Spotify iPhone App: First Impressions
Well, it finally made it onto the iPhone. The Spotify mobile app, quite possibly one of the most hyped mobile application releases yet. — After watching the preview video (embedded at the foot of this post), I had my doubts as to the actual quality of the application.
Context & Ripple Effects
The launch caps a busy stretch for Spotify: Apple announced it had approved the iPhone app on August 27, and earlier that month the company closed part of a new funding round at a €170 million valuation. TechCrunch Europe reported the app going live on iPhone and Android simultaneously, giving the Swedish streamer a mobile footprint weeks after its desktop service became the talk of the tech press.
The Next Web's verdict is cautious rather than triumphant — the reviewer went in with doubts after the preview video and came away with mixed first impressions. That matters because observers have already floated the idea (unconfirmed, but widely discussed since late August) that Spotify's streaming model poses a growing threat to Apple's iTunes download business.
First-order effects
- Premium Spotify subscribers can now carry their streamed catalog offline and online on an iPhone for the first time, turning the service from a desk-bound player into a portable one overnight.
- The reviewer's lukewarm quality assessment puts immediate pressure on Spotify to iterate fast, since hype has outrun hands-on experience with the app.
Second-order effects
- Apple now hosts, on its own App Store, a service some see as a threat to iTunes — if the streaming-on-iPhone pattern sticks, Apple faces a conflict between gatekeeping its platform and protecting its download revenue.
- Rival streaming and subscription services must respond to Spotify's mobile move or cede the pocket, where listening time increasingly lives.
Third-order effects
- If mobile access becomes table stakes, recorded-music economics tilt further from per-track purchase toward subscription access — a shift Apple itself would eventually have to accommodate within iOS.
- App Store approval becoming the choke point for music distribution gives Apple structural leverage over any streaming rival that depends on the iPhone audience.
The trend: Recorded music is moving from owned downloads to on-demand streaming carried on phones, with Apple's App Store acting as the gatekeeper deciding how fast that shift reaches iPhone users.