6 Million tracks on my iPhone...

If there's one application I'd have bet money on not being approved by Apple in the iPhone App Store it's Spotify.

Some background...

For non-european readers, Spotify is a Swedish based music service that's been operating in Europe for quite a while now, slowly building up quite a following, not just from the consumers but also the major record labels. The service offers both free and subscription based music from a huge playlist of over six million songs. You can stream these songs for free via a dedicated Spotify client and this model is supported with what used to be the occasional ad, although they seem to be getting more aggressive in the number of ads they play. Still no where near the number of ads you'd hear on a commercial radio station. All the songs are high quality "using Ogg Vorbis q5 codec which streams at approximately 160kb/s. Premium subscribers can enable higher bit rate streaming at 320 kb/s" and it's possible to setup collaborative playlists and share links to songs or playlists.

You can also subscribe to a Premium service to remove the ads and get the higher bitrate material. Interestingly, the choice of songs remain the same.

Up to now resisted the temptation to upgrade to the premium service as I was fine with the ads (and to be honest, I didn't realise the higher bitrate option was included. However, that all changed this morning when I woke up to the announcement that the Spotify application was now available for the iPhone/iPod touch from the App store. The concept of having unlimited access to over six million songs on your mobile device is pretty mind blowing. After using the desktop client for a couple of months, I have to admit that the model is pretty compelling.

Now we knew the app had been approved several weeks ago but few details were known about it. The timing of the release gives me cause to wonder as Apples special "Music related" event and announcements happen in just two short days. But more of that later.

Anyone can download the app for free BUT you need to be a premium subscriber to use it. Luckily, you can subscribe for a day for only 99p (Update - the Day Pass won't work with the iPhone app - Thanks @SteveWiles) or for a month for £9.99 which you can cancel at any time. There is also an annual subscription for £119.88.

Still, I was on the fence about the whole streaming model and the value proposition of the premium model. Great if you have ubiquitous WiFi but here in the UK, most of the time when I'm out and about, I'm lucky to get an Edge signal, never mind WiFi. The thought of paying for the service but not being able to use it in the absence of WiFi or 3G didn't really sit well with me.

But Spotify for iPhone has a sucker punch! ?

The iPhone application allows you to cache up to 3,333 spotify songs offline.

Holy moly!! Apple are letting Spotify copy up to 3,333 songs from the subscription service to your iPhone so even without any Edge, 3G or WiFi, you can still listen to music. The caching is done via the client when you're connected to WiFi.

It's a deal!

So in the interests of my readers:-) I stumped up the £9.99 to try it for a month.

As I'm already a Spotify free subscriber, it was simply a matter of firing up the Spotify client, clicking an upgrade button and the simplest signup process I've ever done. Seriously, it took only as long as typing in my credit card details and it was done - super slick and easy - just how it should be.

Downloaded the Application onto the iPhone and logged in and all my Spotify playlists appeared in the client. Selected one to sync and straight away the songs were downloaded. I sync'd Angles by Dan le Sac, an album I nearly bought last week!

The player is simple and easy to use. Basic play controls and Album art appear, and you can get more information on the artist and album by pressing the i button in the top corner. This takes you to other tracks the artist has on Spotify and options to add the track to a playlist. There's a search option for tracks, albums and artists. Couldn't see anyway to make a playlist on the iPhone client though?

So with my client installed, an album cached and a track playing over WiFi, I left the house to jump in the car and go the Gym.

Now before I proceed, let me just state that the Spotify app is amazing and the model it presents is a complete game changer. That being said, there are limitations to the model and I'm pointing out these limitations to illustrate why perhaps it's really not that surprising that Apple let the app be approved.

The first limitation is that the song I was playing stopped once I left the WiFi zone. I couldn't get an Edge or 3G signal and playback was interrupted - no real big surprise there. Baring in mind that this was on the morning of the launch and the Spotify servers are most likely getting hammered, I'd leave it a few days before I'd state that you couldn't use the streaming service over Edge. I did find a 3G signal and it was better but still not fluid playback. The quality is great by the way. Anyway, this is mitigated by the fact I had my cached playlist downloaded to the device so I could play that.

Excellent!

But....

The other big limitation for me was the fact that only Apple applications can do background processing, so to have your Spotify playlist playing, the Spotify app must be running as the foreground app. As I see it, at least in the way I use my iPhone with email and twitter (not whilst driving I have to say) this is a major limitation in the usage of the Spotify app. Even in the car, it would mean I couldn't use Spotify and my TomTom SatNav at the same time.

This is where I could see Apple coming in and stealing the Spotify model (if the record companies allow them) by creating a similar service, completely integrated into iTunes and with an iPhone/iPod touch app with full background processing. All the familiar (advanced) integration with the iPhone headset buttons and voice control. Apple could kill the Spotify service dead in it's tracks if it wanted too.

You also have to consider that Apple have approved the application before the Spotify service is rolled out to the US. Again, good timing before launching a comparable but deeply integrated service of their own.

I say again, it's really interesting that this app was released two days before the Apple music event where new iPods and a new version of iTunes is anticipated to be launched.

Very interesting....

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Double take...

