Spotify Challenges iTunes With iPod Support, Playlist Synching 95
Stoobalou writes with this excerpt from thinq.co.uk: "Spotify has made a surprise announcement, and while it's still not the long-awaited US launch, it will be making a splash over the pond: the streaming music service is morphing into an iTunes competitor. In what is a clear attempt at rattling Apple's cage, Spotify has unveiled a pair of major new features: the ability to synchronise Spotify playlists with iPods, and the option to buy MP3 files to own — both key features of the iTunes platform. Any playlist created via the Spotify player can be downloaded in a single step, making 'digital mix-tape' creation significantly simpler."
Being able to purchase MP3s is nothing new (Score:4, Informative)
Being able to buy an entire playlist, instead of one tune at a time, is though. Just to clarify.
Re:major "new" features? (Score:5, Informative)
Aren't those features of, well, pretty much any online music store at all, such as Amazon?
With Amazon I can buy mp3s, and syncing mp3s to my player is not a function of the damn store I bought it from! Drag and drop through USB mass storage has been around forever - I was doing that on my old IRiver player back ages ago.
I don't understand stories like this. Mp3s can be bought in a million and four ways, and syncing them to my own devices (although I don't own an iPod) has been possible for as long as there have been mp3s at all. What's the big deal here? If something today couldn't do that, it means it was behind basic functionality of the early 1990s.
Note to most Slashdotters - almost every time you stamp your feet declaring something unnewsworthy, you're usually missing something.
The key point here is that it syncs with iPods. Not "MP3 Players", not to a USB Mass Storage Device, but to an actual honest to goodness iPod. Amazon doesn't do that, specifically because iPods use a proprietary sync routine and can't be synced like most other players.
Re:Firmware patch coming... (Score:5, Informative)
Ummm, no. What Apple stops is non-iPod devices showing themselves as iPods to iTunes. They do not stop iPods from syncing with 3rd party apps. There are a metric shit-ton of Linux apps that can sync individual MP3s or playlists to iTunes and Apple cannot give a shit.
Remember, iTunes and its music store exist to sell iPods. If you've already bought that iPod, then great. Just don't make your device pretend to be an iPod, like Palm did with the Pre.