Did You Accept The Spotify Challenge?

by Christine Hawthorne | Oct 9, 2012 | iTunes & Spotify Training, Music, Spotify

In my last post, ‘Why Try Spotify’, I put out a challenge for you all to give Spotify Premium a try.  My hope was that you would begin using it to create and share your playlists and deliver music to your cycling classes.  Judging from the overwhelming response that I have received here, on my own blog and through private messages, I’d say many of you rose to the occasion.

So many instructors contacted me to let me know that my post had motivated them to either try Spotify for the first time, or to re-visit their existing Spotify account and/or upgrade to premium status (because that IS where the magic happens.)

Many instructors simply wrote to tell me that they have been using Spotify for a while and that they have been very happy with it.

The overwhelming response is that people are extremely pleased with the ease of using Spotify in their classes and with the money that they are saving now that they don’t have to pay for music on iTunes or other music sites anymore.

Along with all of the enthusiasm about starting up with Spotify came A LOT of questions!  Most of them were the very same questions I had when I first started using Spotify.

For those of you just starting out, here are a few of the most frequently asked questions I’ve received, along with my answers.

**Disclaimer #1: I am no Spotify expert, nor do I claim to be.  I am simply interested in learning as much as I can about using it, so helping others navigate Spotify is one way for me to do that.  If my answers don’t work for you, it may be that there is more than one solution.  I am simply telling you what I’ve found to work for me.

**Disclaimer #2: All of the questions and answers that I am writing about in this post are directed at the use of Spotify Premium.  If you are using Spotify Free of even Spotify Unlimited, some of the tips and tricks will not work for you.  (Click here if you’d like to compare features from all three products that Spotify offers.  You can see that Spotify Premium is the only choice for use in your cycling classes.)

Can you use a regular iPod, iPod Nano or iPod Shuffle with Spotify? 

Yes and no.  Mostly, no. Because Spotifiy is a music streaming service, you do need to have an Internet connection to sync your music and stream it on your device.  (Exception: sort of-any music that is in your local files, which is music that you already own, can be synced to your iPod, just as with iTunes.  Also, any music that you purchase from Spotify can be synced as well.)  As far as the music that you are ‘borrowing’, you will need an Internet connection. But you don’t need an iPhone.  Click here for a link that lists all of the devices that are compatible with Spotify.

Do you actually own the music that you get on Spotify?

No.  Think of Spotify as a huge music library.  You are just borrowing the music.  But you can use it any time and anywhere you’d like.  The great part about that is the songs don’t take up a bunch of computer space, so it’s just as good, if not better than owning them.

Why would I need to take my playlists ‘offline’ and how do I do it? 

This is by far my favorite feature that Spotify offers.  Before I figured this one out, I was streaming my playlist live during one of my classes and my phone rang, interrupting my connection!  ‘Offline’ mode is great for when you don’t have an Internet connection, or you just don’t want your connection interrupted during your class.  Here’s how it works:  Simply click ‘available offline’ (the box will turn green) at the top right on your playlist page and on your device.  **You will also need to go to your phone settings and change to ‘airplane mode’ to ensure your music will remain uninterrupted.

What do all the little icons next to the songs mean?

Did you ever notice that some songs on your playlists have little icons after the album information?  Spotify uses icons to identify certain features of a track or playlist. Here’s a link to a chart that will show you what each icon means.

Why does Spotify ‘not allow’ certain songs from my playlist when I sync it to my device? 

 This one is usually a pretty simple fix.  The songs that are ‘not allowed’ are most likely from your Local Files.  This just means that these are songs that were already existing in your music library.  If you search for the same songs in Spotify’s music library and then replace them in your playlist with the same song from your local file, it should sync.

Why are the songs on my playlist playing out of order?  

You may think you are no longer in ‘shuffle’ mode when you actually are.  John explains the answer to this question quite well in this post.  Thanks for the helpful photos John!

Why does Spotify play only one song and then stop, rather than playing the entire playlist?

My suggestion to this problem was to restart the device.  It was as simple as that.  I’m not saying this will always work, but it’s worth a try for this particular problem, and probably for a few that I haven’t mentioned.  If you seem to be having any connection problems, I would always suggest restarting your device first.

How do I find people to follow on Spotify?

Oh boy, this one is tricky.  I have no problem admitting that I have not found an easy way to find people to follow on Spotify. I’m also finding it frustrating that while we can see who has subscribed to our playlists, we really have no way of knowing who is following us or who has added us to their favorites.  I have to say that this has been my biggest frustration with Spotify so far.  If they were to ask me for my two cents, I would tell them to find a way to make finding and following others more user-friendly.

You know I love a challenge though, so I have come up with a few resourceful ways of finding friends to follow on Spotify, which I will be sharing with you in my next post.

Until then, keep the Spotify questions coming and the tunes flowing!