic.

I like v0.6.5 because it is smooth and fast and the sound quality seems a little bit better than v0.8.5.

I'm not privy to Spotify's internal numbers, but a lot of analysts seem to think the free tier is a major expense for Spotify and is losing money. It might be smarter for Spotify to do what Google is doing and not have a free tier. Spotify could phase the free tier out over some time, so there isn't any giant backlash and provide some good promotions to sign up for a monthly plan.

We can only hope for the best. But we must also prepare for the worst. Like you've done, backing up your playlists.

[o-l-a-v]

I've requested free premium until desktop client is fixed. Got it one time earlier, hope i'll get it this time aswell. 

I encourage everyone to do the same! We pay for **bleep**ty service, thats not fair.

[brandAnonymous]

OK, the missus & I have just  had a chat about the strategy regarding our Spotify situation. We gotta clean the house & we need music! (House is about 500sq meters!). Beyond that we listen to Spotify daily for an average of 10 hrs per day.

For Spotify to playback without continuous dropouts due to my slow internet speed I require offline tracks.

8.5 was working until I had "upgraded" to 8.7 yesterday. 8.7 wants to sync tracks which were synced in 8.5. This means, whichever way I go, Spotify will want to resync the offline tracks which may take a week with my internet speed. So, I have the onions & the time (kinda) to boldly go....

I am going to update to the latest version of Spotify. (I'll rename my update prevention files so I can re-instate them if req'd). Hopefully the latest version will see my synced tracks in my cache (altho 8.7 upgrade has probably ruined that possibility, we'll see...)

If the lateset version is as awful as everyone says, I can give realistic feedback about it. If I still have to resync all 3333 offline tracks with the latest version & I hate the interface (I despise white interfaces with rectangles without borders) I will revert to 6.5.

I will report my findings. I will add my findings here because this thread is about feedback for the latest spotify version.

I don't remember who said it, but this is so true:

NO ONE should be paying to beta test Spotify rollouts!!!!! It is the other way around!

Look, it is obvious that Spotify is under attack from Google, but that is fodder for another thread, I reckon.

The Premium subscribers should receive what we were promised: NO COMMERCIALS!!!! THAT is one of the benefits Premium members pay for AFAIAC.

[brandAnonymous]

OK, so far, NO GOOD

I renamed my update prevention files > launch Spotify>Spotify suggests I restart Spotify to install latest update>restart Spotify.

Bad news from the get go "offline access for this computer/device has been withdrawn". Ah, the origin of my problems back in April which led me revrting to 8.5. Also, Spotify is now pointing to my C drive as my offline cache.

Spotify, this is NOT acceptable!

OK, what version have just banboozled myself into? 0.9.0.133. . Sorry, 9.0.133, 8.5 & 8.7 were capable of remembering the location of my cache, why is the latest update broken?

Shall I reboot spotify again & see what happens? OK...

OH, surprise...9.0.133 has remembered my username....

OK, after restarting the application, no threatening that my offline priviledges have been removed. What has happened is that every offline playlist that was previously available offline has been unchecked & no longer available offline. I have a short playlist (3 songs, lets see if anything will sync?)....seems to be syncing (half of realtime playback is about how long it is taking to sync...). This is unacceptable! I have already synced the 3333 at least twice. That means Spotify is creating new offline synch files!?!, bloating my machine. A good program would give the user the flexibility to point the new version of Spotify to said user's existent cache....(still syncing song 2....)

The main thing I do not like with the 2013 version of Spotify is the number of tracks & the (rough) playback time is used to display. I do not like the taller rows. I do not see an all white interface, it is quite similar to what i have always seen with Spotify. maybe there are region specific skins, I do not know. Where in the world has "What's new" gone? What's new is one of my favorite features in Spotify. I click "What's New" & instead I get Recommended Albums, Featured spotify Apps, Top Playlists, Top Tracks & Trending Tracks. Where is What's New? Without What's New I am compelled to revert to an old version. Playlist Album Artwork View is now no longer available.

OK, I'll restart my machine & see what happens....the 3 songs have now synced & are ready to playback...I have not listened to anything, yet!

[brandAnonymous]

OK, restarted my machine. 9.0.133 has remembered my cache location that I set. Goodness, how wonderful it would be if Spotify could be pointed to my existing cache files that I have had to resync because they messed up my previous experience in April, oh well.

I do not like what is missing in the 9.0.133 version as i have said in my last post. I am really not happy about having to delete my offline cache & create yet another replacement (shame on you Spotify devs! (shakes (index) finger in a dismissive manner)).

I will start syncing, little by little...this is the tipping point for me, tho....I have a huge house to vacuum....& I have to decide: revert to 6.5  & get superior audio but run the risk of Spotify pulling the rug out when I least expect it....or go forward with the new interface (which is missing many things I like...)...I'll start by syncing some smaller playlists with the latest Spotify version.

ok, I stop trolling for now...

see, this is beta testing, innit?

[o-l-a-v]

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@brandAnonymous wrote:

 .....

see, this is beta testing, innit?

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Or you could cancel spotify and start using Rdio or something else? Don't expect Spotify to fix these bugs by the end of this century..