There are three ways, as of writing this, to get Spotify working on the N900.
- Despotify Command line version
- Qtify
- Yaspot
First run, I was faced with the login screen for the first time:
It's easy and intuitive enough. The only thing that leaves a question mark is the choice of bitrate. What bitrate is it? Do I have enough bandwidth for high? I suppose I could google it, but what would that really tell me, that I wouldn't still have to test out in real life? So, let's leave it checked and see what happens.
My first test run is during my morning commute in Helsinki, Finland. I know the 3G connection is shaky at best at some points. All my previous phones have had trouble staying connected to the internet, especially at one point in a suburb called Tammisto. The N900 is no exception, so what will happen? My HTC Hero played right through this Bermuda Triangle of 3G. It will be interesting to see how Yaspot and Despotify does.
My first test run is flawless. I have NO problems what so ever during the whole 30 min trip. I can easily swap songs, get to my playlists, do searches etc. Everything works. I get a very good feeling about this.
My second test run is not as glamorous. I get constant skipping and I'm wondering how it is that my 3g connection is worse on the way back. Is it that the bus is full of people? Is the weather worse? Does my N900 require a reboot? Do I not have enough bandwidth for high bitrate, even though it worked perfectly for 30 minutes this morning? I reboot, log on again with low bitrate and am again able to enjoy my music with nary a skip.
So, time for the third test. Morning commute the next day. I go with hight bandwidth again, just for the heck of it and it works. However, in the Bermuda triangle (Tammisto), I get skips. I'm not too concerned, since this was more or less expected even during the first run. I decide to see what happens if I don't start fiddling with my N900 and let it sort out the connection issue by itself. Sure enough, 10 seconds beyond the Bermuda triangle, Prodigy comes back to life and works beautifully for the rest of the trip.
Bottom line: Yaspot is VERY usable for me. It doesn't cache music ahead of time like the official Android client, it seems. My Android never skipped in Tammisto, because it had time to cache so much music that I always med it through - unless the song ended in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle. Then it too, took a break.
Yaspot is significantly better in terms of user interface when it comes to searching. The official Android client is a huge clusterfuck when you try to search for something. The N900 is all business and may not look as good, but boy does it deliver.
It's not perfect though. Here are the bad parts:
- Yaspot always skips when the N900 does something else. When the screen dims, when you lock the device, when you enter the dashboard, when the device comes back to life etc. There's half a second of silence. Best to just leave it alone while you're listening to music. Probably a Despotify issue and not Yaspot.
- Yaspot did crash a couple of times. Especially when I got impatient and clicked stuff when it was already processing.
- Not that beautiful to look at.
- No music caching (or very little, it seems)
- It does appear to suck a LOT of battery. Beware of that. I am seeing a full battery when I start my commute and something like 75% left when I get to work. It's to be expected, I suppose.
Here are some screenshots:
This is the view you get when you have logged in
Search results look like this
This is what happens when you click the rightmost column
in the search results. You are taken to Album view.
If you want a "now playing" view, you need to back three steps from
album view and press "playing queue" on the first screen or select it
from the status bar menu. Notice how there is no indication
of what track we are actually listening to :)
album view and press "playing queue" on the first screen or select it
from the status bar menu. Notice how there is no indication
of what track we are actually listening to :)
