The Spotify Car Thing cost $100, but I can't use it anymore.
EDIT: The only reason why I still had it at this point was because I could use it with other apps. However, now that my Spotify Subscription is cancelled, it doesn't work with anything. It's mildly infuriating because today, I can't still use it with other apps like I was able to yesterday.
Please don't make the same mistake I made. No one should buy this.
I cancelled my paid Spotify account because I can't get them to stop fucking recommending Joe Rogan to me.
I've been pretty happy with YouTube music. I got legacied in due to Google Music shutting down and thought I would hate it, but I've had zero complaints. Plus, it comes with free YouTube Premium, so I haven't seen an ad in years.
I have so many complaints, Google Play music was fine. It did exactly what I wanted it to.
YouTube music is like an alien looked at that app, and tried to recreate it exclusively by smashing it's forehead against a keyboard until an app that started most of the time came out.
I would say the same myself. They don't do the worst job for music discovery either which is important to me. Amazon Music drove me nuts constantly recommending Cage the Elephant and other well-known (profitable) artists instead of obscure music similar to my tastes.
Same. Honestly, I expected YTM to make things worse. That's usually how those kinda things go. But it actually did get better for me. I jumped to Google Play Music because it had better selection than Spotify (at least back then). YTM kept that, but fixed the issues I was having with the desktop browser player sometimes getting stuck. And the more recent support for lyrics that are synced to the music is great.
Their queueing system sucks. All I want to do is queue up some songs but instead YTM fills my queue with tons of crap I've never listened to before because that's how they make money. They put my manually queued songs at the END of the queue so I have to move them up 20+ spaces. There's literally no way to do it other than creating a custom playlist every time I listen to music, and they intentionally made that take more clicks/taps than queuing. I don't get how people are ok with the YTM app, it's terrible.
I hate YTM and I hate that I can't cancel it because they bundle it with YouTube premium, which my partner uses every day. Screw Google and they anti-consumer manipulative bs.
There's literally a feature on Spotify where you can hide an artist and never see it, fyi
That's really dissapointing, did Spotify seriously release a hardware device that expensive, and mandates a subscription to operate?
It's a shame because it looks quite nice too, and is sadly guaranteed to be e-waste at some point
Are you kidding me? It's been par for the course as far as car assessors go. Sirus radio was like 100 and still required a subscription. A lot of GPS were that price and most had subscriptions.
Don’t know why you’re being downvoted - enshittification as a viable consumer business model was pretty much proven in the auto space.
Just like they want to charge you to use the heated seats you’re paying the gas to lug around anyway
Just because it's percieved as normal doesn't mean it's something we should put up with though.
With GPS subscriptions (the ones I'm aware of anyway) they will still navigate you from A to B when you stop paying the subscription, you usually just miss out on traffic updates, map updates and other localized enhancements. If there are any that deny you navigation outside the subscription that's plain scummy IMO.
I'm not familiar with Sirius Radio but from what I can see online, it's a satellite radio subscription service that seems to bring new things to the table (like starting a radio station at the beginning of a last song etc). The hardware appears to actually serve a purpose, i.e. it's the satellite receiver for the radio service subscription. I believe we could compare this to buying a Starlink dish for internet access, and paying the monthly subscription. The spotify device shown here is not a standalone device and is only fitted with bluetooth IIRC, requiring a phone for operation.
In comparison to Spotify, Sirius does not appear to have ever had a free plan - whereas Spotify does... I see is no reason why Spotify could not make their free plan usable on this device.
Edit: fix typo
Those I don't fault. Sirius has satellites to maintain and they don't get ad revenue.
GPS makers, well making maps on that scale is very expensive. Not everyone can be google and give it away to end consumers by harvesting user data and selling ads to businessplaces.
Spotify though, fair enough to charge for the hardware but once bought should work with the ad-supported version of their product....
I could still use it for playing music in other apps. Now I can't.
I think I got an Echo Auto for $25 (during the public tests). It doesn't need any kind of a subscription to use as far as I'm aware. It only does streaming still, but there are Alexa skills that let you stream from your Plex or Jellyfin server.
