Considering this is a beta version of the new interface, we didn't encounter too many bugs. Over an intensive course of use, we suffered a couple of crashes and a bit of lag.
Our main annoyances arose where tracks are unavailable. A lot of the services are US-based, so we were constantly coming across tracks that aren't available in the UK and wishing that these were just stripped out.
Likewise, if a playlist begins with an unavailable track, it simply won't play from the album artwork, you have to open it up and get it going from the first available track.
Spotify has made an intersting decision to leave music discovery and curation to the experts, and we reckon it was a good move. We no longer need to rely on the areas where the service has always struggled before - its nonsensical artist radio and not-brilliant search functions.
Still, we can't help but feel there are a few things that could have taken priority over the app development. We published an article on 8 things we'd like to see from Spotify in August 2010 and thus far only folders for playlists have come to fruition.
Advanced search, selective sharing and playlist search seem like no-brainers to us, so we're puzzled about why the company has gone in this direction before sorting out basic functionality.
It'll be interesting to see where the App Finder goes next, with the floodgates no doubt opening to Joe Developer to try his hand at a Spotify app - the company assures us it will forever have final approval, but as the apps grow, it's going to have to sort out its library mechanism.
But that's not to say that we don't still rate Spotify as one of the top music services out there - and these apps simply broaden its appeal and we can't fault Spotify for not just resting on its laurels.
Although there are some apps we probably won't go back to, Last.fm, Pitchfork and We Are Hunted are sure-fire winners.
