So, turns out Apple has acquired Lala, the music streaming web service everyone’s talking about right now. Many people (here and here) are saying Apple has just did one of the best moves in years, purchasing a young and growing startup which could help Cupertino building a better iTunes, a better Genius, a better music discovery engine.
No doubt about it.
But I believe these people, Apple, Google and even Lala are forgetting about that small group of guys from Sweden who created one of the most successful music streaming services ever developed: Spotify. Sure, Spotify isn’t “officially” available in the US yet (but come one, everyone here knows how to use it anyway) but is going very well in Europe and the growth won’t stop in my opinion. I last played my local music 5 months ago, before installing Spotify. This service from Sweden is strong, reliable and offers a huge catalogue: every artist I searched for was in, with high-bitrate streaming, detailed bio, albums and singles. The recommendation system works fine too, it made me discover tons of bands I didn’t know before.
So, Spotify works and again - there’s no doubt about it. But here comes the cool thing: Spotify has an iPhone app which supports offline playlists and syncs with the desktop client.
Hmm. You may argue that the mobile application is exclusively meant for Premium users but seriously - would you prefer a per-album purchasing system or a huge music catalogue for $10 a month? You choose.
I once heard Shigeru Miyamoto used to scrap the entire development of a game if the project didn’t meet his standards. They called this scrapping “upending the tea table”. If the new iTunes won’t met your standards and your needs guys, go upend the tea table. There’s something better than Lala out there, and it’s called Spotify.
