Spotify for Roku

[turnerjazz]

I've been using spotify free for a while now and have been pretty happy with it. But I recently got a roku (and ditched cable) and decided to give premium a try. My only hesitation in keeping premium is that the roku app, frankly, sucks. It doesn't have radio, you can't create new playlists (you can add songs to current playlists) and I don't think you can see anyone you are following.

Can anybody assure me that spotify is still working on the roku app and that it will improve? If so I'll shell out the money to keep premium. If not I might just stick to pandora on my roku and spotify free on my pc.

[Peter__]

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@turnerjazz wrote:

I've been using spotify free for a while now and have been pretty happy with it. But I recently got a roku (and ditched cable) and decided to give premium a try. My only hesitation in keeping premium is that the roku app, frankly, sucks. It doesn't have radio, you can't create new playlists (you can add songs to current playlists) and I don't think you can see anyone you are following.

Can anybody assure me that spotify is still working on the roku app and that it will improve? If so I'll shell out the money to keep premium. If not I might just stick to pandora on my roku and spotify free on my pc.

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Hey! Welcome to the community 🙂 

Spotify don't actually make the apps for partner devices such as Roku (normally, there are some exceptions I am sure!), they are made by the partner company and Spotify provide access to the service through libspotify and the Spotify API. Roku are the best ones to ask 😉 

Peter

[turnerjazz]

Thanks for the response. I'll try to get in touch with Roku.

[Peter__]

There will be some issues which are Spotify related, since the libspotify component they supply does not support the radio or social features, but hopefully they will be made available in a future version. Its a bit of a split issue, there is nothing to stop the roku app managing playlists properly in my eyes though!

Peter

[MusicBitByBit]

That is funny because on the Roku app page the developer is listed as Spotify... See the page.

https://channelstore.roku.com/details/19977/spotify

[MusicBitByBit]

Either way, as a developer of video streaming frameworks, if it is as it seems to indicate Spotify, or if it is Roku who executes the apps, I can say whole heartedly get a better development team. Because unless they are running into device hardware limitations, which I do not see how considering how well the Netflix app runs, or got paid spare change to do the app, someone got bamboozled into paying for that app.

Seriously the interface is clunky at best, and the search is idiotic. I search for artists all the time that it can not find, whereas both the app for Mac and Windows find the artists fine so it is not for lack of data. I imaging the underlying API calls are the same, so seriously was the devopment team on Pandora's payroll or are they a Nephew of the owner? The only good thing about the app is it reliably streams sound.

Sorry, I don't mean to sound harsh, but I deal with this stuff everyday, there is not a real excuse other than someone did not care enough about putting up a good product. I want to use this app for music rather than connecting other **bleep** up, but it only hurts Spotify to not either follow up and get this done right, or do it themselves.

[turnerjazz]

I read more on this after complaining earlier. Roku provides a bare app framework that people can easily adapt for little to no cost. That's what Spotify has chosen to do, to simply adapt the default Roku app and put no resources into it. I agree that this is a cheap way out and Roku confirmed, when I complained to them about this, that app developers are welcome to create their own apps for Roku like netflix has. So spotify just doens't think Roku users are valuable enough to put any effort into this. That's the bottom line. 

[cindiann]

MusicBitByBit said: "The only good thing about the app is it reliably streams sound."

It quits on me after three or four songs. Restarting the channel helps about 80% of the time.