May 31 according to the email I got this weekend. There is a button in the email for two free months of the new thing. Apparently, you need to overlap subscriptions if you want to migrate your playlists.

I'm going to make a playlist with one song each from the several hundred artists in my favorites and migrate that. Actually, it may take two or three playlists. I thing there's a 250 item limit per list.

So I clicked the sign-up button.

Good news: the Android app seems way better.

Bad news: the sign up functionality doesn't work right. The web client lacks basic functionality (and basically looks unfinished, probably because it is.) The customer service experience is a disaster . They don't even make the effort to participate in their user forum (which is basically a rant fest). And if I was to guess, the same old crew of inept and arrogant developers is still in residence.

And this is on their second try at launching.

Arrrrrgh!

Where is Healthcare.gov when you need it....

And now this:

 

Apple in talks for $3.2bn Beats deal

 

 

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e330e830-d6f3-11e3-b95e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz31ANwwJBJ

 

Real this time?

 

Given the lousy job Beats is doing with its launch, it might not even be a bad (worse) thing......

I like it!

 

 

I can't see a picture of Iovine without thinking he's a massive douche-nozzle.

 

 

News feed are saying this is about Beats streaming service, but I think Apple could really benefit from the active headphone platform. They'll prolly stick a bunch of sensors in the cans, but at least there won't be friggen thugs running the show.

 

 

Edit: I take that back, Al.  At least there won't be neanderthal thugs running the show...they'll be sophisticated thugs.

Edited May 9, 201412 yr by Tyll Hertsens

Thank you for the correction, Tyll.

Meanwhile, well thought out article at el Reg

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/13/apple_beats_and_fools_with_money/

I don't know if any of you pay for spotify premium and use windows, but if so,the Fidelify app, at http://fidelify.net/ recently updated and seems to allow you to use wasapi exclusive mode. Sounds much better to my ears and the GUI is decent and usable.

Or use the squeezebox client / plugin ...

Edited May 15, 201412 yr by Grahame

http://www.marcurselli.com/2014/03/03/the-truth-about-music-streaming-services-and-the-ultimate-audio-quality-shootout-test-beats-vs-mog-vs-play-music-by-google-vs-rdio-vs-spotify/

 

Does Beats stream CD quality music over wifi?  I thought the best streaming you can get was 320 mp3.  I just glanced at the results so maybe his test is flawed.  

http://www.marcurselli.com/2014/03/03/the-truth-about-music-streaming-services-and-the-ultimate-audio-quality-shootout-test-beats-vs-mog-vs-play-music-by-google-vs-rdio-vs-spotify/

Does Beats stream CD quality music over wifi? I thought the best streaming you can get was 320 mp3. I just glanced at the results so maybe his test is flawed.

Doesn't make sense to me. My understanding is the only streaming service that does lossless is Qobuz (not available in the US yet).

All others are 320 max. Though I have no complaints about the sound quality of my Play stream from Chromecast. Sounds good.

First, makes no mention if Spotify premium or not. It streams in higher quality. Secondly, this is a horrible test that assumes all the data sent is audio data and not cover art, advertisements, album listings, caching of the next track, etc.

Edited May 20, 201412 yr by manaox2

Inefficient protocols, Meta data to the NSA ....

http://www.marcurselli.com/2014/03/03/the-truth-about-music-streaming-services-and-the-ultimate-audio-quality-shootout-test-beats-vs-mog-vs-play-music-by-google-vs-rdio-vs-spotify/

 

Does Beats stream CD quality music over wifi?  I thought the best streaming you can get was 320 mp3.  I just glanced at the results so maybe his test is flawed.  

 

havent looked at the link, but its pretty common for non-audiophiles to describe anything higher than 128kbps mp3 as "CD quality"

They're blithering incompetents, but they only claim to do 320 Kbps MP3s. I doubt they would accidentally do higher quality.

In the settings for mobile, you can choose to do 320 only over WiFi or on any connection. Like Justin said, maybe somebody misinterpreted that to mean "CD quality"

Meanwhile, after two weeks, they did process the refund for incorrectly billing me. But they said my account, as viewed on their website, wouldn't reflect the refund, because, well, they're pretty screwed up.