With all the talk about the Apple event on the 9th September and the re-launch of the Beatles catalogue and the new Beatles Rock Band game on the same day, rumours of an Apple tie up and The Beatles are rife.

I just read the following in the next weeks Radio Times, a UK based TV listings magazine, which has an article about a documentary featuring the Beatles called "The Beatles on Record". The article features the director of the documentary, Bob Smeaton, who also directed the Anthology series in 1995. The article brings his work up to date by stating:

He was brought in by Apple more recently to create mini-documentaries for the digitally remastered studio albums, which are being released on the 9th September.

I nearly fell off my chair!

Could this be confirmation of additional content being created for the Apple "Cocktail" project?

Then it dawned on me, the article probably refers to Apple the record company.

Or do they still exist?

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See, I told ya.....

Rumours abound of an Apple event in September.

Actually, Apple always hold an event in September, usually to launch a revamped iPod range for the Christmas period.

But as I mentioned in my previous blog post, immediately, everyone starts speculating about the "tablet".

Within a few hours, Jim Dalrymple of The Loop publishes a blog post:

Very reliable sources familiar with the product have said speculation of the tablet being introduced during the September event are flat out wrong. The Apple tablet, they said, would not see the light of day until the first part of 2010.

Now although Jim doesn't say so, this is a clear intervention from Apple to say "Hang on guys, it's not going to happen this year! Let's just calm down a bit"

I have to say though, I'm surprised that 2010 was mentioned.

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Does the Apple tablet exist...

The talk surrounding the Apple tablet seem to have morphed from pure speculation and rumour, to a seemingly known position. It's now reached the point where people are no longer speculating if Apple will ever release a tablet (or media pad as some pundits have deemed to call it) to when Apple will release this fabled device.

So does the device actually exist in a form that is anywhere close to shipping?

The rumours have been supported by all sorts of "evidence" such as reported orders for 10" touchscreen displays to "an industry veteran" actually being allowed to see and handle the device (which I don't believe by the way). It's even been reported by The Financial Times that the device will make an appearance as early as next month.

It's reached the stage now where whenever Apple makes an announcement for a special event or product launch, people are automatically going to assume it's the tablet launch.

But I do think we will see an Apple tablet (or similar device) within the next six months.

Why?

Because Apple have not denied it either formally or via their many Industry contacts. They've said nothing. Nada!

Not unusual you might think as Apple are always secretive about their product, I mean, look how they sprung the iPhone on us! (although some of us were pretty much on the money 4 months before the iPhone was launched, give or take one or two features - How come we still can't wirelessly sync our iPhones?)

But if the tablet rumours were unfounded, Apple would need to set the record straight to prevent the damaging effect of continually disappointing us, especially if successive events came and went without the tablet being announced. The principle damaging effect would be the impact on the Apple share price, never mind suffering the wrath of the Apple faithful.

So by not saying anything, Apple are in effect confirming that something along the lines of the tablet is in the works. They wouldn't necessarily have to come out publicly and deny the existence of such a device, but I'm sure they could get the message out via their contacts or at least seed information to reset expectations.

So what form will the new tablet be and what functionality will it deliver?

Who knows?

I just hope they can pull off another technological tour de force to equal the iPhone, and surprise us with features we didn't even know we wanted.

Here's hoping!

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Us and Them...

The recent (current?) debacle over Apples handling of the App store seems to be waning slightly, especially following Phil Schillers response to the issues surrounding the handling of the NinjaWords application - (see Daring Fireball for the back story, I couldn't get on to the site to post a link when I wrote this post)

When it was in full force however, every man and his dog had a real downer on Apple (myself included, although limited only to a single tweet), and it did make me wonder just how much damage was being done to their reputation. It seemed every other tweet and every blog post was beating up on Apple, big time.

The problem has been that Apple have been a victim of its own success with the App store. My impressions are that it has grown too big, too fast and Apple are in constant state of catch up to put the right people and processes (and technology) in place to deal with the rapid expansion of the service. They'll get there in the end but in the meantime, they really have to manage the potential issues from day to day, and introduce some elements of damage limitation, as shown by Phil Schillers memo to Gruber.

But in reality, I don't think the impact on Apples reputation has been or will be significant in the medium to long term, at least in the mainstream.

You see, the only people to really get upset about these things are the developers and the hard core Apple fans. Your average Apple fan probably doesn't follow every twist and turn of developments in the App store, and as for the man in the street (rapidly becoming Apples new customer base), well, it's completely off their radar.

We have to realise that Apple already has a huge customer base, most of whom are not that concerned about the back story, they just want the App store to exist and deliver them new applications. So if the occasional App stumbles or is rejected, they probably don't even get to hear about it and Apple remain the purveyor of smart, shiny goods with reputation pretty much intact.

As for the current hard core fans, yes, it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth and makes us incredulous on how the same organisation that can develop such an amazing device as the iPhone (and keep it totally secret for three years), can screw up handling the App store so badly and so publicly.

I bet there are a few people in Cupertino who are wishing they could throw the switch on the next latest and greatest developments, just to take our mind off recent events.

Which leads me to the Apple tablet..... (to be continued)

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