[Desktop][Developer] Spotify for Windows on Arm (Win32) Desktop app badly needed

[bradavon]

Can you tell me when Spotify will be released for Windows on ARM and where on your Roadmap it is?

Windows on ARM PCs have been out a few years now and whilst the 32-Bit Windows App works, due to software emulation not optimally.

Apple announced on the 22nd of June Macs are moving to ARM starting the end of the year and they expect the transition away from Intel to ARM to take 2 years. Both Microsoft and Adobe are working on ARM compatibility.

Currently on my Microsoft Surface Pro X I have to use the 32-Bit download which lags.

A new idea was posted for this last year but it's been closed as it didn't get enough Likes but it didn't get enough Likes as it's been closed 😕 -

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Closed-Ideas/Desktop-Compile-Spotify-for-ARM64-windows/idi-p/478113...

Thanks

[Jacob]

Updated on 2021-05-20

Your suggestion has at least 180 votes in 6 months! Keep gathering votes. If this idea gets enough votes, Spotify will check it out and post a status update. You can read more about the idea process here.

[Mihail]

Updated on 2021-06-15

Hey everyone,

Thanks for bringing us your feedback in the Spotify Idea Exchange.

Your suggestion has gathered the votes necessary and your feedback is now reaching the internal teams at Spotify. They're aware of the vote count and popularity of this idea. We'll continue to monitor and check out the comments here, too.

As soon as we have any updates on its status, we'll let you know.

More info on how your feedback reaches Spotify via the Idea Exchange can be found here.

[Alovchin91]

Microsoft has recently introduced ARM64EC: Announcing ARM64EC: Building Native and Interoperable Apps for Windows 11 on ARM - Windows Developer...

It should now be really easy for Spotify to build a native Windows ARM64 app. CEF does support ARM64: CEF Automated Builds (spotifycdn.com) It shouldn't be too hard to implement ARM64EC support for CEF, it's basically just a compiler switch. And CEF is now the biggest performance issue with Spotify, so they could keep other dependencies x64, if they like.

Most Windows on ARM machines should be upgradeable to Windows 11, so ARM64 version of Spotify app could only support Windows 11 and that would've been fine.

Now the question is — do they have expert developers who can do that 🤔

[bradavon]

Hi Alovchin91.

Thanks for the update. My fear has never been "can they" but "will they" because usage is low, but it's low of course becase of companies like Spotify not releasing ARM64 apps. Microsoft even did all the work to Chromium, Google have Chrome for Windows on ARM ready but aren't releasing it.

Spotify is a 32-Bit app btw not 64-Bit. So this would also boost performance.

With Windows 11 only be available in either 64-Bit or ARM64 (no 32-Bit version) it also makes sense now is the time to finally update Spotify for both ARM64 and 64-Bit.

Microsoft are making uptake slower though in not adding ARM64EC to Windows 10 too. Not all PCs are upgradeable and it will take time before people want to upgrade. You know how much people hate change.

Fingers crossed Spotify now get onboard. Spotify and WhatsApp are my slowest apps to use on my Surface Pro X :(.

[TommyVCT]

The funny thing is that Spotify themselves are hosting CEF for ARM64, while their app doesn't use it. 

But IMO you should develop a UWP app instead of Win32 based CEF app. UWP apps can play music when the device is sleeping, like Groove music on devices like Surface Pro X. 

[bradavon]

@ TommVCT:

Interesting, thanks. Do you have any source info on this? Would be interested to read it thanks.

This must mean they're thinking about ARM surely. I thought Spotify was Electron, you reckon it's Chromium based?

I'd love a UWP app but outside of Your Phone and Microsoft Halo it's dead sadly. The only third party UWP app of any weight I can think of is Netfix.

The Microsoft Skype team even canned their UWP app (which was ARM) for their Win32 app (which isn't, urgh).

[Mihail]

Updated on 2021-12-09

Hey everyone,

Thanks for coming to the Idea Exchange and for bringing us your continual feedback. We also think this is a great idea and that there's an opportunity to make it happen, so we're looking into it further.

We'll post here when we have an update - Stay tuned!

[bradavon]

In 6 months of asking a Spotify for ARM (M1) was not only announced as Beta but was completed:

Solved: Apple Silicon and Spotify - The Spotify Community

And yet Windows on ARM has been around since 2016 and we've been asking for at least the past 2 years, and not only is there no ARM build, but it's also not even 64-Bit.

Why in 2022 is Spotify for Windows still a 32-Bit only app?

😡😡😡

[bradavon]

That Apple M1 thread only got 39 likes.

This has got over 700 likes.

[Elena]

Updated on 2022-05-24

Hey folks!

We have some exciting news we want to share with you - from next Monday (30th of June) we will be releasing a Beta version of the app for Windows on Arm.

With this, we'd like to invite Community members to manually install the client from a special link that we'll share next Monday. We'll gather the feedback here from everyone who tries it out to get the version ready for public release as soon as possible.

Keep an eye on this thread as we'll posing our updates here!

See you next Monday!