Spotify Setting Its Sights on the iPhone?
TechCrunch UK is speculating that Swedish online streaming music service Spotify is going mobile. Citing recent news that the company just hired a director of portable solutions, and a spattering of rumors on Swedish blogs, TechCrunch’s Mike Butcher believes that Apple’s iPhone might be in Spotify’s sites—and thus Apple’s iTunes store as well.
For US-based consumers, however, Spotify will have to wait. Due to licensing restrictions, the service isn’t available in America. Currently, the premium Spotify service—which costs around $12 US—is available in Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The free Spotify service, which includes ads, is available in Sweden, Norway, France, Finland, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
According to Butcher, the rumors are that the iPhone Spotify app will be available only to premium users, offer over-the-air streaming of the entire Spotify music library (as long as WiFi can be accessed), and include playlists. Whether or not Apple would approve such an app, of course, remains to be seen, as the Spotify app could easily be seen as an iTunes competitor.
Check out the Spotify video demo:
By Robert Pothier
Monday, 13 July, 2009at18:40
Not sure if Apple is going to cope with such an app on their App Store. Afterall, it’s the most competitive thing to their music sales from iTunes Music Store.
Added the fact that Spotify is there in the countries in which Apple has failed to launch the music store, I believe it makes sense. iTunes Baltic was rumoured to be launched summer 2008, today there’s only seriously weak App Store available.
Wednesday, 15 July, 2009at11:22
Spotify is released on the Cydia now. Called Spot
http://msga.se/2009/07/15/spotify-till-iphone/