I mean, it's basically a cheap smartphone or computer tablet, with a lower resolution, but nice quality screen, and a giant volume spinner. $100 does not get you much at all in the phone and tablet space. I don't think there's much of any profit margin, if at all for it.
Poor-poor multibillion company has to nickle and dime you earn sometging to eat
No way to hack the hardware and allow it to be used for something else?
I just saw another comment mentioning it can be rooted: https://lemmy.world/comment/2904183
I considered getting one of these a couple years ago and saw Spotify was discounting them heavily and even giving them away for free in some cases. I didn't wind up getting one but do wish they would release a simple player + speaker like this for home use.
you can try this
https://github.com/williamtcastro/carthing-non-premium-spotify
the whole ui/dashboard is just a web app, so it's pretty easy to "jailbreak" or modify
I also may or may not use a 'freemium' spotify apk. Its been about 3yrs and not issues, so far...
Why would you even buy this? Literally just buy a phone mount and use your phone. This thing was a textbook example of a useless product.
Seriously, what does this do that a phone doesn't? Am I missing something? Even early Android/iOS devices could run Spotify in their time (although not always anymore). What does this do?
Whenever I'm driving, my phone is almost permanently mounted as a GPS. I also own the car thingy, it has very intuitive hardware buttons and a dial on top of being touch screen. This way I can leave my phone on the GPS screen and adjust Spotify controls on the car thingy without taking attention of the road.
The only real shitty thing I would argue is that you NEED Spotify premium not just to control your Spotify, but also to control youtube/mp3 player/ any other media that you would want to play through your phone.
It has volume button. Idk
They named their device “Car Thing?” Just looked it up. Why not just buy a phone mount and play through your phone?
You can get a magnetic phone mount for like $10-15 that fits in the CD slot like in the picture. Not sure why this is a thing.
Why not just buy a phone mount and play through your phone?
It has the nice big knob so you can change the music while looking at the road...
Can't you get Bluetooth steering wheel controls for like $30?
Fits with the stupid, low effort, cave-man speak error message "Need Premium Account"
Deception followed by coersion is an excellent way to increase shareholder returns.
Why do you hate capitalism?
Deception and coercion are by definition not part of capitalism. If those things are happening, capitalism has broken down.
Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price systems, private property, property rights recognition, voluntary exchange, and wage labor.
— Wikipedia
I’ve highlighted the parts the conflict with deception and coercion.
You're quoting capitalism's sales pitch of capitalism.
Go to your local tent city in every city if you want to see what "voluntary" looks like, dying of exposure and police capital defense force harassment while serving as capitalism scarecrows to keep the working poor scared shitless into "voluntarily" showing up to be exploited for already wealthy people's further profit for their unquenchable greed.
Capitalists aren't even willing to admit being greedy, only acting on "rational self-interest." If you want to believe what capitalism claims to be, you do you. If you want to see what capitalism is, use your senses and your critical thinking skills.
Capital accumulation
I have a car thing, I use it at my desk for media controls. It is pretty great.
But the product description was pretty clear that you needed premium to use it. The same goes for using any third party Spotify client. Shouldn't have expected otherwise.
Buying any physical hardware that doesn't function without a subscription should be a illegal, not something you should expect.
But the point is that the description of the product clearly stated it needs a subscription to function. You literally buy it with that understanding. If you didn't read the description then it's 100% on you.
Whether it should be legal or not, or whether it's ethical or not, is a different discussion. But the product wasn't disingenuous about how it works, so complaining about how it works exactly as advertised is a bit silly.
A gas stove requires a subscription.
What is this device? I'm confused as to why it even exists.
Edit: I discovered it is literally called "Car Thing".
I've never heard of it before, it looks like a smartphone that doesn't do anything other than have the spotify app? Like is there any mapping or calling built in? And to lock hardware like this behind their premium subscription is wildly, not mildly infuriating.
Man we’ve hit the point where people don’t even know about Sirius or XM radio do they? You paid to listen and you had to pay for the receiver, oh and likely an adapter to get it to work on the vehicle too.
All it provides is a simplified ui and voice control, the same voice control as the Spotify app. It doesn’t even play the audio, it is a remote for the app on your phone which is doing the real work.
