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Spotify is the first name that comes to mind when thinking of music streaming apps. Like it or not, Spotify is the most popular music streaming service today, boasting over 200 million subscribers and outperforming competitors such as Apple Music. But what exactly is Spotify and how does it really work?
What is Spotify?
If you spend any amount of time online, you’ve probably heard of Spotify. It is a popular free and paid music streaming service founded in Stockholm in 2006 by Swedish friends Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. Fun Fact: Ek’s apartment in Stockholm was given this name by chance when his partner was yelling his name in another room, but Ek chose his one of his Lorentzon proposals. I misheard “Spotify”. They later traced the meaning as a combination of spot and identification.
Today Spotify is a streaming service giant that also offers access to podcasts, videos, and highly tailored playlists based on your own usage. You can listen to unlimited music, podcasts, and even videos, so you can explore your tastes without spending any money, but you’ll have to put up with ads and limited features (more info here) . under). It offers a much more powerful paid option (also found below), but the free version will suffice for casual listeners.
Spotify works across devices, so you can use it on your smartphone, tablet, computer, laptop, TV, smartwatch, game console, or even your car. You get intuitive controls like you would expect: play/pause, next/previous, loop songs/playlists, save favourites. But that’s not all. Spotify has a lot to offer, so let’s try to sort out what we’re looking forward to.
Spotify Features: Music, Podcasts, and More
With a massive content library of over 100 million songs and 5 million podcasts in every genre imaginable, Spotify has something for every listener. You can create your own playlists and share them with anyone, but the fun part is that the app also creates playlists tailored to your tastes, so there’s always something new to explore. That said, Spotify is all about discovery, and few other companies do this. The Discover Weekly playlist lets you try new songs based on your past listening choices. And with Daily Mixes and Release Radar, you can discover new songs from your favorite artists based on your listening habits. Spotify recently added a new AI-driven feature called DJ. This feature creates a kind of radio station for your musical tastes, voiced by Spotify’s head of cultural partnerships, Xavier “X” Jernigan. It’s a fun new way for the streaming giant to help users discover.
Looking for music for any occasion? Filter your search based on genre or mood to find individual songs, public playlists, Spotify playlists, entire albums or even podcasts. You can create collaborative playlists to mash up your own and your friends’ musical tastes. This makes Spotify more social than other music streaming apps.
Another touch of social integration is the Facebook login option and the ability to track what your friends are listening to. Spotify has also added song lyrics within the app, so you can have a fun karaoke night without leaving your couch.
Spotify’s content tends to be localized, so you can access regional songs and holiday-themed content based on where you subscribe. For example, US users can find English chartbusters and Christmas songs on the homepage, while Indian users can find Bollywood songs and Diwali Artis. However, this does not mean that foreign content cannot be accessed. Anyone, anywhere can access most libraries, and over time recommendations will begin to match your listening patterns.
Spotify also does a good job of what users want from their UI, with a recent redesign (first in a decade) bringing Instagram and TikTok-like scrolling interfaces to their mobile apps. Add video clips and audio previews of your songs.
Spotify Plans: Is It Free?
Spotify has a free, ad-based version that gives you full access to your current library, but you’ll have to wait for an ad break. , in addition to cool features like song downloads and unlimited skips, you can also subscribe to Spotify Premium if you want to get rid of the ads.
Spotify plans start at $10/month for individual users and $13/month for two people living in the same house. This is useful for couples, roommates, or friends who share a subscription plan while maintaining separate profiles.
For $16 a month, a family can get six accounts, as long as everyone stays in the same house. The biggest advantage of using the family plan is access to Spotify Kids, which blocks explicit music and offers age-appropriate and entertaining content for children.
Finally, there is the student plan for $5/month. It offers Hulu (ad-supported) and Showtime subscriptions in addition to the usual ad-free listening, download options, and unlimited skips.
How does Spotify download work?
If you “download” songs on Spotify with a premium subscription, you can listen to them offline, but you cannot export them to other devices. So you can’t just buy a month’s subscription, download all the songs, and delete the app. Even if you’re listening offline, you’ll still need to use an app or web player to access the content. Downloaded songs are stored on your device, so make sure you actually have free space before getting a subscription for offline listening.
Spotify streaming quality
Spotify lets you choose the quality of your streaming, so if your connection is weak, you can choose to burn more data with high-quality music or switch to lower quality. Spotify Free gets 128Kbps AAC in the web player, while Premium boosts this to 256Kbps.
Desktop, mobile, and tablet streaming starts at 24Kbps on low mode and goes up to 160Kbps when set to high. Premium also starts at 24Kbps in low mode. However, when set to Very High, it goes up to 320Kbps and gives much better sound quality. The big question many people might have is whether this level of quality is appropriate. It really depends on you. CD-quality sound is equivalent to 1,411Kbps, but most people can’t tell or care about the difference. Hi-Res audio, such as tracks available on services like Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon Music, Deezer, and Qoboz, often labeled as “better than CD” quality, sounds significantly better. . If the purest, most detailed sound you can get is what matters most to you, we recommend looking elsewhere.
Podcast quality is standard at 96Kbps on most devices, with the exception of web players, which are boosted to 128Kbps. Low mode can go down to 24Kbps to save data.
Spotify rap
One of the most popular and highly anticipated features for Spotify users is the Spotify Wrapped Roundup at the end of each year. Here’s a colorful analysis of the songs you listened to that year, worth sharing on social media. See your most played songs, favorite artists, and most listened to genres. People around the world share their rankings on social media and it goes viral each December.
Spotify also creates playlists with this year’s top songs, so you can listen to your favorite tracks on repeat. In addition to your own data, you can also see who listened the most collectively and stream the top tracks of the year. However, if you can’t wait until the end of the year, you can always use sites like Stats for Spotify to zero your habits all year long.
Alternative to Spotify
Spotify is the best music streaming service right now, but if you don’t like Spotify, you have quite a few options.
apple music
Spotify’s biggest rival, Apple Music, offers the same huge library of content and podcasts that Spotify does, but its podcasts are simply accessed through another Apple app called Podcasts. Its individual plan is $1 more than Spotify, $11 per month, and has no free tier at all, but as mentioned, it’s very different from Spotify. Immersive music in Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio formats. Apple Music recently added some exciting new features for those who make the choice, including a new “Sing” feature that lets you and your friends turn Apple Music into a karaoke machine. Music fans have the new Apple Music Classical app with the world’s largest catalog of classical music.
amazon music
If you are an Amazon Prime member, please take a look
Free with Amazon Prime
, with nearly 100 million songs and a wide range of podcasts. The service has a free, ad-supported tier, an ad-free tier if you already have an Amazon Prime membership, and several options for a high-res lossless tier called Music Unlimited. It also starts at $11 a month ($5 a month on top of a Prime membership). Apps are available for Android, iOS, and desktop.
YouTube music
YouTube Music is another great option for YouTube fans. The service has a free ad-based tier and you can subscribe to YouTube Music Premium for $10/month ($100/year). This will remove them and allow you to continue streaming music while your device’s screen is locked (which you cannot do). when playing music in the regular YouTube app). YouTube Music has a formidable library of songs, joins its rivals with 100 million songs, and just recently started adding podcasts to its roster. One caveat to note is the issue of sound quality. Currently, YouTube Music is only 256Kbps, which is lower than Spotify’s highest bitrate.
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