Spotify: Music and Podcasts

Category
Music

Description of App

Spotify is the best way to listen to music on mobile or tablet. Search for any track, artist or album and listen for free. Make and share playlists. Build your biggest, best ever music collection. Get inspired with personal recommendations, and readymade playlists for just about everything. Listen absolutely free with ads, or get Spotify Premium. Free on mobile • Play any artist, album, or playlist in shuffle mode. Free on tablet • Play any song, any time. Premium features • Play any song, any time on any device: mobile, tablet or computer. • Enjoy ad-free music. • Listen offline. • Get better sound quality. Please note: This app features Nielsen’s audience measurement software which will allow you to contribute to market research, such as Nielsen’s Audio Measurement. If you don't want to participate, you can opt-out within the app settings. To learn more about our digital audience measurement products and your choices in regard to them, please visit http://www.nielsen.com/digitalprivacy for more information. Privacy policy: http://www.spotify.com/legal/privacy-policy/ Terms of use: https://www.spotify.com/legal/end-user-agreement/ Love Spotify? Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/spotify Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/spotify

Version

5.7.3

Free or Paid

Free

Apple Watch Support

No

Device(s) App Was Tested On

iPhone

iOS Version

9.3.2

Accessibility Comments

Appears to be very accessible and the developers have made great stride in making this VoiceOver friendly.

VoiceOver Performance

VoiceOver reads all page elements.

Button Labeling

All buttons are clearly labeled.

Usability

The app is fully accessible with VoiceOver and is easy to navigate and use.

App Store Link

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/spotify/id324684580?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Developer's Website

http://www.spotify.com/us/start/?utm_source=spotify&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign…

Developer's Twitter Username

@Spotify

Recommendations

14 people have recommended this app

Most recently recommended by Victor Tsaran 4 months 2 weeks ago

Options

Comments

By David Goodwin on Tuesday, May 22, 2012 - 21:42

I've not used this app myself, but I thought that I had read elsewhere that there were some accessibility issues.

My recollection was that there were problems on the 'What's New' screen, the search facility had a number of unlabelled controls, and VoiceOver didn't give clear feedback on the status of some of the toggle switches on the Settings page.

Have these issues now all been resolved?

I just tried the current version (0.5.2), and deleted it within 5 minutes.

In that time I encountered most of the problems mentioned above, and saw nothing that made me think the app was close to usable with VoiceOver. Or at least, not if you want to use the app in a meaningful way.

By Larryw on Friday, June 22, 2012 - 21:42

I’ve been a Spotify premium subscriber since July 2011 when it launched in the United States. In that time the app has not changed at all in terms of accessibility. The person who posted the initial review of this app is not correct as Spotify for iPhone has significant issues. As said, the what’s new screen is not accessible at all. Some buttons within the app, such as those used to cause a playlist to be downloaded to your iPhone can not be accessed from Voice Over either. Not to mention that the Mac/PC apps are not accessible at all. So, why am I a paying subscriber and how am I using the app? First of all, with a little bit of assistance getting started, I was able to make the service work for me. The first step is to get an account, then download the desktop app. Next, get some help importing your iTunes library and playlists in to the app. Next, download and install the iPhone app and log in. Your playlists that were imported to the desktop app appear on your iPhone. Next, for additional playlists or to update those you already have I recommend www.sharemyplaylists.com as a great alternative. There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of playlists on the site that you can subscribe to. I strongly encourage you to do this via the iOS app because the Spotify app offers more accessibility here than on your computer. You can also look at music in your existing playlists and find more songs by these artists and further update your existing playlists if you wish. The functions for adding songs or albums to your existing or new playlists are accessible via the Spotify app on your iPhone. I also want to promote the Spotify app for iPad as it seems to be more accessible than its iPhone counterpart. I find the $10 price tag per month for this service to be reasonable. I have purchased very little music in the year I’ve had this service and don’t have a problem with renting my music. I’ve found music I would have never heard before. If time permits in the future perhaps I can record a podcast on how to use the Spotify app best with Voiceover as it can be done.

Many thanks for clarifying the extent of the problems with this app and for the workarounds.

