Wow, have we been waiting for a long time for this one.
Spotify has been rumored to be releasing a more premium plan than, well, its current premium plan. The rumored plan has been expected to include higher-quality audio, bringing the music streaming service in line with what Apple Music has been offering for quite a while now. Now, it appears that we finally know some of the details of the plan as well as what the company has decided to call it.
Chris Messina took to Threads today to reveal details about Spotify’s upcoming High-Fi plan. First thing’s first — it’s not going to be called HiFi. That’s been rumored for a while, but according to Messina, that branding is now dead. Instead, the plan is going to be called “Spotify Supremium.” The plan, as anticipated, is going to cost $19.99 per month.
In addition to a cool name, the new plan will reportedly net subscribers 24-bit lossless audio, 20-30 hours of audiobook listening before having to pay for the whole book and a whole bunch of tools and stats that true music nerds love. You can check out the full list of expected features, as well as a look at the “Supremium” logo, below:
- “Your Sound Capsule”
- Advanced playlist mixing tools (BPM, vibe, mood, activity and genre, etc)
- AI playlist generation tools
- Last.fm-style listening stats (“Highlights)
- 20-30 hours of audiobook listening
- 24-bit lossless audio (HiFi brand is dead)
Post by @chrisView on Threads
While we now have a look at the logo and the expected features, we still don’t know the date that the new plan will actually be available to subscribe to for the company’s customers. Messina says that an exact date is still unclear, but that he expects the new plan to be available by the end of the year.
Today’s leak comes in the same week that Spotify announced that its Premium subscribers would now be able to listen to 15 hours of audiobooks per month as part of their subscription. The feature is already available for subscribers in the United Kingdom and Australia and will be rolling out to users in the United States by the end of the year.
Spotify customers have been waiting for this one for a long time, so it’s good to see the company is honing in on an actual release. It makes sense that it took until now as well since it would be hard to ask customers to pay more for only higher quality audio — especially when Apple Music is offering to customers at no additional charge. Apple Music also offers songs in Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos at no additional cost — something that does not appear to be included in Spotify’s upcoming plan.
Personally, I’m an Apple Music fan. And, after the iOS 17 update and the new Now Playing screen, Apple’s app is getting even more beautiful. I will admit, however, that Spotify makes a much nicer app for the Mac — the Apple Music app is complete garbage compared to the Spotify app for the desktop. Spotify also still rules for recommendations, although Apple has been making some traction there with its new Discovery Station.
We’ll see if Spotify makes a dent with this Supremium plan, but I have a feeling this now is going to be for a very niche number of customers. It’s still good it exists, though.
