Pros & Cons
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- Cool collaborative playlists and Group Session options
- Optional desktop app that lets you play locally stored audio files
- Premium accounts let you hear select albums before they're released
- Podcasts
- Free version
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- Lacks high-resolution audio
- No lyrics in web or desktop apps
- Not much video
Spotify (for iPhone) Specs
| Free Version Available | |
| Free: | Yes |
| Non-Music Content | |
| OS Compatibility: | Mac OS |
| OS Compatibility: | Windows 7 |
| OS Compatibility: | Windows Vista |
| OS Compatibility: | Windows XP |
| Product Category | Music |
| Product Category | Services & Players |
| Product Category | Software |
| Product Price Type | Direct |
| Song Lyrics | |
| Type: | Personal |
The highly competitive streaming music space gains and loses services every few years, but one thing remains the same: Spotify is one of the best music services around. Despite serious competition from other music services—including the audiophile-friendly Tidal and the DJ-centric LiveXLive Powered by Slacker Radio—Spotify is still a top player in this crowded category due to its large catalog, collaborative playlists, podcasts, and other attractive features.
Part of Spotify's success is its ubiquity. You can access Spotify by launching the web player, by downloading the desktop apps (available for Chromebook, Linux, Mac, and Windows), or by installing one of the mobile apps (available for Android, iOS, and Windows Mobile). You can also find Spotify on TVs, set-top boxes, smartwatches, and home video game consoles.
The desktop apps have an advantage over the web player and mobile apps in that you can use the former to play M4P, MP3, and MP4 audio files that are stored in your computer. This is a particularly cool feature for people who want to play all of their music streams and audio files from one central location. Unfortunately, the desktop app isn't compatible with M4A files.
The Android app and iOS app, however, share an extra benefit. On mobile, Spotify has partnered with Genius, one of the web's most-popular lyrics sites, to offer Behind The Lyrics. This feature displays key lyrics (but not full lyrics!) as they're sung or rapped. There are no lyrics in the web or desktop apps. In addition, Behind The Lyrics delivers behind-the-scenes information, such as song facts or inspirations. It's a cool addition that very much reminds me of VH-1's classic Pop-Up Video show.
Price Structure
You can dive into Spotify using one of the two listening plans: Spotify Free or Spotify Premium. The free version serves audio and banner ads as you listen at 160Kbps, manage your digital music files, and connect with others using the built-in social networking features.
The $9.99-per-month Spotify Premium lets you hear select albums before they're released, play songs on demand, and cache songs for offline playback on your computer, phone, or other devices. It also increases audio quality to 320Kbps. Feature- and quality-wise, Premium is worth the extra moolah. That said, Spotify doesn't let you record its audio as SiriusXM Internet Radio, the Editors' Choice for streaming services focused on live content, does.
Spotify's Family Plan grants six people individual premium accounts for an incredibly wallet-friendly $14.99 per month. This directly competes with Apple Music and Google Play's $14.99 per month family plans. Apple and Google's offerings also let six household members subscribe to the service for $14.99 per month. A student plan is available for $4.99 per month.
Deep Content Well
Spotify's library boasts more than 50 million songs, plus audiobooks, comedy, radio dramas, podcasts, poetry readings, and speeches. It's a rich collection, and I am pleasantly surprised that it includes Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech in its entirety. Spotify's non-music extras, such as The Joe Budden Podcast and select Hulu Originals episodes, act as a counter to LiveXLive by Slacker Radio DJs and music history channels, as well as Tidal's in-depth music editorials and exclusive videos. That said, Spotify doesn't have many music videos or concert videos. LiveXLive Powered By Slacker Radio is superior in that regard.
Clicking an artist's name pulls up additional songs by the artist, and an About tab that contains an artist's biography, photos, and hyperlinks to related Spotify pages. I killed quite a few minutes in testing leaping from Alicia Keys to Isaac Hayes to Booker T. and The M.G.'s and reading the in-depth bios and sampling tracks. However, LiveXLive Powered by Slacker Radio's DNA station does a better job of fleshing out artist profiles through the use of interviews and playing the music that influenced the artists' sound.
The Spotify Experience
Spotify's library won't let you down. I streamed the entirety of A Tribe Called Quest's We Got It From Here...Thank You 4 Your Service, Hannah Williams & The Affirmations' Late Nights & Heartbreak, and Led Zeppelin's Led Zeppelin II. Spotify has a good mix of major and indie artists, including Taylor Swift, who once had a notable falling out with Spotify over money that saw her remove her catalog from the service.
You can build playlists with any of the tracks or albums in Spotify's deep catalog. By default, Spotify streams tracks on your playlists with gapless playback. Spotify also gives you the option to crossfade songs, and even the ability to adjust the number of seconds (1-12) to fade. It's not something I use, but DJs (or wannabe DJs) might find it appealing. If you want to build a playlist with a friend, turn on the collaborative playlist option to let your playlist be edited by others.
Spotify's free 128Kbps and Premium 320Kbps streams sound good. If you listen to Spotify using a laptop or phone during work hours or the morning/evening commute, you'll find the sound quality satisfactory.
Still, if you want better audio quality, and have a good pair of headphones, you should look into Tidal's $19.99-per-month HiFi plan. With it, Tidal delivers non-compressed 1411Kbps FLAC audio that's of a much higher fidelity than your standard audio stream. Even better, HiFi includes Tidal Masters, a music collection that offers studio-quality, high-resolution audio streams. They sound terrific.
Besides listening to singles, albums, and playlists, you can create an Artist Radio station that plays music from your favorite musicians, as well as similar-sounding musicians. I like Harlem's Artist Radio, which served up tunes from Dum Dum Girls and other indie rock notables in testing. Oddly, I was able to skip more than a dozen tracks in the little time I spent with Spotify Free before I upgraded to Spotify Premium; typically, streaming music services like Live by Live Powered by Slacker Radio limit you to six skips. Not that I'm complaining. You can, of course, like and ban songs to customize the Artist Radio experience, as you can with most music-streaming services.
As previously stated, Spotify lacks LiveXLive Powered by Slacker Radio's informative DJs who host particular playlists and the music history-filled Slacker DNA stations. Instead, it has Spotify Sessions, original artist recordings made in Spotify Studios. I tolerated Kelly Clarkson's mediocre cover of Prince's "Kiss," but rather enjoyed John Legend's "All of Me."
If you're concerned about streaming your favorite tunes over, say, a public Wi-Fi signal, you need to get yourself a VPN. A virtual private network safeguards your phone, tablet, or PC from snoopers and, depending on the location of the VPN server, may let you access music licensed to other regions. Using a VPN to get around licensing restrictions violates Spotify's terms of service, though, so tread carefully.
An Excellent Streaming Music Service
Simply put, Spotify is an excellent streaming music service that wins PCMag Editors' Choice and Readers' Choice awards. It has tons of great music, exclusive tunes, and podcasts, all of which combine to make it a top pick for streaming music and more pop culture-related content. If you prefer musical deep dives and concert videos, check out LiveXLive Powered By Slacker Radio, which is also an Editors' Choice. If you fancy hi-res audio, the Editors' Choice award-winning Tidal is the way to go.
Best Streaming Music Service Picks
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Further Reading
Final Thoughts
Spotify (for iPad)
Spotify, available in both free and premium versions, remains a top-tier streaming music thanks to its deep library, collaborative playlists, early album access, and podcasts.