By AnonyMouse on Friday, June 22, 2012 - 21:42

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team
Must agree with all of the comments made abov. I really don't know how it was in the earlier version but the latest one definetly does not coralate to the above posting. This is how I would rate it with the version as of today: VoiceOver reads most page elements. Most buttons are clearly labelled. There are some accessibility issues with this app, but it can still be used if you are willing to tolerate these issues and learn how to work around them.

By Andrew on Friday, June 22, 2012 - 21:42

I haven't been able to grok how to add songs to new or existing playlists on Spotify. If you've been able to successfully do so, can you post a quick guide on how you accomplished it?

Hey Larry, Thanks so much for your on target comments. I just installed this app last night, as I had installed it months ago and found it to be terribly unusable with VO. Than I saw someone post that it worked with VO, so I installed it, got to the What's New screen and of course, heard that annoying VO reading button, button, button. RATS. I did play around with some of the other screens that did work with VO, but not sure why people are so in love with this app. I am a iTunes Match subscriber who doesn't listen to a lot of new music, long live classic rock, so I am still not understanding why people love this app so much. There are a ton of music apps that are totally accessible so would love to hear why everyone is so in love with spottily. Thanks all

By the 13th bat on Friday, June 22, 2012 - 21:42

I have a subscription with Mog. Every thing is voice over friendly. One time they updated the app and messed it up. I contacted them and It was fixed within the week. The only thing it cannot do that Spotify does is creating play lists from your iTunes. They have a section called Just for You, they make reccomendations based on what you listen to. They also have Mog radio that works similar to pandora but you can skip as many tracks as you want. You cannot, however, do the thumbs up or down. You can change the similarity to play just the same artist all the way to lots of different artests that are similar. You can download as much as your device can hold.

Andrew, The easiest way to do this is to search for an artist or track in the search screen, select it, and then start playing a song. Once a song is playing the window has controls at the bottom, a hide button in the top right corner that essentially takes you back to the previous screen while the music plays and a button on the top left that says something like NP Info Glyth. Tap this button and the display changes such hat the album art in the middle goes away and you are presented with the name of the artist, song name and, I believe the album name. If you were to tap the name of the artist you go to a screen with all of their works on the Spotify service. If you tap the name of the song it takes you to that particular album. Note that you need to then tap the hide button on the top right to get back to the now playing screen and repeete the process to view the previously mentioned options. Under the artist and song name is a button that says add to. If you tap that you are presented with a list of your playlists. Just find the list you want the song added to and tap it. That's all it takes. You can also ad an entire album to a playlist. Say for example you are listening to a song, tap the info button in the top left, tap the song name and find it is on a Greatest Hits album and you want every song on that album put on a playlist. When looking at that album you would look for a button on the left side of the screen just above the track list that says more. Tap it and you get options to ad to a playlist, share, start artist radio, Etc. Just tap ad to playlist and then select the list you want the tunes included on. There is room for improvement here but it works and is accessible despite the poorly labeled info button in the top left corner. Have fun.

I did check out MOG before settling on Spotify. At the time MOG had a somewhat limited library but I thought everything else was great. I don't think I could make the switch because of the extensive playlists I have in Spotify that could not be moved over. Also, there is an extensive community on the web with sites built on the Spotify API that acomplish some very good things. For example, I love 80s music and have a playlist of about 1,800 songs. I pulled my existing list in from iTunes and then built on it by importing other users playlists available from within Spotify and from sites like sharemyplaylists.com. At one point the list had about 2,300 songs. I then ran it through another site called spotify deduplicator. This site looks at the playlist XML and, just by hitting a button, it produces a new playlist with all duplicate tracks removed. Its a nice touch and makes building great playlists easy. These are just a few of the Spotify resources built on the API. I am not sure that MOG offers these options. Someone previously commented that iTunes Match is fine; they love classic rock. I do as well but instead of my limited collection I have access to just about anything from that genre I want to have. I've also discovered great music, bought their albums, bought concert tickets when they came to town and murchandise. So, the rent your music option can lead to record sales and money in the pocket of artists. So I'm not a big iTunes Match fan.

By Jason SW on Friday, June 22, 2012 - 21:42

As long as it requires a Facebook account to sign up, I'll stick to Pandora.

