No application seems better served for multitasking on mobile devices, be they iPhone or Android, than streaming music. Spotify, the emergent streaming service with a seemingly bottomless repository of high quality instant-on sound, released an update to their iPhone app tonight which adds the ability to play Spotify tracks while using your phone, and adds the social features recently made available on its companion desktop client.The new multitasking option, made available with iOS4 from Apple, brings the option to play music in the background while you run other iPhone applications, on the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and most recent version of the iPod Touch. This, like similar services from Last.fm, Pandora, Sirius XM and yes, Apple's native iTunes player, is a welcome addition - harnessing the new features just debuted from Cupertino.
The social functionality within the newly updated iPhone app lets you share individual tracks, artists or albums to Facebook and Twitter, or, instead, you can send them directly to another Spotify user. The gap between the company's desktop client and its mobile client decreased significantly. Additionally, there is a "What's New" tab, new in this release, that highlights most recent tracks and albums.
While these product improvements may seem like a major tease to those of you who haven't yet gotten behind the velvet rope to enjoy Spotify, the number of people I see in my network is increasing, so it appears to be getting in the hands of more and more users, even as true launch in the US is likely months away. But from what I can tell, every Spotify user I know swears by the service. I simply don't purchase tracks from iTunes any more. Spotify remains the best streaming music service I have ever tried, on any platform.
Disclosure: I've been using Spotify free of charge thanks to early tech blogger access from August of 2009.