Spotify iPhone App In-Car Audio Compatibility ? Will it work ?

Great News ! Good work Spotify you have just earned yourself another premium member !

Thanks

On my iPhone 3G, when connected to a properiarity iPod-connector to a device that reads and streams from the phone, the phone doesn't play music from the Spotify app, only from the iPod-app.
Programs like Navigon are streaming through this port, so it should work fine with Spotify aswell.

The connected device is an Alpine CDA-9887R car headunit.

Looking forward to be listening to Spotify in my car on my way to work as soon as possible! :)

Cool thanks for the reply !

Im going to sign up as a premium member now ! Ill try this out on my Pioneer when i get home tonight and ill let you guys know the results !

Thanks

I am using Dension iPhone adapter in my car. Spotify plays beautifully through the radio but unfortunately the remote buttons (skip, play, pause) do not work.

If you want spotify in your car, make sure you don't have any mp3's on it. becuse then ipod-player will take over.

that doesnt work on the iphone in car because the apple software defaults from playing mp3 files to any podcasts. This is really annoying because it means I have to choose between spotify and podcasts. Maybe spotify could add subscriptions to podcasts as part of their services?

I works just fine for me, as i said, make sure you don't have any mp3's or podcasts on your iphone as they will play as default. But with a clean iphone it works like a charm.

Sadly my podcasts are essential to my daily routine so I must still keep asking Spotify to add this ability..............

I get a very random experience with my Volvo V70. Sometimes Spotify plays as expected, most of the time there's an error message in the car's display. I've cleared out all MP3s, so that's not the problem.

If you have an iPhone or iPod touch with no mp3 or podcasts - can you then control Spotify at all from the car stereo (even simple things like start and stop)?

Does the playback continue when you start the car (as it does when playing back mp3s)?

I'm assuming the iPod/iPhone is connected using an iPod-connector, and not minijack.

No controlling from the car's key pads yet, but that's an obvious addition to this great app.
See my request at http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/to...

I now have an iPod touch completely without mp3 music, but with Spotify and offline playlist.
However, when the iPod contains no music it is not recognized by the car stereo! When there is mp3 on the iPod it is recognized as a CD changer, with each playlist corresponding to a CD, but when there is no music the car stereo seems to think that there are no CDs in the "CD changer".
I tried to create an empty playlist in iTunes and then sync, but it seems that empty playlists aren't synced

I've tried to add only one mp3-file on the iPod, but it keeps playing that file. I'm allowed to play one Spotify-song, but at soon as that song is over, the iPod starts playing the one mp3-file, over and over again (even if the Spotify-app is still running). If I press "next" in Spotify twice, it will play one Spotify-song, before going back to the mp3-file.
So it seems that the Spotify-app somehow "releases control" each time a song is finished. Wouldn't it be possible to change the app, so that didn't happen?

I really really would like to be able to play Spotify in the car, so a solution to this problem would be fantastic :-)

the easy work around is to connect yr mp3 player /ipod to the car via the headphone 3.5mm socket. Most cars do this - then the car sound system only plays what is coming out of there not the ipod software output............

Unfortunately, my car stereo doesn't have a 3.5mm socket.
So until Spotify (hopefully) updates the app, I'm stuck with iTunes-music

If I jailbreak the iPod and install Backgrounder, and then add one mp3-file (containing just silence). In theory, Spotify should then continue to play, even if the iPod starts playing the mp3-file, and since the mp3-file contains only silence, only Spotify-audio comes through the stereo.
Can someone confirm that Spotify continues to play as a background app, even if the iPod/iPhone is playing mp3-files?

I can confirm myself that it doesn't work. Even if Spotify is allowed to run in the background, it stops playing as soon as the internal player starts

Can't you pause your mp3 file from your player? Whenver I start up the car I have to wait for the first podcast to load, pause it, then select a new song in spotify.

No, I can't. If I click on the "Music" icon on the iPod (to reach the music player) I just get a grey picture, saying that the iPod is controlled remotely.
All other apps work fine, though. It's only the music player that's "disabled".

Yeah, but on your car headunit? I can use pause, next, prev, ff and rw from my player.. I just press pause, which allows other sounds to be played from the ipod/iphone.

Unfortunately, no. I can do next and prev (both track and playlist), but no pause. Once I select the iPod as source it starts playing, and continues to play until I select another source. Only when I start the Spotify app on the iPod, the player pauses, but only until the Spotify-song ends, then it starts again.
I guess Toyota's iPod adapter is less advanced than yours.

The way it works is that the different layers of sound overrides each other.
When you play music on Spotify, the application has the lowest priority on the device. Whenever your headunit sends the 'play' command to your device, the play command overrules the underlying layers of sound. Just like whenever the 'phone' application activates, it overrides the underlying layers of sound.
It's buildt into the API that sounds that are interrupted are gradually muted, pause functions are not very hard to implement.

So basically, your car adapter isn't made with concideration about having other sound sources than the ipod bit.
I'd recommend using a 3.5mm or RCA connection to connect to your stereo instead, just like you would with a normal mp3 player :)

Thanks for the explanation. What I still don't understand is that Spotify is allowed to play until the first song is over. This indicates that Spotify somehow signals something to the OS each time it's finished playing a song. If Spotify didn't do that, then the internal player would never leave pause mode and Spotify could keep on playing (in theory - I really know nothing about how these things work :-) ).

I know that a 3.5mm connection is a possibility, but that would mean removing the radio/navi-unit and I would prefer to avoid that.

Oh, so there is no 3.5mm connector in toyota? Oh wait.. i was thinking about my friends new auris, it had only ipod, no 3.5mm.. That's pretty bad of Toyota going for a properiary solution only...
Anyway, spotify doesn't have anything to do with it i think, it's just that spotify tells the system (by playing something) that the application is using the sound chip, somehow the system waits for it to finish. When a spotify song is finished, it leaves the sound chip idle, no sound is coming from the program.
Maybe it's something your head unit does, because my 'music' program only plays music when i plug the ipod in, or i switch to ipod as audio source.

So if it is like you say, then a simple solution for this could be that Spotify enabled cross-fading in their app (just like the iTunes application does). Then the sound chip would always be active, and the internal player would (hopefully) remain paused.