Spotify
No more surprise debits – Mastercard to stop billing after free trials
[UPDATE: According to The Verge, “Mastercard has now clarified that it’s a way more limited solution than the company originally let on. The new policy only applies when you subscribe to physical products that get delivered to your door, like vitamins and snacks, not digital services like Netflix or PlayStation Plus.” Mastercard has updated their original blogpost to clarify that they&...[Read More]
Listening to music at work: what you need to know to improve your productivity
We all know the struggle that open-plan offices bring for many office-crawlers. Living the headphone life is almost compulsory if you hope to get any work done. What with talk radio and the politics around the stuff that’s usually playing in the background, being in an open office can be tough. But it doesn’t have to be. According to numerous studies, music can help with productivity, ...[Read More]
Get Spotify Premium for R6 – that’s not a typo
For those of you who have been holding off on getting a Premium Spotify subscription. Do it now. It’s only R6 — what costs R6 these days? You can’t even get a Simba Chips Party Pack. We know, the free tier is essentially the Premium tier with ads. But Spotify SA just announced a special price of R6 for a Premium subscription for the first three months. Thereafter you will be charged the norm...[Read More]
Spotify announces more Premium features and an updated Wear OS app
The world’s most popular music streaming service, Spotify, has recently announced a whole range of new features for its Premium-tier users, as well as an app for Google’s Wear OS. Firstly, the Spotify Premium changes — the most noteworthy of which is the streamlined navigation in the app (we appreciate slick interfaces, okay). The five tabs at the bottom have been condensed into ...[Read More]
Winamp will be back in 2019 — with an all-in-one music service
Do you even Apple Music, bro? Or do you Spotify? Or maybe you only listen to podcasts on whatever third-party app you downloaded first? Audio streaming services are all over the place, and there’s another one coming. You won’t believe who hopes to organise your music library… again. Winamp, the free, llama-flavoured, fan-favourite music player that launched in 1997, will make a comeback in 2...[Read More]
Spotify will allow (some) indie artists to upload their music themselves
Our fave music streaming app, Spotify, has announced that selected independent artists will be able to upload their music directly to the service, which bypasses the need for third-party distributors that to date have been the only way for indies to get their material on the world’s biggest music-streaming platform. The new feature is available through the standalone Spotify for Artists app ...[Read More]
Dreamwave Tremor: The rugged and rough Bluetooth speaker you need
When going on a road trip without decent in-car sound — let’s say the radio’s broken — make sure to pack a Tremor Bluetooth speaker. Just in case you need the auditory muscle. The Tremor is made by Dreamwave, is big and bulky but isn’t basic. It’s got an onboard battery that’ll make most power banks blush, and crisp sound to take on the likes of Harman Kardon and Bowe...[Read More]
We made a Spotify playlist with tracks submitted by readers… and this is what we got
Cast your mind back to last month and you might recall we gave away a wireless speaker, a Fender Newport to be exact. To enter, readers had to submit their track of choice for testing speakers and headphones. We had more than just a few entries (395 uniques to be exact — and one chap who entered an Enigma song 500 times), and slaved away adding the submissions to a collaborative Spotify play...[Read More]
Don’t be alarmed: Now you can wake up to a Spotify playlist
You probably never think about the Google Clock app on your Android phone. Unless you are one of those annoyingly-happy early riser types it’s not exactly an app that brings you joy, with its annoying chirps or other sounds that, over time, will create an instant, Pavlovian-like stress response. Seriously, just try playing your phones default alarm tone in the office and watch what happens to your...[Read More]
Spotify South Africa adds Discover Weekly playlists at last
If you, or anyone you know, has had a Spotify account registered outside South Africa, you’ve probably heard them enthuse about the ‘Discover Weekly’ feature that offers up a playlist of 30 tracks the service’s algorithm suspects you might like each Monday. Well, now those of us with local accounts can enjoy the feature, too. Not sure what we’re on about, and still living in mp3-land? Spotif...[Read More]
Dig the tunes in RocoMamas? Find them on Spotify
Ever sit in your local RocoMamas and wonder, “Where can I find this playlist?” Because, well, while RocoMamas is known for burgers, beers, orange décor primarily, regulars will tell you it also tends to play fun tunes. Our favourite burger joint just became the first brand in South Africa to launch a dynamic playlist on Spotify. This after customers started tweeting at them variations of: “@RocoMa...[Read More]
Spotify adding more value to their free tier
Spotify, the music-streaming service that went public on Wall Street last week and launched in SA just last month, has decided to beef up its free tier for music listeners to try and source more subscribers — we all start out on a free account, after all. Sources at Bloomberg said that the Stockholm company is changing the free service to make it more accessible, adding more features that we...[Read More]