Strava has announced that it is partnering with streaming giant Spotify in a deal which will enable users of the popular ride-tracking platform to access and stream music, podcasts, and audiobooks while recording activities on Strava.
Gone are the days, it seems, of heading out for a meandering, leisurely morning ride, with no indication whatsoever of how many miles you’ve covered, before heading home to listen to your favourite LPs (well, actually, that was my Monday – but I’m stubbornly old-school).
Instead, starting from today, Strava users can play, pause, and browse their favourite songs and podcasts – with the road.cc Podcast, naturally, sitting at the top of the list – without leaving the Strava record screen.
According to Strava, the new in-app integration with Spotify removes the need for users of the streaming service to switch between apps, with their ride and workout playlists now available at the tap of a button at the bottom of the screen.
“Over time, the consumption of music has evolved dramatically from CDs to streaming, which has opened the door for audio to inspire us in ways it couldn’t before,” Mateo Ortega, Strava’s Vice President of Connected Partnerships, said in a statement.
“We’re excited to partner with a global leader like Spotify to seamlessly integrate music and movement on the platform. This new feature further solidifies Strava’s position at the centre of connected fitness and continues to demonstrate the power of the global community of active people on Strava.”
Ian Geller, VP of Business Development at Spotify, added: “One of our biggest goals at Spotify is to be everywhere our listeners are – whether that’s on a run, in the gym, or anyplace in between. This integration with Strava is another way we’re moving with our listeners and allowing them to seamlessly connect to the music and audio they love.”
Unfortunately, the partnership for the moment does not allow users to share the tracks or playlists they’ve been listening to during an activity, though Strava has told us that today’s announcement marks the first phase of what will be an ongoing partnership between the ride-sharing app and Spotify.
So, we may not have to wait too long to find out what horrible techno tunes Mathieu van der Poel bops along to during training rides.
> “Our intention was not to hide these changes”: Strava apologises for price hike controversy
The new integrated relationship between Strava and Spotify may also go some way to placating those users unhappy at the company’s decision in January to increase the cost of the app’s premium service by almost 30 percent.
The price of the company’s subscription service, which provides users with additional features unavailable on the app’s free version, such as route planning, segment competition, effort analysis, and a training dashboard, increased at the start of this year for monthly subscribers from £6.99 to £8.99 for 2023 – a jump of over 28 percent – while the annual subscription rose from £47.99 to £54.99.
Strava later apologised to its users for “not providing enough information directly to our community” about the controversial price rise and insisted the “intention was not to hide these pricing changes”.
The company also admitted its messaging had been “very confusing”, saying everything “just moved too fast” and it was “unacceptable” that subscribers learnt of changes through news reports.
12 thoughts on “Sing when you’re spinning: Strava announces “first of its kind” in-app integration with Spotify”
I guess the pricy what led to
I guess the pricy what led to them dropping sensor support for a few years as well as raising prices was the effort to implement truly useful features like this?
Well break it down, it’s a
Well break it down, it’s a partnership between two tech companies, each with a user base, that’s intended to drive users of one across to the other, which undoubtedly means money or funding is changing hands to do it. That money or funding may well fund and protect the current Strava product or pricing model going forward for a while.
It may also enable them to develop the features you do want.
Just because its something you or I may not want, doesnt mean it’s a bad thing.
I can’t help thinking this a
I can’t help thinking this a solution looking for a problem. Anyone could always run Spotify or the audio app of their choice in the background, and use iPhone Control Centre (or Android equivalent) to play, pause, skip, etc. For the many that use 3rd party GPS or app to record (and I would guess that there are more subscribers in that group) this is of no use.
im guessing that embedding the Spotify SDK into an app is fairly trivial so this gives a new headline feature for little effort.
How about using that increased subscription to fund development of features that subscribers want? Or maybe working on some logic to automatically flag dodgy segment times?
This is perfect for people
This is perfect for people who want to ride their e-bikes while listening to music and taking up all of the KOM top ten spaces from people who actually put some effort in.
Should Strava be encouraging their user base to ride with headphones in? I’ve always found having ears is very useful when out riding for listening out for potential hazards.
ITK2012 wrote:
Most car manufacturers are happy to include music systems in cars, so it can’t be too much of a problem. If you can’t hear so well, just check behind you before performing a maneouvre. Maybe just do that anyway.
Car manufacturers include
Car manufacturers include lots of distracting technology in their vehicles, they also supply seatbelts, airbags and crumple zones for when the idiot behind the wheel crashes into something. I am yet to see those installed on bikes.
ITK2012 wrote:
Hats off for shoehorning some ebike hate in to comments on an article that doesn’t mention them once. Personally I’m scrupulous about switching to ebike mode on Strava when I’m using it and in any case all my road bike segment records are faster than my ebike ones. Here’s the kicker though, I don’t get the hump if someone beats my time whether they’re on an ebike, a motorbike, on a plane (some of the segments on the Heathrow flight path have 400kph KOMs!), drafting an artic or anything else, because, you see, that doesn’t actually change what my time is.
Impressive that there is
Impressive that there is space for two of your bikes in your wife’s flat – only joking pal. I agree with you.
You’ll never make it as an
You’ll never make it as an athlete with that piss poor level of competitiveness. The whole reason Strava became a thing is so competitive people could compare times and try to beat eachother.
Another new feature from
Another new feature from Strava that I don’t need. I’d love to know what the dev team have on their to-do list is if this was a higher priority to develop.
Perhaps Strava should have
Perhaps Strava should have paid more attention to looking after their long term subscribers instead of partnering up with Spotify, allowing people to concentrate even less whilst out running or cycling.
I refer to the post last year where they offered new subscribers 25% discount, not applicable to current subscribers. But unhelpfully posted to all users.
As I said earlier the deal
As I said earlier the deal may well result in funding for Strava to do exactly that, whereas without it, they’re stuck raising capital elsewhere.
What would you prefer, funding and a feature that has no impact on you, or no funding and likely less features as their costs rise and they have to minimise their ongoing spending or raise money through other means.?