I have the hobby of cracking stuff like that (but mainly windows apps to tell you the truth) and there are many-ish people out there with the same hobby. search around a bit and google stuff like "Spotify Car Thing github" or "Spotify Thing bypass" or jailbreak. Heavily rely on github and russian forums. Also random small blogs
If you're so determined though and nobody else has done it and you're fine not using it for 3+ months, there's a very slim chance that I could find the time to bypass it
EDIT: Yeap it's cracked and it's easy too
Thank you for your service, comrade
unfortunately I’ve not released any crack and the reason behind it is that I develop them in a way that you can read what they do (which function they hook, what do they expect and more) using https://frida.re so the crack ends being a javascript file that is run through a power shell script. so no “copy this dll” or “disable your antivirus” - super clean and you can always see what the crack does. my base is ALWAYS that you download and install the app from the manufacturer
due to that though I “can’t” release the scripts to the public as:
The only thing I like about Russia. The warez
same with china
Based coder brings the freedom.
Russian forums are truly the peak of hacking
And? Their site clearly states that a premium subscription is required.
Honestly this is such a stupid product... Just buy an Android Auto and/or Carplay device instead. They are cheaper, offer more features, and don't force you to pay a subscription fee to utilize it.
Fuck products like this one. If you own it, it should be yours to use.
Do you have a recommendation for a good one of the Android auto things? They vary so much in price and I don't know if paying more means it's actually better
I guarantee you that some idiot working there thought it was "quirky"
can't blame the devs, it's a thing for a car. better than spoticar
better than spoticar
Barely, if at all.
Unironically Spoticar would suck less
Sp-auto-fy
better than spoticar
Nope
I wouldn't have expected them to do it any other way. The only reason why Spotify is still around is because every bit of competition is even more incompetent and greedy than they are
As a consumer, Spotify competes for my money with Bandcamp, who gave their cut to artists throughout covid.
Owning things is always a better model than renting them (edit: exceptions exist, none of which I need to be @ed about)
totally agree. and plus i kind of want to be charged money here. i want the musicians i listen to to get paid and be able to continue making music. i don't know if the amount they get paid vs spotify's cut is fair, but honestly if I wasn't paying my monthly subscription id probably be paying $0 and listening to less music.
I have hundreds upon hundreds of songs in my Spotify music collection. The people telling me to just pirate my library are absolutely wild. I can't even imagine how long it would take me to find and download every single song. And then I wouldn't have a simple way to discover new music. Spotify is the one and only subscription service I find to be useful.
Its crazy seeing people go apeshit just because spotify costs money. One of the least fucked up subscription services and yet they are mad because it isnt free. Come on guys :(
I'm enjoying Tidal as an alternative, haven't heard anything bad about them!
even more incompetent and greedy
even more incompetent ****or greedy
Napster pays artists more, costs less… but the service was garbage.
Fuck streaming. Return to a big dumb pile of MP3s.
I still buy CDs and rip them. All the music I want on my phone ready to play from headphones or the car
I just bought a CD player a few weeks ago. It's not very good (it's a combination CD player/alarm clock, and the speakers are crap) but it's nice being able to just put a disc in and press "play" instead of booting up one of my game consoles or plugging in my USB optical drive. I've started hitting up second-hand stores for CDs to play with it.
I stopped listening to music, radio or nothing. I'm tired of being constantly stimulated, I desire peace and quiet
Instructions unclear burning 8 track tapes.
FLAC or some other lossless format is better.
I actually really love the idea of spotify, but their execution is fucked. Joe Rogan's getting billions and musicians who make up the overwhelming majority of the plays get microscopic returns per play. That's bullshit.
I mean to be fair, Spotify as a company clearly would rather give millions to right-wing shitheads than ~anything else.
How else will Joe Rogan be able to afford his basic necessities like subverting democracy 🥺
Out of all the things that Spotify is shitty for that's the least of my worries about them, and I fucking hate right-wing shitheads. People would rather see the artists they love starve if it gave them convenience to enjoy their art without actually paying for what they do.
It's honestly kind of baffling to see people go up in arms enough to side with fucking Disney "in support of artists" because AI is supposedly stealing from them and the same people go on with their lives and put on Spotify and feel self-righteous. People fucking suck.