By Walei on Friday, June 22, 2012 - 21:42

I'm surprised that no one's mentioned this already but Spotify is now free for mobile. I don't have a premium account and I was able to play radio stations and create playlists. I doubt that non-premium users can download songs though. While it's not the most accessible app, it's a good way to discover new music.

Ok so I have seen how Spotify is now free to those of us in the U.S. so I installed the app, signed up with my Facebook account, went to find a song, and now the app tells me Spotify streaming is only available for premium members. I went in to the More section, and can't find anything about premium memberships. Anyone know what I did wrong? Was I not supposed to sign up through Facebook? Thanks, trying to figure out what the big deal about the app is, and so far, it just looks like the same thing as Pandora. Thanks

By Oriol Gomez on Friday, June 22, 2012 - 21:42

Hrm no it's not free, I tried to play something and it said that in order to play I needed a premium subscription.. and when I go into radio, I only find a page with a heading level 1 and no content. So either not accessible or I just don't know how to use it.

I've never had a premium account and it works for me. The reason I know about it is because I received an email from Spotify that notified me that it's now free for non-premium users. Perhaps it's only free for existing users and not new ones?

Walei, How did you create a playlist without a paid subscription? I notice that Streaming On Demand is for the Preium members only. However, only in the US is the Radio Stations are FREE. I saw that and was able to listen to the Radio Stations. However, how were you able to Create your own Playlist? Thanks!

By Walei on Sunday, July 22, 2012 - 21:42

Hey anonymouse, I apologize. I was able to create playlists, but when I went to play the songs in my playlists, I got a message informing me that I need to be a premium member to play songs on demand. So I was mistaken about that. Walei

By AnonyMouse on Wednesday, August 22, 2012 - 21:42

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team
Now supports IOS 6! One of the first to do so! What's New in Version 0.5.4 A lot of folks like the iOS 6 support we’ve brought to this update. We do too. But we also like: • New: iPad users can now show more stations. • Fixed: Login issues for users who only ever log in with Facebook. • Fixed: Improved stability. • Fictitious: This version is available in chocolate, strawberry or vanilla.

By AnonyMouse on Wednesday, August 22, 2012 - 21:42

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team
What's New in Version 0.5.5 As well as the usual bug extermination, this version says a big hello to… • New: Sort your playlists. Tap the lovely "Sort" button next to the search field to sort by track, album, artist etc. (iPad only) • New: Friendlier login for first-time users (iPhone only) • Improved: Your settings are now arranged by category. • Improved: Want to search among your friends? OK. (iPad only) • Improved: Radio now loads faster. Blink and you’ll miss it. • Fictitious: This app makes a lovely cup of tea.

By anouk85 on Thursday, November 22, 2012 - 21:42

I am not sure if other people have this problem but i redownloaded spotify on my idevice today and cannot seem to logn with my existing information because there is no button to click on where there should be one. there is a button to sgn up to facebook but i already have a traditional account. A pity MOG is not available in the Netherlands as of yet.

By Jen on Friday, February 22, 2013 - 21:42

There's an update in the app store, Spotify 0.60 or something like that. I'm just wondering if anyone has tried it out. From the release notes, it sounds like Spotify has changed the look of quite a few things, so I'm hesitant to update til I know more about how the accessibility has or has not been affected.

By Santiago on Friday, March 22, 2013 - 21:42

Hello, How can I download my playlists on Spotify when using it with VoiceOver on my iPhone and iPad? I've tried to do it on my iPad so far, and I just hear it say download playlist: 0 of 0 downloaded, once I press the download button, I can see the list of songs on my playlist, so I know for a fact it doesn't have 0 tracks. Can anyone help?

hi yes the new spotify is still usable with voiceover but getting round it is a bit different, there is a open side bar menu on the top left to get to the tabs that were on the botem, once a song is playing you can get to the now playing screen by dubble tabbing the title of the currently playing song at the bottem of the window. I also found loging in wasn't easy, i found that turning off voiceover and tapping 3 times on the bottem rite then turne voiceover back on this was the only part i found really tricky, if anyone knowes of a easyer way i'd like to know. If anyone wants me to go in to more detail then i can do.

