Just a few days ago, Microsoft announced that its Groove Music service would be replaced with previously considered rival service, Spotify. The firm aimed to make this transition easier for users with prompts to initiate their migration as soon as possible. Now, it appears that the native Spotify Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app will appear on Windows Mixed Reality devices.
The later versions of Spotify's desktop client are basically just a web browser accessing the web player using Chromium Embedded Framework. I assume Spotify felt it cost too much to develop and maintain two separate clients (desktop and web) so as soon as the web client got developed enough they just scratched the desktop client (and a bunch of functionality) and just embedded the web client.
- As this is a UWP, you can run it on your Windows 10 PC or Mobile, which is pretty nice. Moreover, the app does not require a premium Spotify account which is also a nice feature. Here’s the full feature list: A Spotify client Universal app (Desktop-Tablet-Smartphone) No need Premium Spotify account.
- Spotify on Desktop is a great app but I feel like the UI could be a little refined: there is too much things on the current desktop version. Maybe a Windows 10 universal app could be more similar to Spotify for iPad. It would be great and likely to be used by millon of Windows Users across all their devices (with Windows 10.
It is important to note that the Spotify app has been available in the Windows Store for a few months. However, a native UWP app, in comparison to the existing Centennial version of the Store app, can run on multiple devices, as these are not written for a specific OS in their manifest build. In essence, only a native Spotify UWP app can act as a full replacement for Groove Music, as this enables its availability for Windows phones and Windows Mixed Reality as well.
Interestingly, @hermitdave, on Twitter, asked Microsoft's Alex Kipman whether Spotify would be coming to Windows Mixed Reality in 2018, and received the following response:
Pandora and iHeartRadio work great! Spotify is coming soon also.
— Alex Kipman (@akipman) October 9, 2017
As mentioned before, for Spotify to work in Mixed Reality, a native UWP app for the digital music service would need to be introduced. Although such an app for the Xbox One already exists, Kipman also indicated that Microsoft would be further developing the app, as it currently lacks the features required for Mixed Reality.
Keep in mind that no official announcement regarding the availability of a native Spotify UWP app on Windows 10 has been made as of yet, even in light of the information that has been revealed on Twitter. Perhaps more will be disclosed when Microsoft launches its Mixed Reality platform with the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update in a couple of days time.
Via: MSPoweruser
Spotify has taken a good long while making a Universal Windows Platform app — one app that would work across Windows 10 Mobile, Xbox and on the PC. It has promised to come up with one sooner or later and it is definitely hitting the “later” part of that spectrum.
And with no mobile app existing, some users have complained in reviews to ask what’s going on. Even with the recent release of its desktop app — some deem the app to be a simple repackaging of its existing full program — Spotify has yet to do any convergence work with its other apps.
Spotify Windows 10 App
Well, the company has recently started responding to those complaints with this general statement:
Spotify App Windows 7
For many technical reasons, fully converting our Desktop app to UWP is not trivial for us. However, this hasn’t stopped us from investing in UWP features for our Desktop application (We now have Live Tiles, and Cortana has just been released to Windows Insiders). We are also available on Xbox, which is a UWP app. The technology we use to bring Spotify to the Windows Store allows us to invest in UWP over time, whilst ensuring that installing, updating and removing Spotify is simpler (and safer) than ever. We hope you can understand that we do care about WIndows 10 and will continue to invest in the Windows 10 ecosystem.
Install Spotify App
So, why not put more work into the Xbox application and release that as the Windows 10 app? Well, the possibilities might not stem the flow of complaints, but at least Spotify is actively working on those UWP spec requirements and knowing that is half the battle.