The short answer is that we don’t know when Spotify HiFi will arrive, but according to at least one Spotify executive, the service is still coming.
Speaking with The Verge this month, Spotify co-president Gustav Söderström said that the company is “still going to do” Spotify HiFi, but that “we’re going to do it in a way where it makes sense for us and for our listeners,” adding that “the industry changed and we had to adapt.” We’ll discuss exactly how the industry changed in a moment.
Notably, Söderström didn’t offer a timeline for when Spotify HiFi might finally arrive, beyond a vague “at some point.”
The last time we heard from Spotify about HiFi was at the beginning of 2022, when the company offered a vaguely worded statement that offered scant details:
We know that HiFi quality audio is important to you. We feel the same, and we’re excited to deliver a Spotify HiFi experience to Premium users in the future. But we don’t have timing details to share yet. We will of course update you here when we can.
We reached out to Spotify shortly after that announcement, but a rep would only say that the company did “not have anything further to share on HiFi beyond the excitement for the future launch.”
Later, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek dodged a question about Spotify HiFi during the streamer’s third-quarter 2022 earnings call in October 2022, while the feature went entirely unmentioned during Spotify’s most recent “Stream On” event in March 2023.
There have been other hints about Spotify HiFi’s arrival. According to an October 2022 post on Reddit, a longtime Spotify user who had recently switched to Apple Music claimed they got a survey detailed a new plan–“Spotify Platinum”–that boasts HiFi, as well as other features such as “Studio Sound,” a “Headphone Tuner,” “Audio Insights,” “Library Pro,” “Playlist Pro,” and “limited-ad” podcasts, all for an extra charge (more on that in a moment).
The Redditor said the survey asked if they would switch back to Spotify “in the nest 30 days” for “one of [those] features.”
Well, here we are, five months following that Reddit post, and there’s still no word on Spotify Platinum.
Previously, a “HiFi” icon was spotted in the Spotify app back in May 2021 and a leaked “Hi, HiFi” video that made the rounds a few months later.
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