- Do You Have To Have Shuffle On With Spotify Free Download
- Do You Have To Have Shuffle On With Spotify Free Version
- Do You Have To Have Shuffle On With Spotify Free Music
- Do You Have To Have Shuffle On With Spotify Free Trial
- Spotify is a digital music service that gives you access to millions of songs.
- Spotify is an online audio and video streaming service. Users can watch videos, and listen to music and podcasts, using Spotify's desktop or mobile app. It launched in 2008 and now, there are over 200 million active users every month.
Spotify on Wednesday expanded the free tier of its service to all devices, including smartphones and tablets.
This subreddit is mainly for sharing Spotify playlists. Check out our wiki first. You must have a combined karma of 40, & your reddit account must be at least 30 days old to post. This is to prevent spam & is strictly enforced.
In the past, free Spotify users could only access Spotify Radio on mobile devices and tablets, but like other radio services, this prevented them from listening to a specific artist or music in their own playlists. The new offering expands on-demand listening to free users on tablets, and allows smartphone users to listen to their own playlists or music from a specific artist in shuffle mode.
![Do you have to have shuffle on with spotify free version Do you have to have shuffle on with spotify free version](/uploads/1/3/3/9/133910353/715222906.jpg)
See also: Spotify Expands Free Streaming to All Devices
Spotify created the following chart, which shows the access options that users have:
When it comes to specifics on how everything works, it becomes a bit more complicated. Fortunately, Mashable spoke with Charlie Hellman, Spotify's vice president of product, who broke down the company's new mobile offering.
Can Free Users Listen to Any Song They Want on Mobile and Tablet?
![Free Free](/uploads/1/3/3/9/133910353/951413343.png)
You can listen to any song you want, and in any order, if you use Spotify on a tablet. On iOS, this means the iPad or iPad mini. On Android, Spotify is setting 7-inches in diagonal as the screen minimum for tablets. The app will determine which version of the experience you see in Android.
On the tablet, the play-on-demand feature works the same as it does on desktop. You will have ads every five to six songs, and you can't save playlists for offline listening. Spotify decided to treat the tablet as a desktop after observing how people use the product.
In a post-PC world, the tablet is increasingly becoming the main home computer for many consumers, including Spotify users; for that reason, the company chose to make the experience on-par with what you'd get on the desktop.
On smartphones, only Spotify Premium users have the option to listen to specific songs on-demand.
How Does Free Listening on Mobile Work?
Although Spotify doesn't offer free on-demand listening via mobile, it has substantially expanded the types of music you can listen to, and how you can listen to them.
You can now listen to music from any artist in 'shuffle' mode; this means you can search for an artist, then instantly listen to a station that only features that particular artist. It's a big switch from typical online radio services, such as Pandora and iTunes Radio, which may let you create a station around an artist, but wind up having other artists in the mix, too.
What's more, you can listen to your own Spotify playlists in shuffle mode. Be aware, however, that there are a few rules about how they work.
What Are the Rules for Free Shuffle Mode?
Your playlists will need to meet several parameters to work in free shuffle mode. (Don't worry, Spotify will automatically fill out your playlist if it doesn't meet these requirements.)
They include:
- A playlist must have at least 20 songs
- Can you download spotify playlists on mobile data. A playlist must consist of at least three albums
- Even if you list the same track 20 times in a row, it still only counts as one
Spotify said the vast majority of playlists have more than 20 songs, and include many different artists. Although this means you can't listen exclusively to a shuffled mix of Daft Punk's Random Access Memories, you can listen to Rolling Stone's playlist for its top 100 tracks of 2013.
Plus, as long as you add a few songs from other albums to your Random Access Memories playlist, you'll be guaranteed to hear the whole album during your listening session.
How Is This Better Than Pandora, Songza or iTunes Radio?
The biggest change is that you can choose to only listen to a specific artist — something the other services don't offer. What's more, you can listen to playlists you create.
Songza is a playlist-oriented Internet radio product, but its licensing rules mean that users can't listen to playlists they create themselves.
This is also true for other streaming services that offer access to curated playlists. Usually, it's fine, especially when users are passively listening to tunes. Where it becomes problematic is if you've collected a bunch of tracks for an event, such as a holiday party. What's the point of having the ultimate holiday playlist if you can't even play it back on your own device?
