Spotify

[BigTillyMint]

Can you save music straight to your i-pod, or do you have to pay?

And if you can, how do you do it?

TIA!

You have to pay something a tenner a month, I think, to be able to download anything but can listen for free.

Oh, that's a shame! Although I guess £10 is good value if you downloaded loads of stuff.

Mmmm..........

Pineapplechunks ... they're no longer accepting new 'free' users without an invitation (people paying for subscriptions are given invites to pass on to friends).

Napster is also worth a look, as they also offer some downloads, but if the streaming is good enough there may well be software that would allow you to record the output.

Don't know about what apps are popular for Macs but there's software called Total Recorder for Windows which works rather well.

However, be aware that with conversions to and from digital format you may hear a loss of quality.

Audio (on vinyl or CD) -> MP3 (at website)

MP3 -> audio (to play at your PC)

audio -> (recorded with Total Recorder) -> MP3 (to save on your PC)

MP3 -> audio (in your iPod).

It will depend how good your hearing is, how sensitive you are to any distortion, and what you are listening to (quiet classical pieces might be awful afterwards, whilst thrash metal, which is awful anyway might hide distortions or quality losses!)

I'm pretty sure that even if you pay for a Spotify account you can't "download" tracks to your iPod.

If you have an iPod Touch or an iPhone you can pay the money and then I think that the Touch/iPhone will cache some music so you can get to it when you're offline but if you stop paying the money then you stop being able to play them.

As BP says, you have to stay subscribed to Spotify (which allows 3 devices to each store 3,333 tracks) but I believe the devices each need to have their licence 'refreshed' every month.

Napster allows actual MP3 downloads (but counted on your fingers and toes) each month. But from the comments made by some staff in a hi-fi shop, the range of tracks is wider on Napster and the cost is half that of Spotify.

Shutting itself off from 'free' {trial} users might be commercial suicide for Spotify, if the only way new customers hear /use it is by way of invitation from existing customers. If they are not seen to compete with Napster (and possible Apple streaming service, which would grab a big market share if one assumes existing iPod Touch/ iPhone users would be natural customers) and are priced at double, then they could vanish without trace...

"Shutting itself off from 'free' {trial} users might be commercial suicide for Spotify"

I think the problem is that free users alone were most definitely commercial suicide. Advertising alone was not going to generate the revenue required to keep the company afloat and the users were evidently not keen on moving from the free to the paid model.

So Spotify are trying something new and hoping that the existing bed of free users will help generate some traction in getting people to pay for an account.

It's a great service, but I'm lucky and have had a free account for a while now

Thanks for that - I managed to register for the waiting list a while ago, so it is free for me, but I will stick with itunes for my downloads!

I saw a link to spotify this afternoon on facebook, and found that it is now available for free

Aha - thanks very much for the info, flier - that makes today one of the few times I've seen an update about a service on the same day it was announced !

Seems they are now offering different options called Spotify Open (up to 20 hours playing time per month) and Spotify Unlimited (5 Euro, or 4.99 pounds)

If you want to use Spotify on a mobile you need the Premium version at 9.99 and if you try one with no fees abroad then they only work for a maximum of 2 weeks.

I can see a possible problem with "abroad" because some users on AOL have from time to time been blocked from the BBC as it thinks they are in the USA. Even using Three Mobile dongle, I had some other UK radio station block me as I was "abroad" and I've not been away for years. Anyway, you have been warned!