/rant
and the same people go on with their lives and put on Spotify and feel self-righteous
Yeah but consider that for me for example, I was previously giving exactly 0 to artists. Now I give whatever tiny amount my odd song played here or there pays out. Which is more than previously.
Is it a lot? No. Do I listen to a lot of music? Hell no. Did I buy any music before as a result? Fuck no. And now I sometimes listen to some. Plus the music I listen to I couldn't buy in physical anyways (low-fi or synth background noise while coding), and wouldn't know where to buy digital even if I wanted to. Previously I just used a noise generator, btw.
It's probably not a good idea to assume that 100% of listeners on spotify would have invested that same amount of money into physical sales.
Imagine if they had spent that $50 million on programmers instead. They could have had the best music playing app in existence.
Wait, so let me get this straight.
You purchased a device that presumably has no local storage and are upset that it needs you to login to a server that can then stream you the music?
Or is this an issue of not having a paid account?
I guess Spotify didn't realize someone who didn't pay for Spotify would be likely to pay 100 bucks for a device to stream Spotify, and in most cases I'd say they're probably right.
upset that it needs you to login to a specific server before it will let you stream music from other unrelated servers
FTFY
Take a look at rooting it, maybe you can find some way to use it to stop it from just being e-waste. https://npjohnson.github.io/Spotify-Car-Thing-Root/
Image Transcription:
A photo of a Spotify Car Thing with the text displaying on the screen under the Spotify logo: "Need a Premium account To use Car Thing you need to be logged in to a Spotify Premium or Premium Family account on your phone."
[I am a human, if I’ve made a mistake please let me know. Please consider providing alt-text for ease of use. Thank you. 💜]
Good human
Hi transcript gpt
Hello Android 009.
I betcha someone in the piracy groups can help you jailbreak that thing so it will continue to function.
Edit: Yep someone in the comments linked you a GitHub project that should work
That makes total sense else I'd be getting a lifetime Spotify sub for $100 and a $100 device thrown in as an unrelated bonus.
Wait till they put Denuvo in the car, for you montly driving plan.
Yes. My personal belief is they want account-bound services normalized by the time self-driving cars become viable. They would HATE for us to have the ability to lend our cars out to other people throughout the day without giving them more money
We are in the era that other than games, the companies have not yet caught up with anti-cracking techniques. I crack shit as a hobby and everything is fun and challenging until you start to mess with games. It's insanely difficult, a CONSTANT cat n mouse run and sooooo damn time consuming
I don't use Spotify, but I selected a song on someone else's phone recently. The first time opening it in years and it opens up to an ad saying "buy our tshirts".
I couldn't help but think times must be hard 😅
You paid $100 to play music that you didn't own. It feels mean to put it that way, but it was never a foolproof plan if we're being honest.
You'd be shocked to hear that people purchase radios for over $100 to listen to music they don't own.
There's a difference between purchasing a product and paying for a service.
Paying for Spotify would be the latter.
I don't understand the point of this device. Why not buy a replacement radio for the car instead? I bought a Pioneer one and it was a nice upgrade to my 2012 Mazda3 since I can plug in my phone to use Android Auto and get the screen to show Google Maps + pretty much any music app on my phone.
There's plenty of 2010-2015ish cars with dogshit radios that are hard to find, expensive to get or literally impossible to find good replacements for, thanks to vehicle manufacturers killing of the DIN system.
A lot of aftermarket radio installation kits come with adapters to make up for the odd sizes. Of course, there may not be kits for every car.
My 2012 Mazda 3 has an adapter available to fit a standard double DIN radio into their weird shape. I imagine those are available for lots of cars.
Because buying a double DIN or even a single DIN radio can require buying a replacement bezel, disassembling your dash and often your center console as well, wiring in a steering wheel media control adapter, correctly wiring in the stereo, and having the knowledge to make adjustments when things don’t quite fit or go right.
“[just] buy a replacement radio” is not how it works at all.