Can Free Users Create Playlists on Mobile?
Yes. Free users can create their own playlists or add songs to existing playlists in the app; this means if you want to add a track from Spotify Discover to an existing playlist, you can do so without having to worry. You can also create new playlists with music or artists you come across.
How Do Ads Work on Mobile and Tablet?
Just as they do on the desktop and within Spotify Radio now. Interruptions and ads will come every five to six songs.
Should I Bother Paying for Spotify Premium?
This will totally depend on how you listen to music. If you mostly listen to playlists while on your phone, and avoid selecting albums and tracks, you may not feel the need to pay for Spotify Premium. What's more, if you use an iPad or Android tablet for most of your listening, you no longer need to pay to play any song you want.
Still, Spotify Premium continues to have advantages. On the smartphone side, the biggest advantage is that you don't have to deal with ads, and you can save music for offline listening; this is really useful when on an airplane or the subway. Spotify Premium users can also stream audio in higher quality, so if you're an audiophile (at least in the context of streaming music), you get higher fidelity sound.
Spotify told Mashable that getting rid of ads and offline playback are actually the two biggest reasons users upgrade to Spotify Premium. The goal of the new Spotify freemium offering is to encourage users to listen to as much music as possible.
'We've found that the more stuff we give users, the more users are willing to pay us,' Hellman said. It's a good point. https://treerecycle937.weebly.com/blog/spotify-desktop-download-library. I know I have personally found that the value in subscription music services really shows itself the more I use it. Having more mobile listeners gives Spotify a chance to convert more of those listeners into Premium subscribers.
How Do I Get Started Using the Free Mobile Offering?
Make sure you are running the latest version of Spotify for iOS or Android, and the option is available now. For free users, browsing artists or accessing your playlists will show an option to 'Shuffle Play.'
On Android tablets and the iPad, you now have the ability to listen to any track you want at will.
Images: Spotify
Spotify is arguably the most popular streaming service in the world. It has a massive library of music as well as a sizable library of podcasts. In this Free Spotify vs Spotify Premium breakdown, we’re going to see if the paid version is worth the monthly fee, or if you’re better off bearing through the ads to save money. You may even discover some features of Spotify along the way.
Editor’s note: This Free Spotify vs Spotify Premium article was updated on October 1, 2020, to include links to relevant information and to address an FAQ about Spotify promotions.
Related: Best music streaming services
The listening experience with Free Spotify is unpleasant
Spotify Free and Premium Spotify may look similar at first, but extended functionality varies greatly.
There are some key functional differences between Free Spotify and Spotify Premium, particularly with the mobile interface. With the free mobile version, you can only skip six tracks per hour, whereas with Premium, you can skip as many as you’d like. Skip limits can put a damper on things when you repeatedly aren’t in the mood for certain randomized songs, but sure it’s a forgivable inconvenience.
Spotify Premium let’s you skip tracks endlessly, the free version does not
Another drawback to Free Spotify on mobile: you can’t select specific songs for playback. Rather, you can select an album or a playlist and shuffle the songs in it. This can get annoying when you have an earworm and just need to listen to that particular song. With Premium, you can listen to that song over and over to your little heart’s content.
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May 5, 2020There is a caveat with Free Spotify, however; you can select songs for playback with unlimited skips, so long as you are listening to them from one of Spotify’s 15 curated playlists under “Made for You” on the “Home” page. These include popular editorial playlists, such as “RapCaviar” and “Alternative R&B,” and playlists algorithmically tailored to your listening preferences such as “Discover Weekly,” “Daily Mix,” and “Release Radar.” The songs on these playlists change frequently. If there’s a blue shuffle icon next to the playlist title, you may only shuffle songs.
Get ready for annoying ads with Free Spotify
The absolute worst thing about Free Spotify is how frequently ads interrupt playback. The advertisements are incredibly annoying, are surely designed to be that way. Many of them feature the most irritating noises you could imagine, such as traffic horns overlaid with a voice saying things like, “Is this annoying? If you buy Premium, you won’t have to listen to this anymore.” I’ll give them credit, because this tactic of being obnoxious works pretty well: paying for Spotify Premium is almost worth it for the sole purpose of removing these ads.
