Please continue supporting iOS/Android streaming SDKs

[florom]

We have been using those SDKs since they became available.

Our particular app (Amazing Slow Downer) lets the user play music more slowly, since a couple of years ago also songs from Spotify. The "ios-streaming-sdk" is a beautifully designed framework that lets an audio developer do practically everything needed.
In our case it makes it possible to access the raw audio samples and this way process the sound and then playback the processed audio using our regular audio playback engine. With your new SDK this is not possible. It might be that the "ios-streaming-sdk" is more difficult to use for an average developer but that also makes it more powerful.

We have many users that uses Spotify. Many users switch from other streaming services such as "Apple Music", Tidal, Amazon Music etc to Spotify just to be able to slow down streaming music in real time.

We believe our app gives Spotify many many new subscribers, so many that it would actually pay off for Spotify to maintain the "ios-streaming-sdk".

We only use "playlist" functions and after fixing a couple of bugs in the "metadata framework" available on github, everything works 100%. Although there are certainly some bugs in the “ios-streaming-sdk”, they are very few and don’t affect our app.

We also have an Android version of our app that uses your Android streaming SDK and it also works very good.

We believe Spotify will loose thousands of users, so many that the minimal cost Spotify need to spend on maintenance will pay off manifold.

Since our app also supports playback and slowing down of streaming Apple Music, many of our users will probably switch from subscribing to Spotify to subscribing to Apple Music.

You write:

"After September 1st, important functionality in the streaming SDKs will stop working."
Exactly what does that mean? What part of the SDK will continue to work?

Please continue supporting iOS/Android streaming SDKs!

Rolf Nilsson
CTO
Roni Music

[Jeff444]

Hi Josh, will Spotify be pursuing a technical and legal solution to this in the near future? Thanks for responding. 

[FlamencoMary]

I have OneDrive, and ASD can access music on OneDrive. It’s tedious but it’s a possible workaround. We will have to find a way to download the music to OneDrive. Purchase the song on Amazon?

[spinal_tap]

Josh,

I appreciate the reply and I know as well as any other IT pro in this thread that the technical functionality does in fact exist to allow ASD to operate. As for the the legal issue, it must not be too large of a concern for ASD to have functioned like it has for so long and for other streaming providers to allow it. Here’s an idea. Buy the IP from Rolf (he retires comfortably, of course), update your licensing/legalese as necessary and embed the technology within Spotify and make everyone happy. Why not?

Aubrey

[chicomacedo]

Why we can not use this important tool for learning music? I will cancel my Spotify premium because it has no more utility for me. I hope Spotify reconsiders this decision. Thanks

[LucaVignati]

As everyone else here, I rely very much on the ASD + Spotify combo to transcribe music.

As a researcher in the music tech field I know that the algorithms to decouple pitch shifting from speed change in audio signals are as old as digital audio. This means that they are trivial stuff for Spotify's research teams who are likely not far from achieving automatic music transcriptions with their Music Information Retrieval knowledge.

For this reason I find very annoying that Spotify hasn't yet provided any kind of supporting tool for practicing musicians (BPM detection, metronome, pitch change, tempo change or transcription) while clearly being able to do so. To go beyond that and even prevent third parties from providing us with such features is downright insulting and it only means that Spotify doesn't care about musicians (which ironically are the people that manufacture the product that Spotify sells).

I really hope that Spotify will start to regard musicians as users other than just music providers, because I really love the service and it would upset me to have to leave it behind for the lack of such a simple feature

[Squeak21]

So your approach to this problem is to come on here and lie? I don't think that's going to work out the way that you want it to.

[Nicklarsen]

Please reverse this decision, musicians rely on this ability. Folks at Spotify are just begging for all of us to quit this service for apple

[jambac]

I am a career musician who relies on Roni music's Amazing Slow downer app in conjunction with Spotify for both my teaching business and learning material for performance.  This disruption is bad for me and my business and for Spotify.  I will never stop using my ASD.  But if Spotify is no longer available in conjunction with ASD I have no choice but to cancel Spotify after being a subscriber since day 1.  Please reconsider this decision as it only helps your business.   -Jeff k

[Calvin24]

Extremely disappointing move by Spotify, who clearly don’t care about their loyal customers or keeping up with the competition. As soon I as I saw saw in ASD that Spotify functionality had been removed, I cancelled the premium subscription I have had for years now with Spotify and opened an Apple Music one. 