Best Buy does this all for you for $80, assuming the person is in the US. I expect this is available most places for similar prices though. You can get anything from a BT only unit for $20 online to a much nicer unit with Android Auto/iOS's thing. While the initial cost might be higher the opportunity cost of your thing being disabled is almost certainly much higher, as this thread's existence seems to support. $150-$200 well worth it in the long run to do a head unit upgrade.
I did it all by myself with no experience - wired up the wiring harness properly, installed the bezel, connected some sort of adapter so the car alert tones and steering wheel controls still work, etc. I bought the radio from Crutchfield who have lifetime phone support to assist with any issues (I didn't need it though). I just followed the instructions they provided.
Car radios have become much more entrenched. My 13 Fusion has an external amp. Shit, my 96 Taurus did too. Plus if you have any phone, steering wheel, or other peripheral integration, you often lose those features. OP probably has integrated hvac buttons. Sometimes you can get adapters, sometimes the signals are buried in canbus lines
My 2012 Mazda3 has an external amp under the front passenger seat. I bought my Pioneer radio from Crutchfield and they included an adapter to make everything work. The amp works fine (most radios have a preamp output for this purpose), and the steering wheel controls work fine too.
My car just had a basic radio though. I guess it might be harder in newer cars with fancier radios. People that mount their phone or use things like this Spotify... thing usually have older cars/radios though. The newer ones just have Android Auto and Apple Carplay built in.
But weird, an android auto upgrade kit for my car would cost me 160. The Spotify thing is so not a good deal.
FYI, those are known to be full of malware if you buy the random branded ones off Amazon. It’s Highly recommend that people go with known reputable brands.
What's one of the reputable brands? All the ones I've looked at have really poor English in their descriptions so I don't trust them
Some you can reflash yourself.
They heavily discounted them and then stopped selling them altogether. Spotify has a huge track record of doing that kind of thing with features, much like Google. I’m surprised they still work at all.
Weird. Last I looked into an Android Auto update or something like this for my car, it was like $2000-3000. These cheapo units don't seem to replace the functions my current dash screen properly.
I wonder if it's because my dashboard already has a screen so it's more difficult to upgrade. It would need to integrate with the features that already involve the screen like the back up camera, climate controls, Bluetooth controls, etc.
But I mean I just put my phone in a $15 phone mount instead.
You literally can’t buy them anymore! Spotify quietly canned the project. Support pages are still up but I can’t find a purchase option anywhere.
I bought one pretty early into launch and even then they were already heavily discounted. It was a weird choice for a peripheral, but personally I really wish they had tried a bit harder instead of giving up outright
I can't believe they ever came out with this product since every phone in the universe can play music in your car.
Genuinely do not understand who their market was here
There’s a niche. I’ve only ever driven older cars with less than stellar stereo setups for phone play. The idea is getting a small-footprint and quick to navigate stereo interface without actually having to replace whole ass stereo, and I find it pretty appealing!
For me the problem was connectivity. I assumed the car thing would act as a go-between for my phone and stereo, and it would remain always connected to the car audio system. Instead it’s just another thing you’re connecting to. It actually slowed me down significantly more than it helped.
If it could send/receive audio and just used your phone as a source, that’d be ideal for me. Like a suped up bluetooth receiver with spotify connectivity.
xManager works a charm.
Back to downloading shit from YouTube!
This type of shit is why I just want a vehicle with a CD player that can hold multiple discs. Then I could just burn my favorite music onto a few discs and not have to worry about not having paid to have access to the music I want and don't have to worry about a song I dislike popping up randomly.
...or with a usb/sd port, there's no need to go back all the way to 90s/2000s tech for simple offline music playback
Hey dont dis 90s/2000s tech a cassette deck with an aux jack is rather versatile.
One that can take a USB storage device or an SD card would be much better. Same result, but no messing around with discs and it can hold way more music.
this is what I did.
Used SpotDL to download my entire spotify library, put on USB, now I have my whole library available, even if my phone is dead
There's a lot of better ways to do that like for me I typically ether just plug my phone into the line in port or if there isn't one I just pair my phone and play mp3s off of my MP3 player app and if your car demands you use a service just get a Bluetooth radio transmitter so your car thinks it's just listening to ordinary radio
A good solution 20 years ago but bluetooth and music files saved on your phone is a much nicer solution now.
