Spotify Downplays HomePod Support, But Promises to Add AirPlay 2 Yet Again

[MacRumors]

Spotify has yet to implement native support for the HomePod and HomePod mini, despite Apple opening up the speakers to third-party streaming music services in 2020. As a result, Spotify cannot be controlled with Siri on the HomePod.

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman touched on the matter in his newsletter this weekend, noting that Spotify told him there hasn't been a "significant volume" of complaints about the lack of HomePod support. A post on Spotify's community website advocating for native HomePod support has over 5,800 votes in favor of the idea since it was submitted in 2020, but Spotify has refused to budge despite Apple making the necessary APIs available.

In 2019, Spotify accused Apple of anticompetitive behavior in a complaint filed in the EU. Alongside the complaint, Spotify launched a "Time to Play Fair" website that lists alleged examples of Apple's unfair practices, including preventing Spotify from natively supporting the HomePod. Yet nearly three years after Spotify has been able to support the HomePod without any further action from Apple, it has yet to follow through.

Spotify has also repeatedly promised to update its iPhone and iPad app with AirPlay 2 support, but it has failed to deliver so far. The app does support the original version of AirPlay, but has yet to adopt AirPlay 2, which launched in 2018 with enhancements such as less buffering and support for stereo-paired HomePods.

Spotify told Gurman that it "remains committed to supporting AirPlay 2 at some point in the future" and is "on a path towards making it happen eventually," but the company was unable to provide a definitive timeframe. Spotify has been promising to support AirPlay 2 since at least 2021, so subscribers have waited a long time.

Article Link: Spotify Downplays HomePod Support, But Promises to Add AirPlay 2 Yet Again

 

[Techwatcher]

Imagine being petty at the cost of customer satisfaction? What a stupid company lol glad I use Apple Music.

 

[Apple Fan 2008]

They don't really care about fairness, they just like complaining.

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

Apple Music is much better. Spotify has promised features to its users for a long time, yet they have failed to deliver.

 

[DeLaSoul]

Breaking news: Spotify just announced to introduce AirPlay 3 support very soon! 😁

 

[thatguywill]

Apple Music is much better. Spotify has promised features to its users for a long time, yet they have failed to deliver.

Apple Music is not much better, it just offers more compatibility at this time

 

[LeeW]

Apple Music is much better.

As much as I don't like Spotify for messing about on this I really can't agree that Apple Music is better, it's worse. Way worse than Spotify.

YMMV of course but Apple has nothing on Spotify and their interface, music selection, and more. It makes so much more sense for me to use Apple Music and I have tried many times. And I am in no way in the minority.

 

[Zc456]

Does Spotify expect everyone to own their "Car Thing" hardware?

 

[BuffaloTF]

As much as I don't like Spotify for messing about on this I really can't agree that Apple Music is better, it's worse. Way worse than Spotify.

YMMV of course but Apple has nothing in Spotify and their interface, music selection, and more. It makes so much more sense for me to use Apple Music and I have tried many times. And I am in no way in the minority.

Apple has more music. It also has better audio quality. The interfaces are nigh identical. What?

 

[StudyFlo]

Spotify launched a "Time to Play Fair" website that lists alleged examples of Apple's unfair practices, including preventing Spotify from natively supporting the HomePod. Yet, nearly three years after Spotify has been able to support the HomePod without any further action from Apple, it has yet to follow through.

This is seriously f*cked up. Why complain if you didn’t (ever) intend to support the feature.

 

[Quu]

It's funny to me that Spotify announced high-definition streaming and Apple was able to both announce and release it before Spotify followed through. And even now it's still not available.

Airplay is least of their problems.

 

[macsplusmacs]

Spotify launched a "Time to Play Fair" website that lists alleged examples of Apple's unfair practices, including preventing Spotify from natively supporting the HomePod. Yet, nearly three years after Spotify has been able to support the HomePod without any further action from Apple, it has yet to follow through.

This is seriously f*cked up. Why complain if you didn’t (ever) intend to support the feature.

Because they get press and get to beat up on "bad ole apple" while proping up their brand.

The CEOs of Spotify are among the jerky-est jerks in a C suite office.

No shame.

Just complain.

 

[appleguy123]

Something is wrong at Spotify. I wonder how much longer they can last. They don’t seem to be able to add anything, and promised features like AirPlay and the HiFi tier have been downgraded to vaporware as they just promise new features “eventually.”

 

[rgwebb]

Spotify launched a "Time to Play Fair" website that lists alleged examples of Apple's unfair practices, including preventing Spotify from natively supporting the HomePod. Yet, nearly three years after Spotify has been able to support the HomePod without any further action from Apple, it has yet to follow through.

This is seriously f*cked up. Why complain if you didn’t (ever) intend to support the feature.

My guess is Apple's hooks for supporting this connection does not give the granularity for user habit tracking they can achieve from within the mobile or web apps.

 

[betasp]

I am starting to believe that Spotify was so poorly architected in the beginning that supporting new technology makes it almost impossible.

This includes lossless, HomePod, Airplay, etc.

 

[easy4lif]

Pathetic, petty, and just plain sad. Spotify will never implement any of these features

 

[Waytrix]

I loved Spotify but I ultimately switched to Apple Music because they took way too long to properly support the Apple Watch back in the day. They literally said that they didn't think people wanted to run without their phone SMDH. Always complaining... never delivering.

 

[Ion-X]

Spotify on HomePod is the biggest missing feature. I’m not willing to buy an Apple Music subscription for just one device so I AirPlay Spotify to HomePod. Unfortunately, there is a lengthy delay.

 

[the future]

Apple has more music. It also has better audio quality.

And Apple Music pays the artists more.

The CEOs of Spotify are among the jerky-est jerks in a C suite office. No shame. Just complain.

100% this.

 

[DHagan4755]

Like most companies, nothing will change until the leadership at the top changes.

 

[hagar]

Apple Music is not much better, it just offers more compatibility at this time

Exactly.

And it’s not like HomePod support is earth shattering. It’s pretty useless to control Apple Music with Siri, there’s no reason Spotify would fare any better.

So it’s seems logical Spotify focuses to support technologies and features that do work.

 

[Chiromac81]

Spotify is brutal

Years after the fact, STILL no hopepod native support and STILL no native apple watch support


Pathetic

 

[mmm...really]

I'm confused my wife and I control our music throughout the day everyday using Siri on our 1G HomePods?

 

[Mrkevinfinnerty]

The fact that Spotify dominates a category where they are competing with Amazon, Google and Apple just goes to show what a great product it is.

Not surprised they don't think Homepod is worth the engineering time.

 

[cateye]

Concern trolling at its finest.