Your app is terrible, sort it out, seriously

[edesignuk]

As much as I love Spotify on the Desktop, and I like having it in my pocket, the mobile app is really kind of terrible.

I can't sort and play by artist or album, I can't queue, I can't really do anything other than play a playlist. It doesn't release memory/storage either. If you remove songs from being available offline, you don't get your disk space back.

There hasn't been a significant update in a veeeery long time.

What are you doing to rectify this? I've been a paying subscriber for years now, I don't think it's asking much for you to give the mobile app the attention it deserves.

[tjb]

If it makes you feel any better, supposedly the Android version is even worse.

I agree though, the app is way behind their competitors in most aspects.  Hopefully the increased competition will force them to make some improvements.

[overfloater]

Not even "supposedly". Pretty much provably. 😉

Both apps do need updates and both have some glitches, "features", and mild-to-serious bugs that need fixing.

Rumblings are that a complete overhaul of the Android app is in the works, and we also know they're working on some of the more serious bugs with the iOS client, which is good news on both counts. You're right that neither interface is as user-friendly as it could be, though.

On the other hand, I haven't found a competitor that can match Spotify's catalog -- at least not in the music circles I tend to move in -- so, as it stands, the others are non-starters for me. Hopefully Spotify doesn't get too complacent about their catalog though; the apps are the primary selling point for Premium subs, so they need to be up to snuff.

[edesignuk]

Just sent them my feedback through a contact us form too.

"Why is your mobile app so terrible? (iOS)

Can't sort/play by album or artists.
Can't search while off-line cached tracks.
Can't queue.
App doesn't release memory/storage.

I have supported the idea of Spotify by being a paying subscriber for many years now.

It can't possibly have escaped your notice that mobile is where "it" is at, so I find it incredibly hard to understand why it is that you don't seem to pay any attention to the quality and feature set of your mobile app.

These features cannot be that much of a challenge to implement, there's nothing ground breaking required."

Sadly, from looking around these forums and from your responses above, it seems Spotify are more than happy to completey and utterly ignore their customers for years on end.

I agree that their catalogue is good, which is just as well, it's the only thing that keeps me using it.

I don't know for how much longer I'm willing to put up with such a shoddy mobile app though.

Yet they apparently have the time and resources to do useless nonsense like this: http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/30/2913375/spotify-facebook-timeline-music-history

FOCUS PEOPLE, FOCUS!

[overfloater]

To be fair, I doubt it's their mobile dev teams making all the social media updates. 😉

[edesignuk]

I hear you.

Never the less, it's all company money, resources, and time.

A decent mobile app would be far better appreciated by their PAYING customers than useless Facebook timelines.

[David]

Hello.

Can't sort/play by album or artists.

While you cannot sort by album / artist on a mobile application, you can still organise the tracks within a playlist. Enter into a playlist, and press the pencil button on the top right corner. Then, the tracks will change slightly. Hold over the three bars on the right of a track, and you can then change the order.

The search function in the iOS version of Spotify is pretty powerful for locating albums, however.

App doesn't release memory/storage.

A cache clearing feature is something that has come up on this community before. Two of the iOS team have posted in one major thread here saying that this is indeed something that is being looked into. Bare in mind that even if this functionality was built into a future version of Spotify, it will need to be compiled correctly, sent to Apple for certification (where it runs of the risk of being rejected) and then finally, released. This is not a quick process.

May I also take this oppitunity to remind you of the community guidelines. Double / Triple posting will be deleted. I have condensed your posts into one. 

[edesignuk]

"While you cannot sort by album / artist on a mobile application, you can still organise the tracks within a playlist. Enter into a playlist, and press the pencil button on the top right corner. Then, the tracks will change slightly. Hold over the three bars on the right of a track, and you can then change the order."

It's still utterly ridicleous that I cannot do something as simple as sort by artist or album. I don't want or need playlists for everything.

The search function doesn't seem to work at all in offline mode, which shockingly enough is where a mobile app spends most of its time.

"A cache clearing feature is something that has come up on this community before. Two of the iOS team have posted in one major thread here saying that this is indeed something that is being looked into. Bare in mind that even if this functionality was built into a future version of Spotify, it will need to be compiled correctly, sent to Apple for certification (where it runs of the risk of being rejected) and then finally, released. This is not a quick process."

I'm not buying it. You seem to have been looking in to it forever. You seem to be keen to blame Apple too. It's your app, fix it.

[tjb]

I appreciate that Spotify wants to do things correctly, which takes time. I just wish they were more communicative about which things are priorities being worked on, which things will never happen, vague timelines, etc. For example, gapless playback. The implementation is light years ahead of the weak excuse for gapless that the other streaming companies have. That's worth waiting for. But at the same time, it was one of the most requested features for something like 3 years, with basically no communication that it was even being worked on. Then one day it just appeared.

The cache issue w/ the IOS app is a pretty big deal. Will we have to wait 3 years for that? Probably not, but who knows.