You might really enjoy Plex + Plexamp. You own the library and choose your media but you don't burn CDs and can instead stream/pin (for offline) songs or playlists like you'd expect from a paid music service.
They offer a decent car interface as well.
I have done a2dp Bluetooth streaming for well over a decade now and it still works just fine and isn't married to any app.
High tech from the 90's :-D
MP3 CDs hold about 120 songs, which is pretty much the perfect amount to be able to curate while also not have to swap out discs too often.
Or 5 Meatloaf songs. I like his music but it would be nice if he could have figured out how to write a less than 20 minute song.
CDs skip when you hit bumps. Just use a thumb drive.
I got an old beater with a tape player and discovered they make Bluetooth adapters just like the old fm adapters i used years ago. Combined with a gig hdd dedicated to music on my phone and it feels like the old days again of burned cds and pirate bay
Just get songs from fileshares and play on a DAP.
My vehicle has a usb port. I never run out of music and I can listen to whatever I want.
Have you looked up jailbreaks? Quick search and I found a subreddit devoted to it and this.
I will go back to cassettes and 8-track before I give these greedy ass companies any money.
a good MP3 library is still the best "music streaming" option, just copy a few thousand songs to your phone and play them anywhere you want
I just tossed my headphone plug to cassette adapter for my truck because i recently updated my phone and nothing has headphone sockets anymore. luckily the bluetooth to FM transmitters have come a long way as well.
And you'll be awsome in that move.
Sell it and buy an Android Auto/CarPlay head unit. Then use Spotify in that. In my opinion, it's a much better experience.
Doing this
Do you have any suggestions on which one of those to get? There are so many choices but they all have very bad English in their descriptions or spam Instagram ads so I don't trust them
But a Sony, rca, jvc, boss, kenwood, pioneer, jbl.
If you use anything by the monopolist assholes, you can totally expect to get enshitified. I swtiched over to Tidal a while back. They support artists, not hate speech. And the audio quality is better.
Am I missing something, or why would you assume or expect that a Spotify peripheral could be used without a Spotify subscription? What even is this thing?
Because Spotify has a free tier that still let's you use the app and listen to music, just with ads
Based on OP it has other functions than just Spotify.
But things like that shouldn't need a subscription. It's a shitty thing to do.
Pelton, this car thing, etc. Have other functions that don't require the subscription but by making it mandatory they give you a unusable piece of junk if you ever cancel.
Wait, why would you buy that? Do you not have a phone?
I don't own one. But having real buttons is always an advatage for me when driving a car. I think my car can do everything the "Car Thing" did via the buttons on the steering wheel and the screen of the radio (or multimedia screen or whatever we call those nowadays), but if I had an car that can't I might have been interested.
Can I have it? I'd never buy one but I use Spotify constantly in my cab. It'd be nice to have it not attached to my phone.
Buy a second phone?
That's not just mildly infuriating. It's bloody exasperating.
I am sitting here, remembering buying a deck for satellite radio which also required a subscription to use. Definitely not new but definitely stupid in this day and age.
Fuck spotify, I use http://radio.garden
I'm definitely using this
I bought one too, I think for $75 pre-lauch. Very underwhelming interface... it's barely usable. I think they discontinued them already.
As I'm known for saying in my friend group....
Yay capitalism
Oof. I managed to dodge a bullet on this one. I preordered it,but never received it / was never charged.
I picked one up for like $5 when they were fire selling them. I've used it like 4 times.
My wife and I use ours (I bought 2) all the time. We like the voice activation from the unit and we like the interface for seeing what's playing better than we do our entertainment systems (we have used cars). It's not a slam dunk but it's good for what it does.
I wanted it to let back seat people control Spotify without touching my actual phone, and for that it works well.
About a year ago, maybe two years ago? Spotify started sending me feedback requests about the “Car Thing.” I was super confused about why anyone would buy something they could just use their phone for, and I finally caved and sent some feedback saying “I already have my phone, I don’t want more devices in my car. This is a bad idea.” And the requests stopped.
Guess they went through with it. Makes no sense to me. I use Spotify everyday, often for most of the day, I really have no issue with what I’m paying for, but that “Car Thing” just seemed like the most braindread venture.
