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Good news for stalkers, rifling through your friends' profiles is an easy, large-screened experience.
The app makes good use the panelled layout to take you through from a simple list of all your friend's published playlists with songs, to a thumbnail view, to a single playlist outline.
Sharing songs and playlists to your Spotify contacts or Facebook, Twitter is as simple as hitting the share button on the playlist view. Twitter sharing uses the Twitter account you have synced to the iPad and auto-creates a hashtag-tastic Tweet that you can edit down.
Facebook isn't quite as straightforward: sharing opens a small screen pop out that you'll need to log in on, but then you can share it to your timeline, a friends' wall or a group. It's not a very pleasant experience since you're limited to a tiny box and have to scroll sideways to complete the action.
It's a shame really, because the rest of the Facebook integration is as excellent as it is on the desktop version. Your friends are automatically imported when you link your Facebook and Spotify accounts, and what you're listening to shows up on your timeline and in friends' tickers on the Facebook newsfeed. If you're listening to any '90s pop-reggae, you can simply switch on private listening and no one need be any the wiser.
The inbox function is also present and correct, with conversation view showing you all the songs you've sent back and forth. It also shows you whether or not your friend has actually listened to that 20 minute experimental jazz piece you sent them or not, ungrateful swines.
Verdict
Quite simply, this is exactly the Spotify iPad app we've all been waiting for. It looks good, it works flawlessly and it's a more straight-forward app to use than its iPhone equivalent.
Yes, we'd like to see Spotify apps come in and yes, we'd like a bit more control over the folders in our playlist library, but we reckon these will be things that come with time. But even so, iPad users should upgrade quick-smart.
