Device question for moderators

[Andrews32]

Since the moderators seem to have abandoned reading the threads here to respond, I thought I'd start my own.

Moderators, please answer the following question:

I have an arm7 device. That's the oldest arm device architecture you support. Do I have to live in fear every time Spotify forces a mandatory update on me that my device will no longer be supported? If not, please explain why that shouldn't be a concern considering Spotify's latest update.

[Andrews32]

While you're at it, want to tell us why the new app requires permission to see our the phone numbers of calls we place/receive? Or would that be too difficult, you know, to try to get into the brains of your developers? (See picture)

[Andrews32]

Has the entire support team taken another three-day weekend or something? You're facing the biggest customer issue the company has ever seen, with an acknowledged hack and a hasitly compiled app that froze out thousands, yet nobody is around to answer questions in the forums the last couple days? 

Just when I think my expectations for Spotify can't get any lower, we have a week like this. Can only imagine what the future will bring!

[Andrews32]

Spectacular. An entire day, and not a single member of Spotify support bothered to stop by these forums. 

Were you having an all-hands-on-deck meeting to find out answers to these urgent questions? Or, more likely, did you all get distracted by a shiny object in the office? Please just add this to the list of questions I'd like answered. 

[Peter__]

Generally, Spotify community is user-user support only, Spotify only step in some of the time (as mentioned in the pages when you register for the community).

For a guaranteed answer, you are best to tweet @SpotifyCares or email in:
https://www.spotify.com/about-us/contact/contact-spotify-support/

I already know what they will say though, will be something along the lines of "there will always be a time when we are forced to end support for older devices as technology moves forward".

[Joe]

eh, he knows that only too well @Peter__ but has, for some reason, appointed himself as the community pain in the arse. Valid posts are great but this constant spamming is disruptive. I haven't added anyone to my ignore list yet but @Andrews32 could be the first.

[Andrews32]

Yes, I'm well aware that I can receive canned PR answers from those sources. Other people have asked about those added permissions and I assure you, all they've heard back is that the team is "looking into it." Just think about that. They change the app permissions, and know that people will question it, but they don't prepare an answer to give out, just the typical runaround. 

Next, think of why there would even be new permissions. This was supposed to just be a hotfix to the BUG THEY PROGRAMMED TO ALLOW PEOPLE TO HACK OUR INFORMATION. How can you not question this?They also forced a mandatory update that blocked out a ton of users and refuse to answer for it.

How are my posts "disruptive"? Because I'm actually trying to get all the questions in one place and challenging Spotify to answer? I wish, instead of mindlessly cheerleading and sharing the same information repeatedly (linking to Spotify's sole announcement on the hack, which raises far more questions than it answers, doesn't help a soul, you realize that, right?), you'd all use your time to actually try and get Spotify to answer themselves. 

You realize if you didn't do the dirty work for them, they may actually have to pay people to support their customers, right? People that may actually be able to get answers to the burning questions we have? And that would help people a whole lot more than they're being helped now?

So, I apologize to all the users here who think I'm disruptive.

Sorry for trying to get Spotify to maybe give us a heads up when they're going to cut support for millions of devices (and maybe updating their list of supported devices to NOT include those ones, even a week later?)

Sorry for trying to get them to answer why they added in unnecessary permissions for a bug fix.

Sorry about trying to get them to explain why they forced us to redownload offline songs without deleting the old ones.

Sorry for going on and on about Chromecast support, which they refuse to talk about (for a year!!!!). 

I'm sure, without any intervention on my part, they'll answer all these questions for us in a timely and complete manner. 

[Andrews32]

Man, in the old days, the mods would've stopped by to say "We're working on it," or "We'll let the developers know," when I'd post things like this calling them out. Or they'd delete my posts.

It's incredible to me that they're just ignoring it now. They literally have nothing to say to this because they know how wrong they are. Again, I ask, are they evil or just incompetent? I go back and forth on that frequently. 

I've sent private messages to mods trying to get this cleared up. Still nothing. 

So I ask again, will you warn arm7 device users when you're gonna cut support or do the same thing with a mandatory, scare-mongering update you force on us? It's an utter embarrassment that you refuse to step up to the plate and answer questions about THE HACK THAT YOUR HACK DEVELOPERS ALLOWED. This isn't on us, this is on YOU, Spotify. 

This is the THIRD issue in less than a year that I've seen dozens of people quit because. Do you have ANY standards?

[Rorey]

Hello everyone,

In the spirit of keeping our community friendly, I thought I'd join this discussion in hopes of toning things down. 

As everyone in this thread seems to be aware, we became aware of some unauthorized access to our systems and launched an investigation. You can read more about this event here. 

Due to the extra safety steps we needed to take to ensure the security of our Android app users, we needed to perform an upgrade. This seems to have caused some issues for users on Android armv5 and armv6 devices. My understanding up to this point is that these versions may have been impacted prior to this update. However, in the spirit of giving as positive an experience as possible for armv5 and armv6, we took extra steps to ensure these users remained on a version of Spotify that supported these versions. Yet all that changed when circumstances forced us to perform an upgrade.

We're sorry for the less than ideal experience this causes for those of you on armv5 and armv6 devices. We'll be posting a more in depth update in the coming days to explain the issue further, as armv7 users should not be affected. We hope you'll understand why we needed to take these steps.

