Spotify Offline Backup lets Premium users listen to songs offline even without downloads

Image: Spotify

If you're a Spotify Premium user and forgot to download your favourite playlist or you're looking to save on data or phone storage, Spotify is giving you the option to listen offline sans downloads with the new Offline Backup feature. It takes your recently streamed and queued tracks and compiles these songs into a playlist. It includes tracks stored on your device as part of your regular listening sessions (a.k.a. cache).

Spotify lets you filter and sort songs if you're looking for a "certain vibe." You can arrange it by artist, mood, and genre. Like its other playlists, Offline Backup evolves as you listen, so there's always something new there.

Offline Backup will appear automatically in the Home feed when you're offline. You just need to listen to more than five songs recently and have offline listening enabled. You can find this feature under Settings > Data Saving and Offline > Offline Listening / Offline Access. You can add this playlist to Your Library for easier access.

Offline Backup is rolling out globally, so you should have it once you've updated your app to the latest version. It comes to Android and iOS, including Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.

Source

Spotify Premium Duo launches in Canada, costs $12.99 per month

Spotify Premium Duo is now available in Canada for $12.99 a month. It targets partners or roommates looking to save some money on their subscription. The company has been testing the feature in other markets and now comes to 55 more markets. Canadian Spotify Premium subscribers usually pay $9.99 a month, and with this plan, you would save around $7 monthly.

If you haven't tried Premium before, Spotify throws in a free month before it charges you the monthly fee. Pairs also get a personalized Duo Mix playlist that combines you and your partner's music preferences. You each get individual accounts, but you would share the expense. If you're both Premium users already, you can change to a Duo plan to keep your existing libraries.

Source: Spotify

Spotify might let popular artists restrict songs to paying subscribers

A new report has surfaced claiming Spotify might be bending to pressure from pure-pay competition like Apple Music. There are claims they are considering limiting access to music from select artists to paying customers only. This new “windowing” policy will supposedly restrict certain albums to Spotify users who pay for premium. At the moment, musicians need to release their music both for paying and free users of the service. Spotify has reportedly informed music executives about said plan.

The streaming service could test this out to see how it will affect subscriber numbers and new sign-ups. The Wall Street Journal reports Spotify currently has around 20 million paying customers and another 80 million users who listen using ad-supported, free method. There were supposedly plans to window Coldplay’s upcoming album Head Full of Dreams but negotiations fell through after the band wasn’t able to guarantee it won’t be available on other free platforms like YouTube.

Source: Wall Street Journal | Via: Apple Insider