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Many feel that Spotify has taken its sweet time in launching the app, especially with a decent version of it long established on the iOS platform but only working on the iPhone and iPod Touch products.
The reason for the wait is that Spotify didn’t just want to enlarge the iPhone app for the bigger iPad screen, it wanted to create something specific to the iPad experience. Spotify’s promotional video amusingly tells us that users can simply press the ‘2x’ button to enlarge the iPhone version to suit their iPad, but that’s not the case.
Spotify for iPad launches today on the App Store as a free app, available only to Premium users to log in and stream music. It’s got support for Retina Display graphics and naturally looks stunning on the iPad 3, and works well on the iPad 2 and original iPad as well.
The interface is very neat indeed and smooth to use. Tabs down the side of the screen offer Search, What’s New, Inbox, Playlists, People and Settings functions, while the home screen gives you recommended content, Trending Playlists, Top Tracks and New Releases.
The Playlists page looks pretty neat, synchronising your existing playlists in one pane with a half-hidden pane to its right for your starred tracks. Starred tracks can be brought further into the frame by simply sliding it from right to left, and once you’re done it can be swiped back again.
We also like the People tab, which displays your connections from Spotify and Facebook as thumbnails accompanied by their Facebook profile picture. Simply tap a contact and a pane will sweep across from the right to give you the lowdown on your friend’s activity – Published Playlists, Top Tracks and Top Artists. Selecting a playlist brings across a further pane to give you the tracklisting, the option to listen and subscribe as well as sharing options for Facebook, Twitter, Email and Spotify contacts.
As with other versions of the Spotify app, you can easily create playlists from within the app and then make them ‘Offline Playlists’ so that you can listen even when you don’t have a data connection.
From our first impressions Spotify for iPad is everything it should be: great-looking, intuitive and easy to use. Check it out now and let us know what you think.
Let us know your thoughts on our comments below or via our @Gadget_Helpline Twitter page or Official Facebook group.
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