Listen offline with Spotify Premium
Depending on how much you pay for data, it might be a good idea to save your favorite tunes for offline listening.
With Spotify Premium, you can download an unlimited number of tracks for offline listening. This is great for long flights or if you want to turn off your data while away from home. With Free Spotify, you aren’t able to download any music, so you may be spending money in the form of data usage rather than a Premium subscription.
On the desktop Spotify app, there are fewer discrepancies between Free Spotify and Spotify Premium. For example, on the desktop app you can select any specific song you want with unlimited skips regardless of if you have Spotify Premium or not. However, you are still subjected to ads on Free Spotify with the desktop app, and you cannot download music for offline listening on your computer unless you have Spotify Premium.
A glitch to Spotify Free affords Premium features
In August 2020, there was a glitch with Free Spotify that allowed for unlimited skips, specific song selection, and ad-free listening on both the mobile and desktop versions of the streaming service. This glitch made it almost identical to Spotify Premium, minus the ability to download music for offline listening. I reached out to a Spotify customer service rep, who told me, “To my knowledge we have ads and limited skips on the Free version.” This glitch surely will not last forever, though, so I’m going to have to crown the winner of best listening experience to Spotify Premium.
Winner: Spotify Premium
Free Spotify vs Spotify Premium: Discovery features are identical
Spotify Discover and Release Radar update every Monday to introduce new songs to its users.
One of the best things about Spotify is the way it promotes discovery of new music. This is apparent in its algorithmically produced playlists, designed to suggest styles of music that align with your listening history. The “Discover Weekly” and “Daily Mix” playlists are updated frequently with new suggestions. Perhaps you really dislike a recommended song or artist, you can press a button telling it to avoid a certain type of music or to blacklist that artist from your profile. The “Release Radar” playlist churns out new releases from artists you follow and updates weekly.
One of Spotify’s best features is available to Free and Premium users.
Spotify has a large variety of genres, moods, and other categories under the Browse tab, and here you can listen to its editorial playlists to discover new music. It will also recommend editorial playlists based on your listening activity, and it will algorithmically create “Radio” playlists for every song, artist, album, and playlist.
When you create a new playlist, the Spotify algorithm suggests songs for you based on the title of your playlist as well as the songs you’ve already put into it. Regardless of if you’ve paid for Spotify Premium, these discovery features are available and very helpful.
Winner: Draw
Free or paid, enjoy the same social features
Spotify for desktop looks the same no matter what version you subscribe to.
Music has always been a social art form, but things have changed quite a bit since the days my dad would buy the latest Neil Young record on vinyl and sit around the turntable with his friends. Of course, people still get together to listen to music nowadays—though, perhaps not so much in 2020. There’s something exciting about sharing the social benefits of music with others, even when you’re trapped at home. Spotify uses several different tools on its platform to encourage music sharing, and you don’t need to buy Premium to access any of them.
Enjoy collaborative playlists on Spotify
To create collaborative playlists, press the three-dot symbol at the top-right of your screen (mobile), or next to the playlist title (desktop), and select “Collaborative Playlist.” Then, by share the playlist link with your friends. This will let them add and remove songs to and from it. Anybody with the link may do so, and it’s private unless someone holds the link. Collaborative playlists are great for when you and your roommates are throwing a party, or you’re planning a road trip with friends. Heck, they’re even good for when you just want to share some songs with someone regularly.
In a similar vein, if you have a Premium Family subscription or a Premium Duo subscription, Spotify will algorithmically create either a “Family Mix” or “Duo Mix” of songs based on the listening history of all the subscribed members. This isn’t technically a social feature because these playlists are created by Spotify and not the users themselves, so I’m not going to count its absence against Free Spotify.
Peek at what your friends are rocking out to
If you use Facebook, you can link your Spotify account to your Facebook account, making it easy for your Facebook friends to find your profile on Spotify by name or through the Find Friends button on the desktop app. You can search for your friends’ Spotify usernames; browse and add their playlists to your library; view their recent listening history; and, on the desktop Spotify app, view their active listening history.