By treky fan on Friday, March 22, 2013 - 21:42

I was wondering if there is a wqay to delte a station on sptify that i don't want anymore.

Hello to all. I can't log in to spotify with the latest version of the app on IOS 7. Has anyone logged in? It says something about log in here but I can't get in.

By Santiago on Sunday, December 22, 2013 - 21:42

Hello, For those of you who use Spotify premium, have you noticed that Spotify won't show or load more tracks on the latest version, even if you double tap on the "All tracks," button after searching for something? This only seems to happen on the iPhone version of the app, not the iPad, as far as I can tell.

By AnonyMouse on Wednesday, January 22, 2014 - 21:42

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

What's New in Version 0.9.2

• New: Spotify is now free on mobile and tablet! Listen to all your favourite artists and playlists in shuffle mode on mobile, and play any song, anytime
on tablet.
• Fixed: We've asked many bugs to leave.
• Fictitious: This app likes twerking in libraries.

 

By Santiago on Wednesday, January 22, 2014 - 21:42

Hello, Spotify still hasn't fixed a bug when using it with VoiceOver. It turns out that when you want to scroll down the list of tracks, you have to double tap and hold, wait for the dragging sound, and then slide your finger up right away. You can't just use the scrolling gestures.

By AnonyMouse on Tuesday, April 22, 2014 - 21:42

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

What's New in Version 1.0.0

New: Welcome to the best-looking Spotify ever. Check out our redesign! (iPhone and iPod Touch)
New: Browse now gives you even smarter playlists to suit your mood. (iPhone and iPod Touch)
Improved: Startup time. Blink and you'll miss it!
Fixed: More bugs and crashes.
Fictitious: This app has an extensive vinyl collection.

 

By Victor Tsaran on Sunday, June 22, 2014 - 21:42

I am happy to say that version 1.2.0 of the app has improved accessibility quite significantly.

By AnonyMouse on Sunday, June 22, 2014 - 21:42

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Thanks to Alan for pointing this out for us! It appears that the Spotify team have made some big improvements with in the latest release.

See what Alan had to say about the latest release:

Spotify 1.2 on iOS improved accessibility
http://www.applevis.com/forum/ios-ios-app-discussion/spotify-12-ios-improved-accessibility

What's New in Version 1.2.0

• New: Want to sync all Your Music for offline listening? Just go to the Songs tab. (Premium only)
• Fixed: More bugs asked to leave.
• Fictitious: This app was first discovered in 1806 by Sir Alfred J. Oxley.

By Jasmine on Sunday, June 22, 2014 - 21:42

Hey. When I try and load spotify with voiceover it quits. I got round this by getting my friend to load it with VO turned off. Everything worked fine as long as I didn't quit the app, but when I went to search the app quit because of voiceover again. Is this because I'm still on 3GS? Thanks.

By Misty Dawn on Sunday, February 22, 2015 - 21:42

OK, guys, so, I just heard that the entire Spotify app is now free (?) for non-premium members.

So...

How is the accessibility on the latest version of this app and

how much of the functionality is free and how much is still only available to premium members?

Specifically...

Can you access and share your playlists on Facebook and Twitter directly from the app for free?

Can you stream and share individual songs to Facebook and Twitter from the app?

Can you search for songs to stream for free directly from the app?

If so, how accessible are these functions?

These are the main things I'm looking for in the free version ofthe app.

By Misty Dawn on Monday, June 22, 2015 - 21:42

The latest version of the Spotify app does appear very, very accessible, except...

AFter I search a song, and all the songs come up in the results, how do I actually play the song I ant? I can't seem to find the option to do so! I looked under the "context menu" but I can't seem to find a "play" button under there either. When I go to the album on which the track is listed, the only option I see is "shuffle play" and, when it tap that, it does just what it says; it just shuffles the tracks but doesn't necessarily play the one I want.

Can someone please help?

By Rob on Monday, June 22, 2015 - 21:42

Hi, swipe to a particular song in the search results but then you may have to do a one finger tripple tap to get it to play. That was certainly the case for me when I first got the app yesterday but now a one finger double tap seems to work. Hope this helps.