Just my $.02
I think it's selling point is supposed to be voice commands and haptic controls (actual knob and what not). The interface does look like it'd be superior to the phone (at least a non-android auto or whatever Apple's is called) though I dunno if it's $100 superior.
in my 1998 car i just put in an Bluetooth capable radio with good speakers and a subwoofer and nobody can disable anything because it's not connecting to anything except for a Bluetooth device. i'm never gonna by anything newer just because i can repair this cars myself and i really don't want the mechanics in my area to fix it because i can't trust them to fix it and not make it worse
Same but with a 1999, keep at it. You'll never regret practicing at learning how things work. Some of the skills transfer even when you change what thing you're troubleshooting.
yeah skill like that are always usefull it also helps that i'm an mechanical engineer (trou an apprenticeship) :)
Remarkably, I did the same, and still had something disabled...by Spotify.
The unit had Spotify compatibility (as in, an input mode where you also got access to liking a song by pressing the volume button).
Spotify dropped support for it in the app, so it's not useful any more. It's not really a problem, Bluetooth input and media controls still work, and I've disabled the Spotify input. But remarkable how possible it is for companies to ruin something!
yeah my pioneer radio also has a Spotify mode that dosen't work anymore. i woud not use it anyway. and that's why i don't like electronics that need to connect to a server even if it doesn't need to
Honestly, what else did you expect? Lifetime Spotify Premium for $100? It was a shit product ever since it was launched. You bought it, it's on you.
Ah, yes. You are at fault, not the corporate greed.
Both consumer and corporate were greedy
I would have expected that the ad supported Spotify would have still worked. There is still a free tier.
I guess that's a fair expectation.
yeah, it's just access to a website. it's not like they pay artists shit
Makes me really love how gorgeous and functional CarPlay is.
That sounds like a Subaru problem, on my Chevy the carplay and Android Auto interface are the same exact size and take up the whole info screen.
My old Subaru wasn't like that either.
Lol why did you buy something without reading the fine print. Now suffer and keep complaining. Never buy anything that has a subscription model. If you paid $100 , that thing is yours ans you should be able to use it the way you want. Checkout YouTube Louis Rossman videos for some education.
Checkout YouTube Louis Rossman videos for some education.
I think you don't watch him or you are troll(or both) because first thing you is started to blame the customer
Yes because some people are really dumb. Like sometimes you'll question how the fuck they made it so far in life.
That’s painful. Chargeback on credit card if Spotify doesn’t take that back.
Although why would you need something like this if you have a phone + aux cord + adapter/dongle?
Nice second Gen Prius (2009?). Needs dusting.
2006 and it needs to be detailed
Looks like my dash, but the better trim, I don't have sat button.
Holy fucking shit, more importantly clean your car
Flash it
Google spotify premium mod apk and don't use gmail to make an account, it should work
Why no gmail? XManager has been working well for me (Microsoft email) for a couple years now.
That's so sad I really wanted one of these, shame man. I hope you can flip it or return it or something. Don't listen to the people telling you it's stupid, it's a cool idea I had my eye on it as well. Thanks for the warning
Tryb XManager Spotify its on github
Yeah, when they announced this thing I saw this coming a mile away. Sucks for all the people that they scammed with it though. Unless you're somewhat paranoid like me you probably would've thought it was neat, especially if you had an older car without an infotainment system.
One more reason I hate sp0tify
Spotify is a terrible option to use in 2023. I highly recommend Tidal for anyone with good headphones, speakers, Dac's, etc.
Honestly, I hate to say it, but even Apple music is a MUCH better solution right now.
Yeah, nah.
Spotify is fine. Apple Music is just the same but with worse music recommendations.
Looking into Tidal and it seems like a huge problem, who the fuck wants content exclusivity of songs? Its bad on consoles and it’s a fucking terrible idea with audio too. Can’t recommend anyone goes with them for such anti-consumer practices.
Just tried switching to apple music for the 10th time. Spotify is just so much better for recommendations and while spatial audio is neat the only way to find out if something is available in it is through the promoted playlists or playing the song and seeing if it says Dolby.