[bradmevans]

Family premium plan cancelled. Bye Spotify

[wfoster1917]

If you're reading this Roni Music, please reach out to Deezer and see if they are open to keeping this capability.

[LibbyNation1]

I just canceled my Spotify Premium account. My music students are canceling too.

[Missxtinemusic]

I am a professional musician that has been using Spotify and ASD for years. This is devastating to not only my practice routine but my students who use it as a tool to learn. Bring it back.

[Cyborg72]

For those of you who are using ASD and don't live in Sweden, I wouldn't expect someone to comment on this. Unfortunately it's quite common here for people to put their heads in the sand and avoid taking responsibility for decisions. Spotify started out saying they wanted to change the music industry.  10+ years later, the company is still unable to return a substantial profit. Their business model is failing, with a less subscribers this year, and this decision is not exactly going to help. The frankly staggering ignorance of taking away a service that their core customer (musicians) use, is the most telling aspect of this. It's for sure a money question and another example of why Spotify can't make a profit: bad decisions. Apple Music has a two month free subscription which I am going to open and I'll wait to see whether the company reads, responds and reflects on this decision. With the number of musicians expressing their views on this thread we can hope that they do, but again, don't hold your breath. Prepare and find another solution. It's all about the money, not the customer and even then they fail. 

[pikoscielniak]

It's only the second day when ASD doesn't work with Spotify and I feel how painful is my live without those two working together. Please help me to make my live easier.

[florom]

Josh, thanks for replying!

How can this be a technical problem when everything related to Spotify and Amazing Slow Downer works very good?

And how can “modification of content” be a legal problem for Spotify when it’s not for other audio streaming services?

Apple allows for changing the speed for streaming “Apple Music” content but did temporarily disabled it with iOS 15.4 but added it back in iOS 15.5 after much complaints from both users and developers with the following explanation:

https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/702397

"We have re-evaluated our previous decision to disable changing the playback rate for subscription content from Apple Music in third-party applications, and we came to the conclusion that we could safely enable that functionality again, just like before the release of iOS 15.4. As such, this issue is fixed in iOS 15.5.
I hope this helps."

We then have several DJ apps, for example djayPRO by Algoriddim, that previously used Spotify but were cut off by Spotify a while ago in the same way as ASD. All such apps need access to the raw audio in the same way as ASD and have now partnered with TIDAL.

https://tidal.com/djs

TIDAL does not seem to have any legal problems with modifying the audio content of any of the 90 million songs they have in their catalog.

So please take this higher up in your decision hierarchy to really find out if turning off the streaming SDK is necessary. You have a chance to please many many musicians and students.

Rolf Nilsson / Developer of Amazing Slow Downer

[Musicistheway1]

What has been said above is true. Musicians will switch. I will switch from Spotify unless this can be remedied- once the switch is made, Much less likely to switch back. Please listen to your customers. Or at least reply so we know we have been heard.

[Musicistheway1]

Tidal better quality audio too- Spotifys death rattles. Corporate arrogance 

[BassEricNC]

Spotify- You had a competitive advantage over Apple Music (better ASD integration with pitch control and not just tempo control) but you have given that away and alienated thousands of your musician paid customers sending all your iPhone customers to Apple Music and leaving your Android customers with nothing. You advise that you announced this in 2019 and it’s a legal issue. What legal issue gives you three years to rectify?? If this was really a legal issue, you would have needed to cripple the legacy sdk much sooner. 
Please use this free Apple Music trial month wisely and reconsider-

[michaelanthonyh]

I’ve no clue if any of what you wrote is true but it guarantees I’ll be switching my family/friends, and all of my collegiate and private students away from Spotify.  If this could have been avoided you guys will certainly regret it in the long run I have a feeling.   Musicians probably make up a minuscule (probably negligible) portion of your $ but they have big time influence.  Disappointing and a huge hassle for so many of us.