That said, I haven't found anything wrong with the Android app yet. Mind, it doesn't do anything special either. I've yet to see any evidence of "just hit play" our any other life-changing inventions. It's basically just MOG on a better app.

Except that I nearly always used MOG on the web, and the web client is useless.

Edited May 20, 201412 yr by CarlSeibert

<rant>I just signed up for a 30 day trial of Spotify (not attached to my FB account) and so far I hate hate hate it.  (I was hoping that it would be reasonable since there is an app on Logitech Touch.)  The desktop app keeps trying to connect to all kinds of weird sites on weird ports like "Spotify wants to connect to 98.220.235.210 on TCP port 52655"  (according to Little Snitch).  In this case, it is just Comcast (either an ad or getting information from Spotify).  In either case, it is just annoying.   Also, I hate the layout of the desktop app (too much crap on it)!!!  </rant>

 

I guess I might end up using BeatOff after all. 

Interesting, I'll have to monitor it more carefully -- I didn't realize I had set it up such that I wasn't monitoring what ports it was using, I transitioned from the web app to the desktop app without a second thought...

That's because the spotify desktop app is peer-to-peer

 

http://blog.launch.co/blog/did-you-know-spotify-uses-peer-to-peer-networking.html

 

http://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Desktop-Linux-Mac-and/Spotify-P2P-uploading-and-cache/td-p/311368

 

http://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Desktop-Linux-Mac-and/Unadvertised-P2P-feature/td-p/398612

 

But that's changing ....

 

http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/17/spotify-removes-peer-to-peer-technology-from-its-desktop-client/

 

http://torrentfreak.com/spotify-starts-shutting-down-its-massive-p2p-network-140416/

Ah, that makes a lot more sense now - But I still don't like it. Perhaps I'll try out the web browser interface until they change. Does anyone know if the SB Touch app use PTP or server streaming, I'm guessing the latter.

I think the SB Touch App is non P2P as there is no/limited local storage. Spotify Premium is required.

Triode's Server Based  plugin is similar / Better , as it has more (menu) options, and allows you to stream spotify to older / software  based clients .. (not just touch and radio) (non p2p also as it uses the web api )

 

More Details here ...

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?96330-What-steps-do-I-take-to-download-and-install-Triode-s-Spotify-plug-in

Edited May 20, 201412 yr by Grahame

That's because the spotify desktop app is peer-to-peer

 

http://blog.launch.co/blog/did-you-know-spotify-uses-peer-to-peer-networking.html

 

http://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Desktop-Linux-Mac-and/Spotify-P2P-uploading-and-cache/td-p/311368

 

http://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Desktop-Linux-Mac-and/Unadvertised-P2P-feature/td-p/398612

 

But that's changing ....

 

http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/17/spotify-removes-peer-to-peer-technology-from-its-desktop-client/

 

http://torrentfreak.com/spotify-starts-shutting-down-its-massive-p2p-network-140416/

About time! I was always mystified as to why American consumers ever put up with that at all.

Does anyone know how to change the streaming qualify on the spotify web player?   According to this, the web player streaming default is ~160 kbps.  I would prefer to not use the desktop player until it is no longer PTP. 

 

Edit: This seems to imply that the highest quality streaming one can do with the web based player is 160 kbps.  Ugh, so frustrating. 

 

https://support.spotify.com/us/learn-more/faq/#!/article/What-bitrate-does-Spotify-use-for-streaming/?in=search

 

Why in the world would you allow higher quality streaming on ios and android devices than you do for the web based player???

Edited May 21, 201412 yr by shellylh

Edit->Preferences->Playback->High Quality Streaming.

 

And:  I have no idea, it's just retarded.  They (used to?) have a bug in which on Android tablets, you lost the Extreme Quality option depending on the orientation of the tablet. 
 

It's the main reason I have a premium subscription.

^I meant the web player, not the desktop player.  I am guessing there is no way to stream at 320kbps with the web player.    There is nothing you can change in the settings. 

I stream 320 on Spotify desktop.  It is only available to Premium members though.

 

I didn't even know there was a web player.

Edited May 21, 201412 yr by VPI

I don't want to use the Spotify desktop app because it uses PTP instead of streaming from the server- so I was trying out the web player.  I have a premium membership for now. 

Edited May 21, 201412 yr by shellylh