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Spotify announced today that the tablet and smartphone app for iOS and Android will now be free. Previously, the app had only been available to users who paid a monthly subscription fee for the premium service. This is good news for the growing number of Spotify free users, which now number over 300 million, as is the news that the company have exclusively added Led Zeppelin’s catalog to their service.
The new mobile app, however, will not function in exactly the same way as the computer version does, instead falling somewhere between the “internet radio” model of Pandora, where the user is only able to choose a station, but does not have direct control over what tracks are played, and the standard Spotify experience. Users of the mobile app will be able to access their playlists, specific albums, or artist’s catalogs, with Spotify then shuffling through the songs at random, without adding “related” music as internet radio services do.
Spotify have been in the news a lot recently, responding to criticism from musical luminaries like Thom Yorke and David Byrne by creating an artist-focused website, which explains the companies royalty rates and more.
The free app is available for download today.
