Roger Fingas
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.
Charles Martin
Christine McKee
Oliver Haslam
William Gallagher
17 Comments
Funny thing, they have a proper app for Android TV :)
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.
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?
like amazon, it looks like spotify doesn't like its own customers, chosing to play platform politics rather than delighting their actual paying users.
This is stupid considering Spotify doesn't develop hardware.