At last - Spotify goes mobile

It's the killer app for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and for some reason Apple has been pipped to the post!

In the office I'm an avid Spotify user - if you don't know what I'm talking about, go to www.spotify.com. This site allows you to - legally! - stream unlimited music for free over the Internet, and the library covers pretty much what's available commecially from download stores such as iTunes so the choice is huge. The free version is paid for by adverts every half dozen tracks, but they are barely intrusive. You can only play it like a radio though, there's no download facility to listen off-line, although you can click on some tracks and buy them via third-party site.

But at last Spotify has released a mobile version for iPhones and Android mobiles which enables subscribers to Spotify's £9.99 a month premium service to stream music to a compatible handheld device via WiFi or a 2.5/3G phone connection. You would need an unlimited, or fairly generous inclusive minutes phone contract to make this viable, but it's a huge step forward for digital music.

Full details are at https://www.spotify.com/en/mobile/overview/. The even better feature is that you can create playlists in Spotify and download the tracks to your handheld to play offline. The only limit to this is the memory of your device. Playlists are available indefinitely provided you log on to Spotify online at least once every 30 days.

This looks to me like the app that Apple should have made. Maybe they haven't worked out a pricing model yet, but if the Spotify app catches on they'll have missed the boat. Or maybe they will just buy Spotify and rebrand it as an Apple service!