This is a great way to discover new music and gain an idea of what types of music your friends are listening to. If it creeps you out that people can look through your playlists or see what you’re actively listening to, you can make your playlists private and disable the active listening feed. All of these features are available whether or not you pay for Premium.
Winner: Draw
Do You Have To Have Shuffle On With Spotify Free Download
Some music may be unavailable if you don’t pay for Premium
Do You Have To Have Shuffle On With Spotify Free Version
Free Spotify pays artists less per steam than Spotify Premium does. In response to this discrepancy, Spotify allows artists to set up a paywall for the first two weeks after a release. If an artist chooses this option, their release will only be available to Premium users until the two weeks have gone by. If it’s important to you to have access to all the latest releases, this may be a feature that sways you to pay for Spotify Premium. Additionally, if you value the amount of money your favorite artists are getting paid, Premium is superior in that department. The following chart depicts the average amount Spotify pays artists per stream.
Digital Service Provider | $ Per Stream |
---|---|
Qobuz | $0.04390 |
Peloton | $0.04036 |
iHeartRadio | $0.01426 |
Amazon Unlimited | $0.01175 |
Napster/Rhapsody | $0.01110 |
24/7 Entertainment GmbH | $0.01050 |
YouTube Red | $0.00948 |
Tidal | $0.00927 |
Deezer | $0.00567 |
Google Play | $0.00543 |
Apple | $0.00495 |
KKBox | $0.00435 |
Amazon Digital Services Inc. | $0.00395 |
Spotify | $0.00331 |
Loen | $0.00205 |
Pandora | $0.00155 |
Vevo | $0.00109 |
Yandex LLC | $0.00051 |
YouTube Content ID | $0.00028 |
UMA | $0.00013 |
Winner: Premium
Free Spotify vs Spotify Premium: Sound quality is higher with Premium
While there is no high-resolution option for Spotify users, and Spotify only supports AAC and Ogg Vorbis, lossy file formats, there are still key differences in sound quality between Free Spotify and Spotify Premium. With Free Spotify, the maximum bitrate you can stream at is 128kbps on the desktop app and 160kbps on the mobile app, whereas Spotify Premium affords you 320kbps streaming on both desktop and mobile. In essence, this means that Spotify Premium’s music contains more data points and therefore more detail to its sound.
Streaming Service | Max streaming quality | Supported Formats |
---|---|---|
Qobuz | 24bit / 192kHz | AIFF, ALAC, FLAC, WAV, WMA Lossless |
Amazon Music HD | 24bit /192kHz | FLAC |
Tidal HiFi | 24bit / 96kHz | AAC, ALAC, FLAC |
Deezer HiFi | 16bit / 44.1kHz | FLAC |
Google Play Music | 320kbps | AAC, ALAC, FLAC, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, WMA |
Deezer Premium | 320kbps | MP3 |
Spotify Premium | 320kbps | AAC, Ogg Vorbis |
Apple Music | 256kbps | AAC |
YouTube Music Premium | 256kbps | AAC |
SoundCloud Go+ | 256kbps | AAC |
Slacker Radio | 320kbps | MP3 |
Pandora | 192kbps | AAC |
Spotify Free | 160kbps | AAC |
Deezer Free | 128kbps | MP3 |
Spotify Premium has higher quality than Free Spotify, but it doesn’t have a HiFi setting. If you’re looking for a high fidelity streaming service, try Tidal HiFi.
Winner: Spotify Premium
Related: Tidal vs Spotify
There are different priced memberships for Premium, but Free is free
Spotify offers four different types of Premium subscriptions, and some of them are really great deals. First, there is the Spotify Premium Individual subscription, which is $9.99/month. This allows access to all the Premium features such as no ad interruptions, on-demand playback, and downloading tracks for offline listening. If you’re a full-time student at a university or college, you should be eligible for the Premium Student subscription, which is $4.99/month. Not only does this afford you all the same abilities of Spotify Premium, but, if you are a student in the United States, it also includes a subscription to SHOWTIME and the ad-supported version of Hulu.
