Spotify Free Streaming Comes to iOS

Spotify has officially outed its free streaming option to iOS users today, joining the ranks of Android that got the feature earlier last month. The new free streaming mode allows users to listen to any artist, playlist on a mobile device, but it has to be in shuffle mode, so it’s technically not on-demand.

In the past, you’d have to pay the $9.99 per month subscription to get the privilege of on-demand listening on your mobile device for any artist or album, and those without a subscription couldn’t access Spotify on a mobile device at all.

https://youtu.be/H-EIBBbxnfA

As for iPad users, it’s a little different. The Spotify iPad app allows tablet users to play any song on-demand, but they’ll hear audio advertisements every few songs or so.

The addition of free streaming on mobile devices from Spotify comes at no surprise, as there has been increasing pressure for the service to introduce some sort of free tier on mobile. Pandora, iTunes Radio and other services offer free streaming in some way, so it seems Spotify’s decision for a free streaming tier was based on the competition’s offerings.

While Spotify announced free streaming last month for Android only, and have only announced iOS support today, many users have reported that they’ve had access to the free streaming option since last month, so it’s possible that Spotify has simply been rolling out the feature on iOS over the last few weeks.