I have car thing and while it's better than pulling out your phone I still wish I had carplay. Have you tried "hey Spotify" on car thing? It hasn't heard me correctly a single time even parked with the AC off.
Genuinely curious why you think Apple Music is better. When I got my first iPad in years last year, I decided to try to go "all-in" on Apple services partly to consolidate and partly to save some money. After about 14-21 days, the only service left standing was Apple News+ (and only because the only other option was NewsReader which is 3x the price and I just generally didn't love the UI and the way it worked overall).
Apple Music seemed to have slightly less of the music I searched for (I don't have specifics, it was a year ago) and also seemed to be slower/shittier overall than Spotify. It was just generally unpleasant to use - this, coming from a guy who has plenty of gripes with Spotify's user experience.
I'm all for ditching Spotify (I have all kinds of issues with their general business practices and how they stiff artists, among other things), but like @dinckelman@lemmy.world mentioned elsewhere in these comments: "every bit of competition is even more incompetent and greedy than they are." I'm not going to say Apple is more greedy in this case, but they felt less competent.
I like having a family Spotify account, it’s a convenient and cheap way for 5 people to listen to music. Why are they terrible?
Because people here like to shit on things that are popular.
They’re successful
Spotify uses 320kbps ogg vorbis when on max quality, I would be really surprised if people could tell a difference compared to lossless.
Much like movies and tv shows, I've just started downloading my music again and putting it in Plex. I stream it to any device that I can put Plex/Plexamp on (or connect my phone to). Not great for music discovery, of course, since it's only playing music you've added to your library.
The audible difference between Tidal and Spotify is way overblown even with audiophile quality gear.
Apple Music does sometimes sound better by comparison, but that's more to do with the fact that they tend to curate their music library with better sounding master recordings than it does with what codec/bitrate they use.
The downsides of AM is that it can be a pain if you aren't already in Apple ecosystem, and its suggestion algorithm often isn't as good.
Seconding Tidal even without hi-fi because they pay artists significantly better than most services but honestly I just buy my music individually like a caveman and self-host it.
Nah. Tidal's collection is nothing compared to Spotify's and I, like most people, don't have the equipment to actually benefit Tidal's higher bitrate. I don't even have any wish to upgrade, I'm happy with Spotify's quality. I listen to mostly non-English songs and let me tell you, Spotify is miles ahead of Apple Music there. For English music, I find them mostly comparable. But Spotify has a nice Linux app, so they get my money.
I have to ask, what is your issue with Spotify?
That's a shame on you my friend
Wait, you paid for it? For awhile they were giving them out for free to anyone with Premium.
This is not true but basically true. Those who subscribed to the early access mailing list were able to purchase it for $25 instead of the $50 MSRP. I bought one when they first came out and I absolutely love it. I can definitely see OP's frustration from it not working unless you have premium, that's pretty bullshit.
Thus makes me kind of glad I still use pandora premium instead. I debated getting Spotify premium again but f that.
This does? Did you have a Car Thing?
Spotify to me is a far, far superior product. Sure Pandora paved the way, but it's Chrome to Netscape Navigator at this point.
I've always had a better experience with pandora anyways. It's a matter of preference too. Not saying people can't enjoy Spotify, I just don't.
Sucks but that's what happens when you support capitalism. 🏴☠️🦜⛵
Oh boo giving hoo. You bought a product that requires a subscription and has since the start.
The system working as intended. Now you're "locked in".
!stallmanwasright@lemmy.ml
Sadly he is always right. I wish he was wrong all the time.
"Just find another
jobplace to livehead unit"-deliberately obtuse bootlickers
Something tells me they just didn't realize someone would buy a Spotify car play without already having a subscription.
I mean really, you're too cheap for 9.99/m but you'll drop 100 bucks for something your phone already does?
Seems like OP is just in a very unique situation that Spotify didn't expect anyone to be in.
They say never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by neglect, ignorance or incompetence. But with a corporations I'm pretty sure its the other way around.
9.99/m is 119.88/y and it doesn't stop. Maybe OP thought that the purchase was a one time purchase, and I don't really blame him, since why would the thing exist if phones with a subscription can already do that it does?