Marking the first time Spotify has ventured into music discovering on mobile devices, Spotify has now announced Spotify Radio for the iOS platform that enables iOS users to stream music for free whereas previously only Spotify Premium subscribers could access the app at 9.99 bucks a month.
According to the guys over at The Verge, Sporify Radio is a ‘Pandora-esque’ recommendations service that has previously been available in its desktop application and now available to iOS, and allows the user to choose an album, artist, song, or playlist and construct a radio station.
However, apparently the unlimited radio feature is only for those users in the United States and conforms to the same DMCA rules that rivals abide by, which apparently means if you use Spotify for free the user can only skip a few songs in a row.
The updated iPhone application now sports a Radio button on its navigation bar that shows your recently created radio stations along with genre stations and recommended radio stations, although apparently the user will not be able to save their created stations anywhere else other than the ‘Your Stations’ area.
An often requested feature is the thumbs up, thumbs down ratings feature only applies in the playlist the user is listening to, and each station that is created stays separate whilst becoming more specific as the user thumbs up or thumbs down the music.
However, apparently the only difference from the desktop version is the mobile version still does not let free users choose exactly what they wish to listen to, and the hope is that mobile users once that have gotten a taste will upgrade to the Spotify Premium service.
Spotify Radio is the biggest new feature but Spotify has also added improvements and upgrades such as a new pop up menu when the user long presses a track inside Spotify for iPad.