Spotify HiFi Icon Spotted in Mobile App Suggests Imminent Launch
Spotify in February announced plans to introduce a new "HiFi" premium tier sometime in 2021, and while the company declined to offer a date, there's reason to believe a launch could be imminent, especially in the wake of Apple Music's lossless tier announcement on Monday.
In a timely discovery, hints of Spotify's lossless HiFi audio streaming service have again been spotted this week by Reddit user themonarc, who shared their finding with the accompanying image above.
According to the Reddit poster, a hidden HiFi menu was accessed in the Spotify app by "quickly tapping the glitched icon" that briefly appeared on the Now Playing screen upon launch.
Doing so brought up a separate screen explaining that the HiFi option supports 16-bit 44.1kHz streaming over wired earphones. The selected track didn't play in Hi-Fi quality, however, indicating that the server-side functionality isn't yet finalized.
First reports that Spotify was working on a lossless audio version of its streaming service actually appeared over three years ago, when the company started testing the option with a small group of users.
Back then, promotional screens pitched the "Spotify Hi-Fi" tier as a $5-$10 upgrade to a standard Spotify subscription. However, Spotify will likely be hard pressed to justify a paid-for upgrade, now that Apple Music has announced that its lossless offering, set to drop in June, will be free to existing subscribers.
Notably, Amazon Music has already acted to stem a potential audiophile exodus by offering its own Hi-Fi plan as an option for existing subscribers at no extra cost. We've reached out to Spotify for any update on their own HiFi launch plans.
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Top Rated Comments
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/spotify-music-hifi-lossless-b1806056.html
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/technology/spotify-hifi-tier-finally-launching-to-offer-cd-quality-streaming/ar-BB1dUoR9
https://routenote.com/blog/spotify-announce-their-new-cd-quality-lossless-audio-tier-spotify-hifi/
https://www.cnet.com/news/spotify-reveals-hifi-tier-80-country-expansion-new-exclusive-podcasts/
how long have we known about Apple lossless? according to this very website the earliest report was 17 days ago:
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/05/01/apple-music-hifi-tier-new-airpods-coming-weeks/
so they aren't copying Apple's every move. In fact in this case Apple is the one who should be doing the copying. Apple Music is inferior to Spotify (i'm using Apple Music on my iPhone so not just hating).
you mean the apps that are on ios, android, mac os, windows, linux, playstation, xbox, and even some TVs (LG for example)?????
meanwhile, i'm waiting for Apple to put out a dedicated Apple Music app for Windows so i can stop using the web player which is a buggy mess lol. "jUsT uSe ItUneS!!" ... no. it's old and archaic. it's so outdated and was designed for the iPod era.
i've used Spotify for 12 years (currently using Apple Music) and let me tell you the apps are fine and Apple has a lot of work to do before they can catch up with Spotify.
Thats one of the downsides of Apple Eco Systems.