Help Spotify app

[SimonM123]

Hi there

How do people find the Spotify app in practice? I find the app quite brilliant in terms of usability, it looks awesome and moves fluidly, and I love that they've included a widget for the homescreens too. But some things about it do confuse me.

For starters, when I use it (in offline mode - I dont stream music with it, only listening to files offline downloaded earlier via wifi) it causes my phone to heat up quickly (HTC Desire). If I don't touch it and just let it play it cools, but the minute you navigate or adjust anything in Spotify it seems to cause excess heat. Is it really that processor hungry?

Furthermore, the way Spotify acts with Android (Froyo) is odd. It keeps an 'Ongoing' process going in Notifications, with no clear exit button, so you have to run it all day.

'Running Services' does show a Spotify process that I can 'Force Stop', but it seems a bit of a long way around to close the program every time. And when I start the phone, even if I don't open the Spotify app, that process runs on bootup. I presume that is being triggered by the Spotify widget on one of my homescreens.

Finally, the program also seems a tad buggy - one time, I skipped tracks quickly and it seemed to get confused, and showed my playlist as blank, then my list of playlists as blank too. I had to force stop and reopen it to get everything back.

Anyone with experience of this app and it's odd behaviour, your comments would be very useful. Thank you.

 

[Xyro]

You can close it via Menu >> Exit from the main page (not on the screen with the album cover), or something like that.

And yes, I found it to be a bit processor hogging, but I thought it was just my slow phone

And android will store apps in RAM for you, which is why it seems to be running even if you didn't open it. Don't worry though, they are loaded into the memory but aren't actually active; they shouldn't take up any extra power/processing speed.

 

[SimonM123]

Thanks for the reply. There is no exit button on any screen. I know in Symbian versions of Spotify mobile, you go to More > Exit. This is missing from here. I guess this is just in accordance with general convention - most Android Apps lack an Exit button, and I think that is because Android is supposed to be efficient at managing multitasking.

Its just that even when I've paused the music and hours have gone by, the process is still running and Spotify can still be instantly recalled. Whilst this is nice as I can pick up where I left off, I just cant believe that is having zero impact on the battery. Does 'Force Stopping' the Spotify process really not help the battery?

 

[Xyro]

Well, is the Spotify icon still in the notification bar? If it is, then it's still active. If the icon isn't there you shouldn't worry about killing the process.

You actually end up using more power if you kill apps; android is designed to cache apps to memory and so will just reopen them all the time - which uses more power than just leaving it.

 

[SimonM123]

That's the thing - it is still in the Notifications bar, under 'Ongoing'. The only way to get it out of there is to kill the process, but that's nuts.

:S

 

[SimonM123]

OH MY GOD I am a complete idiot.

You meant press the menu BUTTON. And there is exit.

Wow, I'm dumb.

So its just the overheating issue now.

Sorry...

 

[Xyro]

Heh, yeah that's right

Not sure about the overheating thing. Are you overclocking?

 

[SimonM123]

Nope, just standard Froyo on a non-rooted O2 phone. I've not hacked or overclocked in any way. In fact, I wish I could underclock just to stop the thing getting so damn hot! I could understand heating from playing a 3d game, satnav perhaps - but a music player? Seems rather bonkers.

Ah well, I presume it'll be easy enough to get the handset replaced, I've only had it since Wednesday (and didnt use till Thurs). Just a shame really.

 

[Xyro]

I'd check with people with the same phone as you (the desire?) to see if that's normal behaviour for the Spotify app.

 

[SimonM123]

Indeed, tis a Desire.

How about it then, Desire users - does Spotify app cook your processor too?

In general, all I'm trying to ascertain is whether or not to send my phone back for replacement. I'm having to use pretty much blind faith that A) the heating is fine and normal, even in apps which shouldnt be that stressful for the phone, B) the battery life will somehow improve in the next week or so, as it currently wont last from waking up till going to bed, and C) the 90% charging issue that so many of us are afflicted with will be solved at some point - though you'd think the Sense build for Froyo would have fixed this.

Life's tough at the cutting-edge. But I refuse to be an iClone.

 

[Xyro]

Moved this to the Desire section since it's now Desire specific

You'll get more attention here.

 

[widehead]

Am Spotifying now. Will report back with heating issues shortly......

update nothing to report other than the new Manic Street Preachers album sounds awesome. I was using headphones - does yours heat up with and without headphones?

 

[SimonM123]

Haven't tried without headphones. I usually run it through my Sennheiser HD228s, but I use the excellent Fiio E5 headphone amplifier (FiiO E5 Portable Headphone Amplifier: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics), so the Desire itself only has to use two-thirds volume. This should save power, surely?

