No native Spotify app for Apple TV 'any time soon,' company says

AppleInsider · October 18, 2016 5:03PM

People with a fourth-generation Apple TV shouldn't expect a native Spotify app in the near future, according to a product owner with the company.

Supporting tvOS has been "down prioritized," Samuel Erdtman said in a GitHub discussion thread noticed by AppAdvice. "You should not expect a release supporting it any time soon. I'm sorry about that."

People who have Spotify on another Apple device can use AirPlay to stream audio, but a native app would allow for a convenient "lean-back" interface.

The lack of a tvOS app gives a slight edge to streaming rivals like Pandora, and of course Apple, which now has Apple Music support preloaded on Apple TVs.

Spotify may consider the Apple TV a relatively minor platform next to iOS, Android, and desktops however, and still enjoys a considerable lead over Apple in on-demand streaming. While Apple is already up to 17 million subscribers a little over a year after launch, Spotify has over 40 million Premium subscribers alone, and many more using its ad-based free tier.

revanmj · October 18, 2016 5:20PM

Funny thing, they have a proper app for Android TV

mau47 · October 18, 2016 5:34PM

This ultimately doesn't hurt anyone but their own subscribers, Apple doesn't care that there isn't a proper Spotify app, I highly doubt any measurable amount of people if any would not purchase an Apple TV due to lack of a proper app if they were already considering the purchase. I can only guess their subscriber base isn't really clamoring for the app.

coolfactor · October 18, 2016 5:55PM

I've never used Spotify, so I don't have hands-on experience, but this seems like a bizarre decision. If they have an iOS app, wouldn't developing a tvOS counterpart be a cinch?

nolamacguy · October 18, 2016 6:02PM

like amazon, it looks like spotify doesn't like its own customers, chosing to play platform politics rather than delighting their actual paying users.

cali · October 18, 2016 6:05PM

This is stupid considering Spotify doesn't develop hardware.

slurpy · October 18, 2016 6:08PM

Spotify execs I guess are too fucking stupid to realize this only hurts them, not Apple. For me it's a wash between Spotify and Apple Music, but ultimately decided to stick with Apple Music because of better integration throughout the Apple ecosystem. This is also why Apple released their streaming solution on Android, because they understand it benefits them when its accessible on as many devices as possible.

holyone · October 18, 2016 6:12PM

Are they choosing to play platform politics or make dumb business policies ?

cpsro · October 18, 2016 6:44PM

Lame developers at Spotify.

dachar · October 18, 2016 8:18PM

I wonder if there is really such a big deal? How many people listen to music without images on their TV anyway?

[deleted user] · October 18, 2016 9:21PM

Do we really need a Spotify app on TVOS? Get a Chromecast for $45 and use that. Works like a charm. Plus, much much cheaper.

ericlmercer · October 18, 2016 9:51PM

Plus, tvOS is a fork of iOS, so apps share most of the same codebase. It's relatively simple to port iOS apps over to tvOS & easy to maintain since most of the non-UI code is identical.

nolamacguy · October 18, 2016 11:27PM

dachar said:

I wonder if there is really such a big deal? How many people listen to music without images on their TV anyway?

there are images on the tv -- album covers, album info, lyrics, artist browsing, etc.

many, many people have their apple tv plugged into a receiver in the living room with good speakers (or at least a tv with sound bar), and oblvisouly enjoy listening to music in this space.

thecodingart · October 19, 2016 1:25AM

Another reason for me to stick with Apple Music....

thecodingart · October 19, 2016 1:26AM

dachar said:

I wonder if there is really such a big deal? How many people listen to music without images on their TV anyway?

This is actually a primary way for me.... Personally, I have a Sonos setup... and the Sonos interface is pretty bad. I prefer streaming directly from a native app. The only real problem is that the new Apple TV doesn't have an optical port, which was an idiotic decision on Apple's side.

edited October 2016

davidw · October 19, 2016 6:03AM

nolamacguy said:

dachar said:

I wonder if there is really such a big deal? How many people listen to music without images on their TV anyway?

there are images on the tv -- album covers, album info, lyrics, artist browsing, etc.

many, many people have their apple tv plugged into a receiver in the living room with good speakers (or at least a tv with sound bar), and oblvisouly enjoy listening to music in this space.

And many, many people that do this are still using an Apple TV3 because they have an older receiver that don't have HDMI ports. Which is needed for an Apple 4 to do this because it no longer has the toslink optical out for audio.

bitmod · October 19, 2016 7:22AM

My guess would be a Google acquisition early next year.

e1618978 · October 19, 2016 4:14PM

There isn't any good way to stream Spotify to a stereo that I have found. Apple airplay from a iPhone to an Apple TV sucks ass, constant drop-outs. Google Chromecast audio doesn't have the audio dropout problems, but it also doesn't have volume normalization with Spotify (the Apple TV does have this) so some audio tracks are really loud and others are really quiet when you stream spotify to the chromecast. I don't think that Spotify cares about streaming at all, or else they would have an Apple TV app and also make all of this stuff work better (Airplay sucking may be outside of their control, but the rest is all them).

edited October 2016

No native Spotify app for Apple TV 'any time soon,' company says

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