Many people, including me, were wondering when Spotify would use its Connect feature — which launched just over a year ago — to connect their phone and desktop devices. Well, I’m pleased to say that this #firstworldproblem has been fixed, and you can now use your phone or tablet as a remote control for the tunes playing on your desktop.
The only stipulation is that you are a paying Spotify customer, but that’s always been the case for Spotify Connect — which lets you play music on WiFi-enabled devices in your vicinity, like speakers, using a mobile device. (Spotify has confirmed that just its iOS and Android apps are supported for now.)
Spotify Connect for computers uses the same setup as other hardware, and is easy to configure.
Ensuring that the Spotify app is open on your desktop, simply open up the app on your mobile and start playing a song. Then click through to the ‘now playing’ menu and open the connect icon in the bottom right corner of your screen.
The Spotify mobile app will take a few seconds to locate your desktop (and any other connected devices), after which you simply click on the device (us162188, in my case) and — hey presto — the music will play on your desktop.
You can then skip, change track, etc, right from the mobile app itself.
I’ve been playing with this a little this morning and, while it doesn’t solve any earth shattering problems, it makes the experience of using Spotify more convenient. And, frankly, that’s the aim of the game.
For example, I like my music and appreciate that when I finish work I can power down my laptop and pick up where I left off on my phone. I could also connect my laptop to ‘dumb’ speakers and get the Spotify Connect effect that WiFi-enabled hardware enjoy.
Spotify, of course, shows off more sophisticated situations for how it could work with the right speakers and other hardware.
The integration itself is unlikely to persuade anyone to fork out the $10 or so per month that Spotify Premium costs — especially you TSwift fans — but it’s a neat addition that I think many existing customers will appreciate.