In the four years since Apple Music upgraded its entire music catalog to lossless overnight, Spotify has been just around the corner from catching up. Starting today, Spotify is taking the very first steps toward making that actually happen.
Premium subscribers will receive a push notification from the Spotify app when lossless support becomes available. So what took so long? Here’s what Spotify says.
“The wait is finally over; we’re so excited lossless sound is rolling out to Premium subscribers,” said Gustav Gyllenhammar, VP Subscriptions, Spotify. “We’ve taken time to build this feature in a way that prioritizes quality, ease of use, and clarity at every step, so you always know what’s happening under the hood. With Lossless, our premium users will now have an even better listening experience.”
Hmm, ease of use sounds important. Later in the blog post:
And just to note: You’ll need to enable Lossless manually on each device. You’ll know Lossless is on because the Lossless indicator will appear in the Now Playing view or bar, and via the Connect Picker.
Got it. At least lossless is here, as Spotify says!
Lossless is rolling out gradually to more than 50 markets through October. Premium subscribers in Australia, Austria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, the US, and the UK have already started to get access.
Well, maybe not all the way here, but soon!
If you’re a Premium subscriber and you do get a Lossless launch alert, here’s how to enable the higher quality playback:
Tap your profile icon in the top left. Go to Settings & Privacy → Media Quality. Select where you want to enable lossless audio: Wi-Fi, cellular, downloads.
You may need the latest version of Spotify’s app, which was released earlier today, too.