Spotify Slow on iOS ( Video )

[SobiborTrelinka]

Spotify has been super slow since the not well planned release that Spotify (at least) apologized for on their app update.

Ever since this then it has not been as bad as that release (sometime in April, I believe release 1.0.x), but has still been unbearably slow.

Some issues:

Switching songs takes 2-3 seconds to load
Pausing, moving to different playlists, pressing "X" on album artwork page, are all noticeably delayed.

And the worst one yet
Going out of the app while songs still playing coming back in, take 5-10 seconds to load

There are hardly any UI transitions that do not have have significant delays

I'm attaching here a YouTube with a demo that explain all my frustrations, so you can see it for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6azSWVVAdLE

Running this demo on my iPod with

iOS 6.1.6
Spotify version 1.2.0.3344 (Most recent update for iOS|

Please fix this, it's not fair to have an app working like this for customers who pay money and expect it to work correctly.
If there were a better music service out there right now, I'd probably switch to it.

[Peter__]

It's an unpopular thing to say, but is it possible to upgrade to iOS 7?

[SobiborTrelinka]

No, that's not possible with iPod touch 4th generation without jail-breaking.

[JonHynes]

Peter iOS 7 has all of these same problems, even if slightly quicker.

[Rodrigo]

This problem is from the iPod itself. The iPod Touch 4G is a pretty old device, so its normal if it has a slower performance than newer ones. I have an iPod Touch 4G too and I run into these delays when using every app. It's even worse when you're used to a smoother device, like an iPhone 5 or flagship Android phones.

The iPod Touch 4 still has the Apple A4 chip to run its stuff, which is not a powerful one by today's standards. Also, it has half the amount of RAM (This is the memory where apps run on your device) from the newer iOS devices, like the iPhone 4S. The less RAM a device has, the slower it tends to be when running certain apps.

All iPods have 2 types of storage. The "user storage", where your apps, music and videos live. Its size is defined by the model you chose when purchasing your iPod (8, 16, 32 or 64GB).

There's also the RAM Storage. The RAM storage is where the system (iOS) loads itself and runs its apps. It's faster than the "user storage" exactly because it runs your apps; the data the processor (the A4 chip) uses to launch your apps, play your music, etc lives here. All iPods have the same amount of RAM storage.

The RAM memory is used by everything; all your running apps are using it. Every single button, piece of text, image the system needs is loaded there. The problem is when you run out of RAM. And this scenario gets easier to happen the older a device is, due to apps getting more and more complex everyday and requiring more resources.

Spotify, like all Music apps, needs RAM memory, also, to store the songs you're listening to. When you hit the play button on a playlist, its songs are downloaded from the internet or loaded from the iPod itself (if you made the playlist available offline) and saved on the RAM memory. Then, your iPod processes this data and sends the audio to your headphones. When your iPod runs out of RAM, it needs to store data on the slower "user storage". The result of this are the delays you see when using your device.

Unfortunately, the RAM on mobile devices is embedded on the core of the device itself. There's no way to expand it, give your iPod more to use.

The difference between running multiple apps on an iPod Touch 4 and an iPhone 4 is pretty big, because the later has double the amount of RAM storage of the first one. 

The difference between the iPod Touch 4 and the 5 is even bigger because the 5 features the exact same internals (without the RAM cut) from the iPhone 4S, which is up to 7X faster than the previous generation depending on the situation.

Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about it other than closing everything running on the background using the app switcher before opening a different app. I know how it's frustrating because I own an iPod Touch 4 too and it's sad to see it's considered obsolete nowadays...

[SobiborTrelinka]

Thanks Rodluzipant.

I would be inclined to accept this as a reasonable explanation for Spotify's poor performance except that the attached description and video, all of the problems described in the original post were introduced AFTER Spotify's April update.

Software updates don't go from better to worse, they go from worse to better.

It's unfortunate Spotify has evolved into this, if this is really the best availible answer, I think I'll try to actively look for another music service.

[Rodrigo]

Yes, it probably has to do with the update. My devices also took a performance hit from the update, but out of all of them, the iPod is the worse. Even my friend with an iPhone 5S said the app got slower, indeed.

[JJFabbsy]

How could this issue not have come up in testing? Whoever was responsible for testing this new and "improved" design has a lot to answer for. If these issues regarding fundamental features and performance of the app (such as album art in local files, and the unacceptable slowdowns) were discovered in testing, why release a half-hearted new design to a paid userbase? Particularly in a streaming music environment that is about to be turned on it's head by the new Apple/Beats venture. If it wasn't discovered in testing, what the hell were the testers testing for? Here's what I believe the extent of the testing was for this new design Step 1: Click on Spotify app icon Step 2: Does app load and show a new black UI? If yes, testing complete END OF TEST Spotify needs to lift it's game - fix the embarassing issues with this new design - and do it fast It's appalling how long we need to wait between updates, I've had apps by single person developers release updates in half the time this app is taking! If it's an App Store issue - then find another way to get updates and fixes to your PAID users sooner.... LIFT...YOUR....GAME....SPOTIFY.....and LISTEN and RESPOND to your users..... Relying on active members of a forum community to cover your behinds is amateur hour

[fernrodolfo]

Rodluizpan's explanation seems perfectly reasonable for an iPod, but I have to back other responses in this thread stating that:

-The issue started this year and improved after the apology patch for that first try, but it is still annoying to wait for the app to react to any command.

-It happens also on iPhone 4 (my device) and iPhone 4S (my son's device), and neither of us want to upgrade to iOS 7 because experience has taught us that upgrading to a new iOS version always blows everything up, besides, every other app in our phones is working perfectly fine, and that's why we don`t feel the need to upgrade, I would rather to churn and hire another music service with a better (or at least well tested application) before having to upgrade OS only because of Spotify, also, as I could tell from one of the posts, upgrading is not necessarily the solution.

If you can't find a solution to this problem, at least give us a chance to install the version that worked perfectly  for some of us back at the beginning of this year.

[PhilR90]

Hi,

I have the same problem on my IPod 4th generation (Version 6.1.6).

Is there at last a solution for this problem?

The app is quite unusable if I have to wait several seconds when switching a song or even more than 15 seconds rigtht after the app was working in background. Curiously songs are switching instantly by pressing the home button twice and then 'next' (when the IPods display was off)! So why not directly in the app?

If there is no solution I think I will no longer pay any money for Spotify.

Thanks

[jeremygoh]

I would say that i do indeed see a slowdown on the app performance after the redesign on the mobile device and I believe those devices on iPhone 4/4S are affected pretty badly.