(Apple was completely new to lossless and spatial audio streaming, while Amazon had previously been charging extra for lossless and spatial tracks.)įollowing the Amazon and Apple announcements, the prospect of paying extra (most likely) for only CD-quality music and (probably) no spatial audio began to lose its luster, so perhaps Spotify chose to retreat and regroup. Just three months after the Spotify HiFi announcement, Amazon and Apple both announced (separately, but on the same day) that they would begin offering lossless, high-resolution, and spatial audio music tracks, all for no extra charge.

There is another reason that Spotify might have delayed Spotify HiFi: because it got caught flat-footed by Apple and Amazon. “So I can’t really announce any specifics on this other than to say that we’re in constant dialogue with our partners to bring this to market.” “Many of the features that we talk about and especially that’s related to music ends up into licensing,” Ek told investors.

Spotify hifi lossless tier coming later