I'm actually quite intruiged here, if yours doesn't heat up, I might have a faulty item - this would be good news, because I would love to think I could get a replacement Desire and have it work properly. I dont want to have to accept this as standard.

Did you do much scrolling/track changing? When i listened to one playlist continually it cooled down, the heating was when i was actively switching playlists etc.

 

[widehead]

@SimonM123 - yeps I did a fair bit of scrolling and track changing. I deliberately did a mix of playlists and searching to see what would happen. Stayed cool for me with headphones. Warms up a little bit when using the utterly appalling loudspeaker but even then not much to get worried about.
I use spotify a lot and have had no issues at all. Except that it drains my battery like a mo-fo if I'm streaming music.

 

[SimonM123]

Ok Widehead, thanks for testing that, extremely helpful.

I had the same issue on the way to work today. Seems like my phone is heating up more readily than many others. Getting annoying now. Time to send it back and see if a replacement is any better.

Cheers

 

[Afront]

I run Spotify on my Desire on a daily basis - haven't noticed any particular over-heating problems at all. Did you get a replacement? Is it any better?

 

[SimonM123]

Other people I know with Desires convinced me that the heat I was refering to was more just 'warmth' than 'overheating'. I guess I'll never know what's normal warmth and what is overheating, but at the moment it doesn't quite seem to justify sending the phone back.

 

[lekky]

I use it daily for a couple of hours at least. Might get warm but nothing out of the ordinary for me.

 

[SimonM123]

I use it daily for a couple of hours at least. Might get warm but nothing out of the ordinary for me.

I would agree insofar as it's only 'warm', not 'hot'. I was just confused by an earlier poster (Widehead)'s claim that even skipping files and generally engaging with the URI still didnt generate any warmth (all with headphones, not speaker).

If I use any audio application and have the screen on, the device gets warm, not 'hot' like some high-frame-rate games, but warmer than the phone's idle state. This does dissipate if I lock the screen and don't fiddle.

I am trying to ascertain whether I'm being overly sensitive to the heat or whether I am noting a real problem, it's hard to tell! Also, I've asked some people to hold the phone - some notice the heat and others don't. Perhaps it's a sensitivity thing?

 

[Xyro]

I can't think of any off the top of my head, but there are plenty of apps that can give you a temperature reading of the handset. That way you can be a bit more scientific as to figuring out if it's too warm.

 

[Afront]

I guess I'll never know what's normal warmth and what is overheating

Warm = Like holding a cup of tea you made about 20 minutes ago

Overheating = Like holding a metal ball-bearing you just took out of a furnace

Does that help?



Like every piece of tech without a fan, the Desire does get slightly warm through use. It's nothing as bad as the G1 was though, for example.

 

[SimonM123]

I can't think of any off the top of my head, but there are plenty of apps that can give you a temperature reading of the handset. That way you can be a bit more scientific as to figuring out if it's too warm.

I just use #*#*4636#*#* - or the Quickbattery widget which gives a shortcut to that menu. But that temperature is the battery temperature, so only tells you how hot the battery's gotten. The warmth given off by the Desire seems to be near the bottom of the phone, which I presume is where the processor is housed. It makes sense that the fan-less and barely-heat-sink-ed processor is the hot potato.

I don't think the Desire has any sensors for measuring CPU core temp or any temperature sensors elsewhere on the motherboard/hardware. I may be wrong though, that would be nice (being wrong normally means something can be fixed, that is good).

Warm = Like holding a cup of tea you made about 20 minutes ago

Overheating = Like holding a metal ball-bearing you just took out of a furnace

Does that help?

Thanks, that certainly does help - it is the cup of tea example for sure - though not quite '20 minutes ago', perhaps. So this much is normal, even with just audio apps? That's ok if so (I can accept if it's just a facet of the phone itself, and not mine being dodgy!).

Thanks!

 

[lekky]

If others holding the phone don't see it as an issue, then maybe you are just being too sensitive

It shouldn't be a problem, just enjoy your music

 

[JJ24]

Hi

Wanna try spotify but my mate says there is no point with the open cause u only get 20 hours a month which is nothing. So does anyone have a spare invite code they could send me.PLZ

 

[SimonM123]

Hi

Wanna try spotify but my mate says there is no point with the open cause u only get 20 hours a month which is nothing.

It's true that without an invite you 'only' get 20 hours of use, but that is well worth taking if you can't get an invite code. To put it in perspective, that's about 400 songs per-month - this is not an inconsiderable amount of listening!

Bear in mind, however, that using that particular option (known as 'Spotify Open') does not entitle to to use of the mobile app - you'll only be able to use it on the PC, and you will have to tolerate some adverts every so often.

Even with an invite code, you'll still have adverts and no mobile app. An invite code gets you unlimited music, but for no ads you need 'Unlimited' which costs