By ak1394 on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - 21:42

Hi Guys! I'm an app developer, currently working on a custom Spotify player. I believe my app might be of interest to your community.

Would anyone who's using Spotify on iPhone with Premium subscription be interested to test my app?

By Darrell Hilliker on Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - 21:42

Has anyone who uses Spotify had a chance to test the latest version of the app to verify it is now accessible?

It would be very nice, indeed, for blind people to have Spotify as an alternative.

Hadi, that is great news and I love that blog article you had pointed to. That made for a great read and it is always awesome when you hear from the perspective of the developer of how they tackle on accessibility with their apps. This one made me smile and thanks for sharing this with us!

By mario_hardrock on Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - 21:42

hi.
Deezer Music also is a great app.
very accessible and good usability.
even without a premium account, we are not prevented from hearing all categories of music.
search for bands and then listen to artists, albums, and playlists and much more ...
with only rare interruptions to remember a premium account.
very friendly.
try Deezer Music. you will like.
great app.
cheers.

By JeffB on Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - 21:42

The app itself works well. I wish there was a way to shuffle artists like there is a way to shuffle songs from an artist if that makes sense.

By Hadi on Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - 21:42

@Darrell Shandro I have the app and I use it almost 24/7 and I can say that It's fully accessible right now. spotify used to be a huge mess when browsing artist pages and album lists, now It exactly feels like a native application.
@AnonyMouse I was also very happy to see that post. Spotify is a big company and they are based off a big network and app Infrastructure, I was excited to see a developer went straight up after accessibility and made their app framework completely accessible.
@jeff, what do you mean by shuffling artists? There's already the radio...

I like spotify, It is extremely active in the music genre that I like which is metal. I'd like to have a windows utility for quickly building and editting playlists, because currently it takes a lot of time if you want to do it by hand on the phone; although I think that is how sighted people also do it, making playlists by hand requires a bit of time.

By Roxann Pollard on Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - 21:42

For those who didn't realize, Spotify now has an incredible running feature. Go to the Browse button, find the Running jonre. Then select a playlist and start your run.

Once the playlist starts, you have two choices, you can actually begin running and the app will determine your current running pace and set your music bpm to that pace. You can also click the Skip button and then set your own running pace.

If you selected the Skip button, you are then presented with the screen to change to your preferred BPM. Simply double tap the Increase Tempo button or Decrease Tempo button to select your preference. Each double tap changes the BPM by five points and is announced by the app, as well. There is an indicator on the screen, directly above the Home button, where you can see your current BPM listed, too. If you have the app detect your personal running tempo for you, the previously described screen for selecting your tempo is still presented after the app concludes is detection of your steps.

Personally, this app has the nicest interface for setting a predetermined tempo that I have encountered. I couldn't be happier with the devs for taking such care in creating this feature. I hope that others enjoy this as much as I do.

HTH

By JeffB on Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - 21:42

@Hadi the radio is different though in that I'm assuming it plays the band after the station and bands similar to that band like other apps do. If after adding all the artists you like to your library if there was to shuffle music from all the artists you follow, or even a station that would play music based of the bands you followed.

By Hadi on Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - 21:42

Of course you can do that already, specially after the accessibility update.
first, go to the "your library tab". It's at the bottom of the screen, the fifth one, to the right.
Then, go to the top of the screen and you should hear, "your library heading". swipe to the right passed "settings", "profile", "playlists", "stations", and then you'll see, "Songs". double tab on that, and you'll see a page filled with all the songs that you've saved. there's a big shuffle play at the top of the screen.

One thing to remember is that these will show your saved songs, not followed bands. You can follow a band and not save any songs of them in your spotify account.

By Hadi on Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - 21:42

P.S I think the accessibility rating and the entry needs to change, spotify is now 100% accessible.

By JeffB on Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - 21:42

Well that sort of works if I go and save every song from every artist but that be alot. Ah well its still a cool app.

By Eileen on Thursday, August 22, 2019 - 21:42

I'm not seeing any issues after today's update.

Garibay, if you haven't done so already, you might want to close the Spotify app via the App Switcher, reopen the app, and see if this has resolved things.

If not, the next step is probably to delete and reinstall the app.

Good luck and keep us updated!