Music streaming service Spotify has finally launched in the United States after much anticipation and waiting. Spotify is a music streaming service that lets you search for songs and play them on the air. Its much like Grooveshark, except this one has got some nifty features. Spotify has three packages. Spotify Open is a free package offering 10 hours of streaming every month and a limit of playing the same track up to 5 times. Unlimited package offers unlimited listening without ads and travel option (which means you can stream from other countries besides the UK and the US) which comes at a price of $4.99/mo. The Premium package comes with Spotify on your cell phone which lets you stream to mobile devices such as the iPhone and Android. It also boasts enhanced sound quality and has offline listening. This one has a steep price tag of $9.99/mo. Let’s see how it performs with competition like Pandora, Rdio, Grooveshark, Slacker Radio and a bunch of others in the space.
As of my impressions, I had a Spotify UK account, so I just had to change my country to US and voila, it was up and running. The desktop application is great. It has a sleek interface with access to iTunes playlists, Facebook integration and Device Sync. I was also able to sync my iPhone with Spotify using a WiFi connection. The iPhone app also looks well designed. I think Spotify is going to be my preferred music if they lift the listening limit from the low 10 hours a month. Pandora offers a whooping 40 hours a month, and is coming out with a new HTML 5 website. So Spotify has got some competition.
I think Spotify should still be checked out because of its polished desktop and mobile applications. But if you prefer listening to music in your browser, then you’re better off with other services.
Sign Up: Spotify US