App of the Week: Spotify

Spotify Icon  Photo courtesy: iTunes

Spotify Icon Photo courtesy: iTunes

By Ariel Barbera, Assistant Editor-in-Chief

This week’s top app is the popular music app Spotify, and its 10-year anniversary is coming up in April.

Used by over 100 million people in the country, Spotify gives everyone free access to millions of songs on Android and iPhone devices. The app gives the user a wide variety of different music that they can listen to, whenever they want and wherever they are.

Earning a 4.5 rating on Google Play with over 100 million downloads, the lovable music streaming has earned a number of outstanding feedback. Users stated that the app is easy to use, and it has the best music selection.

Popular groups, such as Imagine Dragons, can be found on Spotify. Photo courtesy: Google Play
Popular groups, such as Imagine Dragons, can be found on Spotify. Photo courtesy: Google Play

Junior Casey Beall uses Spotify at least once a day and enjoys listening to music during her free time.

“[Spotify] has a lot of songs that you don’t need to buy, and they have a lot of artists available,” said Beall. “I listen to all types of music. I like listening to Led Zeppelin, Maroon 5 and The Weekend.”

Spotify gives you the ability to create your own playlist with your favorite songs and artists at any time, a feature loved by many of its users.

Junior Julie Kingsborough uses Spotify to listen to her favorite artists and to catch up on today’s top hits.

“[Spotify] is really simple to use,” said Kingsborough. “I like listening to Adele and many of today’s top artists.”

Originally released on April 2006 in Sweden, the music streaming app has improved over the years and has grown in popularity. The company continues to make new updates and improve their streaming success today

Shuffling through the playlist is always a fun way to listen to music on the go. Photo courtesy: iTunes
Shuffling through the playlist is always a fun way to listen to music on the go. Photo courtesy: iTunes

Spotify released an update on March 14 that allows the user to choose where to store tunes by going to Settings, allowing for a more customizable playlist. Though having a playlist play your favorite tunes in a specific order is always great, enabling Shuffle Mode is always fun, as well.

Though the app is now free, upgrading to Spotify Premium gives you even bigger features. With the upgrade, you’ll be able to download music for offline listening so that no internet connection is required to listen to your music. Sound quality is also improved with Spotify Premium, and there are no ads that will pop up while you’re listening to music.

Junior Monika Rostekkuwazaki has Spotify Premium and enjoys the perks of listening to any song the app has available.

“[Spotify] has a lot of music on there, and I can download the songs and listen to them at any time,” said Rostekkuwazaki. “I listen to mostly anything, besides country, on there.”

Other top apps on Google Play include Color Switch, Stack, Clash Royale, and Piano Tiles 2.

Spotify can be downloaded for free through the Google Play Store and iTunes on Androids, iPhones, tablets, and PCs.