If you want to share a Premium account with your live-in partner, you can get Premium Duo. It costs $12.99/month and both you and your partner will have your own separate accounts. Along with all the regular Premium features, you have the option to join “Duo Mix.” You and your partner can both go to the “Duo Mix” on your “Made for You” page on the mobile app, click the three dots, and select “Join Duo Mix.” Spotify will algorithmically design a playlist to be appealing to both you and your partner. You can change the mix to be chill or upbeat, depending on the mood, and you can choose to remove any explicit songs from the mix. Each song has the profile picture of either you or your partner next to it, so you can see whose listening activity the song was generated from.
Spotify offers a family plan, a plan for couples, and a student rate.
Spotify Premium Family is very similar to Premium Duo, as all members must live at the same address. Premium Family, though, can support up to six separate accounts, and costs $14.99/month. Parents can choose to block explicit music for specific members, and children can use their Premium Family account on the Spotify Kids app. In addition to these features and all the regular Premium features, your family can listen to a generated “Family Mix” which works just like the “Duo Mix.”
All of these subscription options are very cool, but ultimately, when it comes down to it, free is free. If the absence of needing to fork over a portion of your paycheck every month is enough motivation to deal with the ads, lack of features, and inconvenience of Free Spotify, then Free Spotify is going to be the option for you.
Winner: Spotify Free
What are some lesser known Spotify features?
Spotify constantly and consistently comes out with new features. For example, in 2017, it created a “Time Capsule” playlist for all of its 16-years-old-and-up users, Premium or not. These playlists were personalized based on their extensive listening history. It was created to be the kind of playlist users would have listened to in their teenage years. Pretty cool, huh? Another recent creation of Spotify’s was the “Pet Playlist,” which users could personalize by inputting the species of their pet as well as ranking their pet’s behaviors across a few different spectra. This data was then mixed with the genres and styles of music the user enjoys to create a playlist for users and their furry best friends.
Express yourself on Tinder and Instagram
Spotify has partnerships with many other apps, including Instagram and Tinder. You can share the name, artist, and album artwork of a song to your Instagram story with the click of a button on Spotify. If you link your Spotify account to Tinder, you can publish your frequently played songs on your Tinder profile, you know, to make sure you attract people with as impeccable music taste as yourself. And, of course, you can connect your account with Facebook to find friends more easily.
Spotify plays nicely with Android Auto and has its own Carplay mode
Carplay simplifies the interface, so distractions are lessened.
When you connect your smartphone to your car by Bluetooth, Spotify will automatically go into Carplay mode or Android Auto mode, depending on your OS and if your car is compatible with these features. These features reduce the amount of information displayed on the screen, making it safer to navigate the app while in the car. (We don’t recommend using the app while actively driving, though. Have your passenger do it.) They also make for easy integration with the navigation apps Google Maps and Waze. Similarly, many music-listening devices, such as the Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus, offer Spotify integration for easy access.
That’s a wrap: End-of-year statistics
My personal favorite Spotify feature is “Spotify Wrapped.” In December of every year, Spotify creates an animation of statistics for each user, including but not limited to the song they listened to most over the past year, how many total minutes they spent listening to music over the past year, the podcast the user listened to most often, and the countries all the artists they listened to are based out of. In addition to this, Wrapped shows users the statistics generalized by region and in the world as a whole.
In December of 2019, Spotify even had “Wrapped” stats for the whole decade. “Wrapped” is available for both Free and Premium users, but Premium users get additional personalized data including the number of artists they discovered that year as well as their top new artist from that year. Because of this one small detail, Spotify Premium wins this section, but, all Spotify users get a lot of really cool features.
Winner: Spotify Premium
Free Spotify vs Spotify Premium: Which one is better?
And the winner is Spotify Premium! It’s pretty clear that Premium has more features than Free Spotify, but whether or not you’re willing to pay for a subscription depends on you, of course. If you can get a student, family, or duo membership, Spotify Premium isn’t too pricey, but if you’re still on the fence, Spotify has free month-long trials of Premium. Until next time, happy listening.
Next: Apple Music review
Can I get a free Google Nest Mini with Spotify Premium?
Not anymore! In September, Spotify teamed up with Google to give away free Google Nest Minis to all Spotify Premium subscribers, new and old. This promotion has since ended, but keep an eye on Spotify's website because it does promotions like this fairly frequently.