Spotify Desktop Client Update Offers iTunes Library Import & New Social Features [Spotify 0.4.3 Boasts iTunes Integration, Facebook Connect, Profile Web Publishing]

Posted on TFTS by Andrew Tingle on Tuesday, 27. April 2010 under: Audio,Visual

Fans of Spotify who also happen to have an expansive iTunes library (or, for that matter, who use iTunes at all) will doubtless rejoice at the news that the latest iteration of the Spotify desktop client, namely Spotify 0.4.3, at last offers iTunes integration, allowing users to port their iTunes library over to Spotify to combine music libraries. But that’s not all the newly updated Spotify desktop client has up its sleeve.

Spotify Desktop Client Update with iTunes Integration

Whilst the facility to combine your Spotify and iTunes libraries is doubtless the main draw of the new version of the software, version 0.4.3 also panders to those of you with a social bent in allowing you to connect with Facebook within the Spotify UI – meaning that you can view your friends’ profiles without leaving the application, as well as send tracks to friends directly (using drag and drop) and track playlist changes.

Additionally there are other tweaks to the application, such as wireless syncing, Mosaic images for playlists, a new toolbar and, Spotify will also act to automatically attempt to get you a replacement tract should the track you’re attempting to play won’t.

Here’s a full run down as to what’s on offer with Spotify 0.4.3 but, if you don’t fancy reading through what’s on offer there’s a video presentation to follow:

Social

Connect to Facebook: you can connect to Facebook inside of Spotify, instantly adding all your Facebook friends who’ve selected the same feature. Your friends’ profiles will appear in a new ‘People’ sidebar at the right of the screen, with your personal profile at the top.
Add usernames: you can also add people by typing their Spotify username, should you know it, into the Spotify search field. For example searching ‘spotify:user:username’ will bring up their profile (if their profile is published).
Publish your Spotify profile to the web: easily publish the link to your Spotify profile on your blog, Facebook page, website or anywhere else on the web and allow others to follow your musical journey. For example here’s a link to the official Spotify profile.
Inbox: a new ‘inbox’ folder on Spotify’s left sidebar lets you send tracks to friends directly within the platform, simply by dragging and dropping a track to their name in the People sidebar. Alternatively, just right click on the track and select the new ‘send to’ option.
Facebook feed: music your friends have posted on Facebook will be visible on the Spotify ‘What’s new’ page and via a new ‘Feed’ tab.
Popularity count for playlists: all playlists will show how many other Spotify users are currently subscribed to that playlist. By clicking on the number, you can even see the usernames of those who added the playlist.
Track playlist changes: see who and when a track was added to a playlist with the new ‘Added’ and ‘User’ columns in playlists.

Library

Local files: missing any music in Spotify? Now you can import a link to all the music files stored on your computer with a simple click of a button.
Gracenote: As with any good music media player, if you have missing or incorrect track information you need software to check those files and automatically correct them so that you can better organise and link them to our catalogue. Gracenote does just this.
Local file linking: we will check your local files and see if we have that track/artist/album in Spotify. If we do, we’ll make the file linkable so you can easily go from that file into an artist or album page. This allows for better sharing of playlists that contain a mix of your own music and Spotify’s.
Starred: every track and album on Spotify can now be ‘starred’ – allowing you to tag all your favourites into a special sub-folder.
Wireless sync: you can copy your music files to your mobile without connecting a USB cable with our new wireless sync feature.
Filter bar: the library has a permanent filter-bar at the top so you can easily type in what you’re searching for. In all other lists the filter bar is visible when pressing cmd-f (mac) or ctrl-f (windows).

Additional features

Mosaic images for playlists: the artwork from the first nine tracks in a playlist will create a cool mosaic image for your playlist
New toolbar in headers: Sharing music to Facebook/Twitter and your friends is much simpler. Easy to subscribe or unsubscribe to a playlist as well as view information about how popular a playlist is.
A share icon in ‘Now playing’ artwork: makes sharing what you’re currently listening to much easier.
Automatic track replacement: Spotify will now automatically try to find a replacement for any track you can’t play. So if a friend in another country sends you a playlist with tracks you can’t play or a local file, we’ll search our catalogue and link to a playable track when possible. A ‘link’ icon next to the track name represents replaced tracks.

The newly updated Spotify desktop client is rolling out as an automatic update as of now for European based Spotify users whilst US based Spotify users wanting to get their hands on 0.4.3 will have to wait until the summer.

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