In a press release, Spotify revealed that Premium users with a Samsung Android smartphone can start music sessions during video calls over Google Meet. Meeting hosts can find the option to begin a listening session under the three-dot menu in the lower right corner of the screen. They can add up to eight people with individual Spotify Premium accounts. The company calls feature Spotify Group Session. Spotify is also leveraging the newly-added Google Assistant support to Samsung’s Galaxy Watch series. You can use voice commands to control music playback and adjust the volume on your Galaxy Watch 5 and Galaxy Watch 5 Pro. This capability certainly adds to your hands-free lifestyle. Moreover, if you’ve pre-ordered Samsung’s new Galaxy Buds 2 Pro TWS earbuds, you’d rejoice to learn that they support Spotify Tap. With a simple Tap and Hold gesture on the buds, you are off to your next listening session. Additionally, this partnership expansion sees Samsung shipping its 2022 Smart TVs and Galaxy smartphones preloaded with the Spotify app globally. On top of that, buyers will get three months of Spotify Premium for free in more countries. This offer existed on select Samsung smartphones and Smart TVs for some time now. The companies are now expanding it to over a dozen more markets, including Austria, Italy, Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam. With the latest expansion, free Spotify Premium is available to Samsung customers in 85 markets around the world.
Samsung didn’t renew the Spotify Connect license for its HW-MS650 soundbar
Despite being long-term partners, Samsung recently failed to renew the Spotify Connect license for its all-in-one HW-MS650 soundbar. Launched a few years ago, the soundbar shipped with Spotify Connect, a feature that allows you to stream music directly on the soundbar. However, much to the frustration of users, the feature stopped working recently. Believing it to be a bug, customers took to the official Samsung Community forums to complain about it. Unfortunately, the company confirmed that it wasn’t a bug and that their soundbar will no longer support Spotify Connect because the license has expired. Worse yet, the Korean firm doesn’t plan to renew the license. This puts end to arguably the best feature of the HW-MS650 soundbar. Hopefully, Samsung will not strip more such awesome features for it in the future.
