Spotify iPhone App

[John Duncan]

Downloading as we speak...

 

[Clare Newsome]

Me too - wondered why the network had slowed.

 

[John Duncan]

And my life is now officially complete...

 

[Anonymous]

I noticed it was released this morning so downloaded the app and quickly sync'd some offline content over the WiFi before leaving home. Listened to it on the bus to work and it works a charm!

Looking forward to experimenting with it now.

 

[John Duncan]

I'm feeling quite tearful.

 

[John Duncan]

Right - where's the suggestion box? It needs to run in the background so I can do other stuff too...

 

[lordmortlock]

JD - does it allow you to also remotely control spotify ala remote?

 

[Clare Newsome]

To misquote The Buggles (but keep within the scan of the song): Spotify killed the radio star.

Honestly, who'd listen to music radio with this higher-bitrate, bigger-selection beauty at their disposal?

 

[professorhat]

JohnDuncan:Right - where's the suggestion box? It needs to run in the background so I can do other stuff too...

Hmm, not running in the background is a bit of an oversight...

 

[Anonymous]

professorhat:
JohnDuncan:Right - where's the suggestion box? It needs to run in the background so I can do other stuff too...

Hmm, not running in the background is a bit of an oversight...

There's nothing they (Spotify) can do about that -- unfortunately Apple has made this impossible (for any app) by design.

 

[professorhat]

I was pretty sure that changed with version 3.0 of the iPhone software in that it allowed 3rd party apps to run in the background (at least that's what I thought - may have it wrong).

 

[John Duncan]

I shall certainly be investigating. I mean the iPod runs while I do other things. But then I'm no iPhone developer so don't really know anything about how the OS works.

 

[Anonymous]

JohnDuncan:I shall certainly be investigating. I mean the iPod runs while I do other things. But then I'm no iPhone developer so don't really know anything about how the OS works.

There is no question that the iPhone is capable of multi tasking in this manner - Apple has deliberately disabled it for 3rd party apps as mentioned above. Internet will tell you that there are ways to hack your iPhone firmware to disable this limitation and others - I wouldn't recommend that of course.

In some ways I think it's comforting to have this limitation in place. Imagine a spyware app which installs itself and runs in the background and records your whereabouts with the GPS and uploads them somewhere on the Internet without you knowing...

Would be nice if there was the option though. Say, for example, the iPhone OS would ask you every time an app wants to continue to run in the background, and you had to explicitly allow it to. Certainly would be useful with Spotify/Last.fm/etc.

 

[fatboyslimfast]

Oh come on John - only $99 for the SDK, what are you waiting for?

 

[professorhat]

Hmm, just read this so looks like I'm wrong:

Unfortunately, iPhone 3.0 software will not support background processing -- a big disappointment. The reason? It decreases battery life and performance, Apple said today. Apple stated that background processing doesn't let the iPhone go to sleep and doesn't let it operate at lowest power. They also said that background processing chews up CPU cycles, so it's slowing down the foreground app. Apple is already working with third party developers, like Meebo, ESPN and Oracle, to incorporate push notifications into their apps.

 

[John Duncan]

fatboyslimfast:Oh come on John - only $99 for the SDK, what are you waiting for?

I thought it was free - just haven't been bothered to download it (it's number 47 on my list of Things To Do In My Spare Time)

As for the argument that it uses up CPU cycles - yes, that's what computers do...

 

[professorhat]

I guess the argument is if you allowed it for all apps, people could well start getting really slow iPhones because most people don't realise some of these apps are still running when they switch to another app and it would result in lots of complaints (similar to when I worked in support - the number of times I would go see someone with a "slow" laptop and find they had about 50 applications open because they didn't see why they should have to close them down once they'd finished using them).

I like storsvante's idea of giving us the option though, maybe with a warning it could lead to slowdown and what to do if that happens.

 

[John Duncan]

And let's face it, I'm only using it on my iPod Touch, so it's not as if I'm gonna get a phone call or send a text. though some options appear to be disabled - not sure I can buffer content for when I'm out of wireless range....

 

[Joe Cox]

It's a frustrating feature. I have a radio station app but again you can't do anything else while you're listening. Damn my 10-second attention span.

 

[John Duncan]

Oh. My. God. I have now downloaded a whole album in about two seconds to play while I have no wifi connection.

 

[Anonymous]

Anyone know what quality you get the off-line content in? 320kbps?

 

[John Duncan]

storsvante:Anyone know what quality you get the off-line content in? 320kbps?

Site doesn't say. I'd be surprised if it were 320, having seen how quickly it can download (and frankly, it was so quick it might not even be 160). But I really don't care.

 

[Anonymous]

Perhaps I'll measure it. Download a song of known length and measure how much traffic it generates on the WiFi.

As you say, not a primary concern though... Strictly for music on the go.

 

[John Duncan]

Yup, and in that sense I think it's the most important (legal) thing to have happened to music (consumption at least, if not the record industry) since, ooo, I dunno when. iTunes certainly. Maybe the advent of CD.

 

[Joe Cox]

JohnDuncan:storsvante:Anyone know what quality you get the off-line content in? 320kbps?

Site doesn't say. I'd be surprised if it were 320, having seen how quickly it can download (and frankly, it was so quick it might not even be 160). But I really don't care.

That's not very on brand, John.