[Andrews32]

I daresay the best way to keep the community friendly is not removing support for millions of devices with a mandatory, scare-mongering update, but what do I know! My posts are a drop in the bucket compared to that move...

But hey, it only took a week and a dozen days after the hack was publicized to get even the slightest clarification on what happened. If Spotify is operating from a geosyncronous space station moving so fast they experience time different than us, great job. Otherwise, what the heck took so long?

Let me try to parse your reply (which does, in fact, contain words, but not necessarily clarification) in an effort to understand it a bit better:

"Due to the extra safety steps we needed to take to ensure the security of our Android app users, we needed to perform an upgrade. This seems to have caused some issues for users on Android armv5 and armv6 devices." 

Well, I'm glad Baghdad Bob appears to have found work! By "caused some issues," you do mean "unilaterally removed support for," correct?

"My understanding up to this point is that these versions may have been impacted prior to this update. However, in the spirit of giving as positive an experience as possible for armv5 and armv6, we took extra steps to ensure these users remained on a version of Spotify that supported these versions. Yet all that changed when circumstances forced us to perform an upgrade."

I don't get what you mean with that first sentence. They were impacted prior to this update? I see no evidence of people complaining prior to the forced upgrade, so this is unclear. Could you clarify what extra steps were taken to ensure support? I really don't understand what any of that means (your use of "versions" to describe platforms and software is also confusing, if that is indeed what you're doing). 

"We're sorry for the less than ideal experience this causes for those of you on armv5 and armv6 devices. We'll be posting a more in depth update in the coming days to explain the issue further, as armv7 users should not be affected. We hope you'll understand why we needed to take these steps."

Again, by less than ideal, you mean unilaterally removed support by forcing a mandatory upgrade, correct? I hope I'll understand why you needed to take these steps, too, some day. 

In addition to the above, here's the remaining questions I expect Spotify to answer with the update in "the coming days" (which, for the record, can be defined as any day before the sun explodes and destroys the universe, so well done on that wording):

• When did this hack occur? Was the single user who was hacked actually responsible for the hacking, or a victim? If that user is not responsible, have you identified who was? 
• How did this hack occur? Was it Heartbleed related? Did Spotify developers follow best practices, or was it their coding error that allowed it? Why should we feel safe now?
• Did the hack have anything to do with DRM/people figuring out how to convert Spotify music files to mp3s, or some similar scheme?
• Why did we have to redownload music? Why didn't the app replacement delete the old songs? Why are there problems with 4.4.2 users unable to save to SD, and when will that be fixed?
• Why didn't you warn arm5/6 users of the "less than ideal" situation you were forcing them into? Was the hack exploit specifically related to this type of hardware? If not, why was this mandatory update the time you deciced to pull support? Why not allow a legacy apk for people to use?
• Why hasn't the Spotify FAQ been updated yet to reflect the devices you don't support? How many weeks does that process take?
• Why did you add new app permissions (again, in a mandatory, scare-mongering, forced update), including the ability to read phone IDs? I expect a full explanation of all of the permissions added. 
• Will Spotify warn users of arm7 devices when they plan to cut off support, or will it happen randomly in a forced update?
• Have any steps been taken to improve Spotify communication between developers and customer support, which has been an ongoing issue since...well, the dawn of time?
• Do you ever plan to acknowledge that Chromecast support is being ignored because of Spotify Connect? (Just kidding, I know you guys will continue to ignore that no matter how many people quit in disgust/kudos the idea)

I think that about wraps it up. If you can manage to actually answer those questions, without using mealy mouthed PR babble about "less than ideal" circumstances, I'll be impressed. I will admit, my confidence this will actually be done is very low. 

I'm getting a strong MySpace vibe from Spotify of late. You zoomed to the top, but if you continue to treat customers in the manner you have, I assure you that they will turn on you. Do you want the image below to become a meme? Then do what's right and answer the questions above. 

[Andrews32]

For a little perspective, the entire Apollo 11 mission, from lifting off from Earth, exploring the moon, and splashing down on Earth took just more than 8 days. 

In that time, plus four more days, Spotify was able to give us one update on this situation, which might as well have been created using an automatic press release generator for all the detail it had. 

And they still couldn't update that darn website.

Just stellar work, everybody. 

[Andrews32]

Yeah, Spotify support, since a ton of people are still waiting, what's your refund policy going to be? No one on an ARM5/6 device will be charged for June, correct? That's the only remotely sensible thing to do, right? If Comcast arbitrarily decided to stop support certain TVs with a mandatory cablebox update, they'd refund people for that month. If even Comcast can outshine you on response time/service... https://consumersunion.org/news/comcast-and-time-warner-cable-score-low-on-latest-consumer-reports-c...

Not to mention, it's been weeks, and still no answers to so many questions on the hack/update (which should NOT need to wait for your slow developers to release an update to answer). Keep in mind, it was your development process (no communication to customer support/introduced the error that allowed the hack/released the update that nerfed support/caused tons of SD and data issues). So, we don't want to rush the geniuses there. But in the meantime, where are our answers (see all questions we expect answered in my previous posts in this thread).