Spotify, a much-hyped music service that lets users stream millions of tracks, has finally arrived for mobile phones in Europe.
For $9.99 month, users in the UK, Sweden, Spain, France and Norway can download the app for the iPhone, the iPod Touch and Android phones. Subscribers in Finland will only have access through Apple's devices.
On computers in Europe, Spotify is available as a free, ad-supported program, but only premium subscribers will be able to take Spotify on the road.
Still, Spotify is an enticing mobile app. Playlists are downloadable, so you can still listen to music on an airplane. Selections also sync wirelessly between your computer and phone, so changes on one are automatically reflected on the other.
All eyes are now on whether Spotify will come to the United States. Music licensing issues have slowed Spotify's migration, but it's been said by PaidContent that the service will arrive stateside in Q3 or Q4 this year.
If or when that happens, I'm not sure the price point will remain the same, especially for mobile apps, because licensing can get expensive here. Napster, which offers a similar $5 all-you-can stream service for U.S. users, says it hasn't submitted an iPhone app because of the high licensing costs of streaming to mobile phones.
That makes me think Spotify will cost more than $10 per month if it does come to U.S. iPhone and Android phone users, even if the computer service costs less. Unfortunately, breaking the $10 barrier makes the service far less enticing.
