Hands on: Spotify for Windows Phone 7.5

By Tom Warren, on 7th Nov 11 4:31 pm with 27 Comments

Microsoft announced on Monday the availability of Spotify for Windows Phone, we go hands on for a brief overview of its features.

Spotify for Windows Phone 7.5 features all the aspects of the streaming music service that you’d expect to see. The application is smooth and easy to use and allow users to access their playlists, feeds and search for new music. Playlists are available offline for use where a network isn’t available.

Check out our hands on below.

  • Leo

    Which device are you holding? Samsung Focus Flash?

    • Anonymous

      It said JILLSANDER on the top of the device, so it’s the LG Fail device.

    • Gucht

      LG Jil Sander

  • http://twitter.com/Shadow_024 Shadow 024

    luls, Jill Sanders phone.  Was that a demo unit or your own?

  • Janik Frenzel

    Can’t find it in the (German) marketplace yet.

    • Vectovox

      Nor the Swedish. Hopefully we in Europe will see it before (our) tomorrow. :)

    • http://twitter.com/efjay01 Ef Jay

      Be prepared for it to be US only, you know how Microsoft rolls… :)

    • Emi Cyberschreiber

      yeah because Spotify is from Microsoft :) …

      oh wait… no, its not. that depends on spotify developers.

      PS. from last winrumors post…..”Spotify is available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, France, Spain, United States and in the UK.”

    • AlokC

      I am not sure if people are being funny / sarcastic here, and to what degree, Spotify is an European streaming music service provider, pretty well established and accepted, and is just stepping into USA.  I signed up with their “limited free” membership a couple of months back, but haven’t really used it much.

      Spotify supposedly has one of the largest music collections available for streaming.  By the way, Microsoft does NOT own / operate it, or is not even a shareholder (the last I knew).  It’s a tie-up between two independent companies.

    • http://twitter.com/efjay01 Ef Jay

      You missed the point. A lot of applications are inexplicably restricted to the US regardless of whether the service is available in other countries. Thats really the point, and its just an observation on how WP7 seems to be working for some people. I’m all for everything being available to everyone, lets see how this particular app turns out.

    • Leo

      What about Rdio? There is an app for it on the Marketplace?

    • the-hq

      You won’t be able to use it in Germany anyways….

  • http://www.facebook.com/MRWisbey Morgan Wisbey

    How is this compared to Zune Pass? On the surface it seems redundant. Is it for people who don’t wish to pay for Zune Pass?

    • Entegy

      Spotify is available in more countries than Zune Pass.

      Ironically, I live in a country with Zune Pass, but no Spotify.

  • Anonymous

    Why would I pay $10/month for Spotify instead of the same for Zune Pass?

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=11814278 Chris Woelfel

      Country…

  • Leo

    Thanks. Actually found it very pretty. But I don’t know if it’ll come to my country.

  • Candid Calum

    For those asking why they should go for Spotify over a Zune Pass, the deciding factor for me was the fact Spotify were one of the many launch partners for Facebook Music, and Microsoft have allowed Zune to get behind. Social networking integration is highly important to me, and I’d desired something like Facebook Music years before it was released, so Microsoft have lost another Zune user here :(
     
    They can still win me back. Zune provides a much better user experience to Spotify, and Spotify doesn’t even have Metallica or Oasis in its catalogue :s But Microsoft must get better at keeping up-to-date with the latest social network service changes. The Windows Phone integration is already out of date in many ways, and Mango was only released around a month ago (e.g. The Me hub doesn’t allow one to post a status update that is over 500 characters, even though Facebook have now upped the limit to 5000 characters; that’s just one of the minor examples of how it is out of date).

    • Anonymous

      Your complaint about WP7.5 being ‘out of date’ on Facebook message limit is unfair. I would imagine all mobile OSes being out of date until their next update. But you specifically pick on WP7.

    • Candid Calum

      It isn’t unfair at all. Microsoft shouldn’t be doing exactly what the other phone operating system developers are doing; they should be innovating like they already have with certain features of Windows Phone. Microsoft should realise how often new features are added to Facebook, and they should therefore decide on the best way to deal with this issue. Releasing a phone operating system with social networking features that are already out of date (and that doesn’t include some of the newer social networking features) is a problem, and that problem needs addressing. It’s understandable that they haven’t been able to do anything about it by this point in time (a month after 7.5 was released), but the reason I mentioned it is because it’s most likely they won’t add support for some of these features until the next Windows Phone update (it’s possible we won’t even see support for a lot of these new features until Windows Phone 8). I wouldn’t have mentioned it if Microsoft had already indicated that they plan to release a sooner update that includes a lot of these social networking features; as they haven’t announced that, it is important to mention it, in case they haven’t thought of this yet. I believe Microsoft should schedule social networking integration improvements on a much more frequent release cycle, so we’re not using an outdated phone for long. It would be dreadful if we have to wait until Windows Phone 8 to see our Subscriptions in the People hub, or to be able to make use of an audience selector when updating our status or checking in.As I mentioned, it doesn’t matter whether the other platforms have been updated to support the new features or not because Microsoft should innovate; however, I should point out that your point about the other operating systems is actually incorrect anyway, as they don’t have Facebook integration baked in. All they have is official Facebook applications, and the iPhone and Android apps have both been updated recently to include support for some of these new features. The Facebook for Windows Phone app hasn’t even been updated to support any of these new features.I’m aware that Facebook haven’t yet released APIs for some of the new features, but Microsoft should ensure they are on the ball as soon as each new API is released. Not only that, but this is Microsoft—they’ve partnered with Facebook on a few different ventures, so it’s likely there’s a way they can both come to an agreement to work together to include support for new features soon after their release.Talking about how out of date Windows Phone is is a little bit off-topic, but I mentioned that issue because it added to my comment about how Microsoft missed the ball with Facebook Music. There is absolutely no decent excuse or reason I can think of for them not being an initial partner of Facebook Music (considering the number and names of services that were). Even if they are rebranding Zune, they could have at least added this one much-sought-after feature in a minor update to please us loyal Zune users.

    • Anonymous

      I agree it would be more interesting if Microsoft did more fine-grained updates like social networking, maps, bug fixes. But it seems consumers are used to the 1 small update & 1 large update per year.

    • Anonymous

      now I see why you need 5000 characters. Did you have to write a thesis to say this?  General rule is if you write post with 5000 characters, most people won’t bother to read it. They may skim through it or just ignore it.

  • http://twitter.com/pierrerv Pierre Venescar

    I don’t see it in the US marketplace. HTC HD 7 TMO

  • http://twitter.com/EduardoMLD EduardoMLD

    I don’t see the App on the Marketplace and I live in the USA.

  • http://twitter.com/EduardoMLD EduardoMLD

    awesome

  • http://twitter.com/SimonKarlskov Simon Karlskov

    Just installed it on my Radar from the danish marked.. works and looks great!! And as a bonus the WP7 app can handle playlist folders.. The iOS app cant..! :D

    Finally I’ve got everything i previously had on my iPhone.

    Oh and again I choose Spotify over Zune because Zune is not available in Denmark and even if it was I wouldn’t want to recreate all my playlists from scratch :)

  • Lonicoffie