Since using Spotify, my music habits have altered. Now that I have access to all the music known to man, I am listening to things which I don't usually listen to or would not be willing to buy. Due to the cost of music, I would only buy a track I really liked. Now, with Spotify, I am listening to everything I may or may not buy. Friends are able to listen to what they want, rather than my collection. The artists page is an excellent part of the Spotify service. It pulls in all the music by a certain artists, into a nice organised list. It has allowed me to discover new music by my favourite artist. Each page also has a detailed biography about the artist and related artists, which is one of my favourite aspects. Similar artists to the artists page you were looking at will be listed here. I am able to find other artists I like and find music I have forgotten about and new music.

The Spotify client in Linux works great, possible the best experience of Spotify. However, there are still major issues. The critical bug is the dreadful CPU usage, playing a song or sitting idle, the client will bounce between 30 to 85%. If you use the Windows client, on the Windows OS or via Wine, it will stay at 1 & 2%. There are also plenty of feature requests. Support for Notify OSD (via libnotify), support for Indicator Applets, support for D-Bus, moving the buttons to the left hand side instead of right. Still alot more work to make Spotify even better. All these bugs and features have been identified in Spotify's feedback page, which has been populated with Linux users. What is great about Linux users, is their knowledge and helpfulness when coding. Spotify developers are asking/working with Linux users to improve the experience. On the D-Bus request page, I was delighted to see a Spotify Developer asking for help to implement this API, with Linux users responding. No other community will offer this much help!

On the social side, I have been continuing my need to create plenty of playlists to show off to my friends. As well as browse through my friend's playlists for new music. I have been sending and receiving music, still a feature under-used.

Hoped you enjoyed my update on my music life with Spotify. I may do a few more of these posts about Spotify, people seem to like them and it might get featured on OMGUbuntu's twitter feed again!

The market leader in the music download business is sadly still iTunes, and its unlikely anytime soon it will change. Why is iTunes the market leader, when its the worst in its market, although same can be said for Windows Consumers need to open their eyes for the better service, and that is Amazon.

Both Amazon and iTunes provide the same-sort-of-service, with iTunes making it easier with syncing to your device. Music selection is pretty much exactly the same, both retaining the major record companies. Its the pricing and DRM where the differences lie.

On Pricing, Amazon tends to be cheaper, offering tracks as low as 49p to as high as 89p. While iTunes is higher at 69p t0 £1.20! Why is iTunes more! Your getting the same music, but at a lower bit rate on iTunes (128kbps on iTunes, 256 on Amazon).

DRM, my favourite topic, if you ask any of my 'geek' friends! Though in the past few  days I have become a hypocrite *cough* Spotify *cough*. iTunes in the past has in the past been dreadful with this, but in recent years, they have let go of some restrictions. However, music bought off iTunes is still full of DRM. Watermarking, requiring authentication to listen to purchased music and using a file format only used by Apple. My brother in the past few weeks has been a victim of Apple's DRM, and many others have when switching MP3 players or computers. Amazon is totally DRM free, allowing users to listen to their music where ever they want. My article about iTunes DRM can be found here.

Basically, STOP USING ITUNES! It maybe easier to use, for getting songs on your iPod. It is expensive, lower quality and full of DRM. iTunes was the service to use years ago, now its Amazon MP3!

Fairly quickly after starting my subscription I knew Spotify was my new way to listen to music. Music removed from both of my computers, and archived onto external Hard Drives. I was going Spotify all the way!

Discovering the social feature to Spotify added another level to this service. Linking your Spotify account with your Facebook account, pulled in all your friends who use Spotify. Very quickly I was checking out songs my friends listened too, and adding the songs to my favourites. It has a nice feature to 'send' songs to each other. This started conversations with friends about music, which I have never done. I dont usually talk about music with friends, but since Spotify makes it so easy to share songs with each other, it just sort of happens.

I  am loving Spotify every time I start listening and looking for music. Its nice to pay one flat fee and have as much as I want. Its likely that I will carry on paying for the unlimited service, don't like ads! I will be hunting, sharing and talking about the music on Spotify from now on!

Currently, to use the preview of Spotify on Linux, you need a Premium or Unlimited  account, because Ads don't work yet. I decided to upgrade my account to Unlimited, to try the client and support the efforts of Spotify!

Essitially, if you have tried Spotify on Windows or Mac, its the same. This was the aim of the developers, to get the same experience cross-platform. Spotify is very easy to navigate, find the songs you want to listen to, whole albums, create playlists, see the top played songs. It has great social features to share the music your listening to with your friends.

The general look of the client is very much the Mac-look, it is more suited on a Mac desktop. I wasn't expecting the theme to be changed on Linux, this is made harder by using QT instead of GTK, which means us Gnome users will have to install the QT library. Luckly, Spotify uses Alsa, no Pulse Audio here! This may sound really small, but stood out for me, the font. Its a nice look font, which is very easy to read, and gives the whole client a great look. The client is quick and songs stream instantly. My only compliant is that the client uses high number of cpu cycles, compared to other platforms. I am using a dual core Intel Atom, while songs are playing, it hits 52%, when idle hits as high as 78%. Some serious optimisations will need doing before this client comes out of beta.

The whole Linux community are pleased we finally get a native Spotify client. It works and looks exactly what we wanted. A few minor issues at the moment, which I am sure will be fixed before release. You will have to pay a monthly fee at the moment, which is the first time I have done with Spotify, one thing I will say, its nice not having Ads!

EDIT: Just realised, the buttons are on the right hand side , hopefully they will switch it to the left hand side, like they have on Mac OS.

Spotify on Linux....finally!

Thankfully a few years later, a music store arrived which provided high quality DRM-free MP3 music. Amazon MP3 is the greatest thing to happen to digital music! I can play these tracks on any device I have (my three computers which run different OSes, my phone and my PSP) and if Amazon MP3 disappeared, I can still play all my music!

iTunes quickly followed suit and changed all their music to DRM-free. However, is iTunes music completely DRM-free like Amazon. The answer is NO! iTunes music has some DRM removed, mainly allowing you to play your music files on a different media player other than iTunes, but that is it. However, you will have to find a media player which can play iTunes strange file format. Instead of using the very popular industry standard, MP3, it uses .m4a. Which you will find it not supported by many players. With MP3 files, you know that you can play them any player, computer and device, with m4a you can not.

One major DRM trait is how users obtain their music. If you need to download your music, you still have to use iTunes and bypass their authentication service. Which means you can not download music onto that computer, unless its been authenticated and you can only authorise 5 computers. This is still DRM, Apple controlling how and when you can download your music. What happens iTunes goes, you wont be able to use this authentication service to get your tracks.

The finally DRM trait by Apple is what they do to every single music track you own. They use a method called Water-marking, which means to put the user's data in the file. Apple put the customers details into the file, so if that file ends up on a file sharing website, they can trace it back to the customer. This is still DRM in the sense of controlling and track your data.

Apple still use a strange file format with DRM surrounding it. Apple have made good steps forward, by allowing you to not require iTunes to listen to the music. Though they have a long way to go DRM-Free!