[David]

---

@edesignuk wrote:

"While you cannot sort by album / artist on a mobile application, you can still organise the tracks within a playlist. Enter into a playlist, and press the pencil button on the top right corner. Then, the tracks will change slightly. Hold over the three bars on the right of a track, and you can then change the order."

It's still utterly ridicleous that I cannot do something as simple as sort by artist or album. I don't want or need playlists for everything.

The search function doesn't seem to work at all in offline mode, which shockingly enough is where a mobile app spends most of its time.

---

That last statement is a little confusing. In order to search for tracks / artists / albums that you don't have synced, you'll need to be online - the app will need to contact our servers in order to pull results.

However, you should be to search tracks you have synced offline using the search function. I synced a track offline, then set Spotify to offline mode. In the search section, I looked for the track and it appeared. What version of Spotify are you using on your phone?

[edesignuk]

You're right. I just tried search again in off-line mode, and it is working - didn't work the last several times I tried t use it, but hey, it is working now.

So all that remains is to add a few more basic features and you'll have a passable application for your paying customers!

[hossam]

Hear hear!

I've tried to competitions apps and they are far superior. I do not use the desktop app, since I do not own a desktop/laptop.

Please understand there is a good chunk of us who use the mobile client exclusively and find the interface difficult to manage, regardless of familiarity.

Accessing the crowd sourced information like top charts, recommends, and my playback history are difficult to traverse. Perhaps an overhaul of the 'What's New' section, into something a bit more comprehensive and more granular in listing the charts?

Then theres the now playing function...I wish the volume was at the bottom always there, and you have to tap to get to the track seek bar, not the other way around as it is now. Apple iPod interface works fine as it is, no need to be creative.

Also, the color scheme. I am outside in the sunlight, i need high contrast colors like white or light blue to see whats going on through all the glare. Any chance of providing an alternate theme to the app?

Oh and gapless playback. But I think that's in development. It's eagerly anticipated.

[smikel]

I have 3,300 Local Files songs in one huge playlist (like 300 albums) in my iPad.

Per your suggestion I would have to create 300 playlists in order to listen to any album I want. On top of that, what if I want to listen to all songs by an artist? I would have to creato another +300 playlists one for each artist.

Spotify is great. But mobile apps lack basic functionality. Not being able to listen to exactly what I want is a huge problem that might make me try a different product, if a solution is not provided soon.

[michaer]

I agree with all these points and would add that sometimes it makes you relogin which makes the app unusable when you dont have internet.  A competitors app will let you use the app without logging in for 30 days after your last successful login.

i'm definitely canceling my subscription for one of the competitors that have a better mobile experience. I have no idea how this isn't a priority for spotify as a company. The only reason I pay for a subscription is to use the mobile app and the mobile app is terrible. 

[Knash14]

It's simply rubbish that you cannot sort iPhone app playlists by artist, album or song. Spotify please sort this out. It should be an easy fix and would make your customers much more satisfied! If it doesn't change soon I will have to consider changing to a competitor!

[terraslate]

I concur with all of the original authors thoughts. I'm on android.

the inability to sort my playlists by name alphabetically will very shortly after nearly a yea rof subscribing make me stop paying. It absolutely drives me crazy! I spend countless hours of my life waering out my finger looking for the playlist which could be anywhere! What the hell are your business people thinking????????????????????? It defies belief!

As for scroll down the list of playlists, click into a playlist and then press the back button only to find yourself now back at the top of my huge list the playlists - well that absolutely sucks! 

you've got 2 months and then i'm taking my £10 (WHICH SUCKS AGAIN!!!) you charge americans a lot less!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Sick of this blatant ripping off of me.  Sort it out!

[edesignuk]

Nice to see it's not just me that remains bitterly dissapointed by the continued lack of basic functionaility in a paid for monthy app.

I've just been able to try Spotify on Android (Nexus 7, Jellybean), it is infinitely better than the iOS offering. It does almost everything we are complaining about not having. You can queue, browse by artist, album. Basic stuff, but very necessary, and sorely STILL missing on iOS.

COME ON. Spotify is huge now, we pay you for this. Give us a good app, one which we know you can produce, because you've already done it. Just not for our enormously successful mobile OS choice. It just baffles me. This can't be that big of a task. Bump up the priority on this!

[Mumford]

Really. The one thing keeping people here is the music selection. I'd love to just put the files I pick into iTunes. Their app is a perfect model. I almost exclusively listen to my music by artist or album, so its frustrating to have to scroll to look for an artist, and have to rearrange everything when I add more music. Also, the offline search feature doesn't work and even if it did, I don't want to type every single time I'm looking for a different artist, especially when I'm in the car. Just an  alphabetical list of locally synced artists would be fantastic.

[JakeRingo]

how difficult would it be for you guys to get a better sorting system for just looking through the artists that you have collectively on all your playlists? i use mostly my starred playlist and i can't stand just scrolling through those 2000 songs aimlessly, i like to see my arists, not songs! most people agree with me!!!!!

[Oliviermystery]

This is for the old version of spotify