Spotify, Waze Partner To Bridge Navigation, Music Gap

If you enjoy listening to music while doing another task that requires navigation, Spotify and Waze have collaborated to make life simpler for you. The two popular apps have teamed up to bridge the gap between music and navigation and give users a seamless experience, said an official Waze blog post.

The two apps have partnered to make each other’s key features available in one another. Following the collaboration, users will now be able to see directions from Waze within the Spotify app and listen to music on Waze. You can also skip, pause and change songs without launching the Spotify app. A new shortcut will also allow switching between the two apps, the blog said.

Google bought Waze for $1.1 billion in 2013 and its music streaming service, Play, competes with Spotify.

While there are various third party apps that offer navigation, such as iGo and Apple Maps, Google-owned Waze, with over 50 million users as of 2016, has little direct competition when it comes to providing free, multi-platform updated traffic. So much so that in June 2013, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission was considering if Google’s acquisition of Waze violated the competition law.

As of June 2016, Spotify registered 100 million active users globally. While basic audio content can be accessed for free, a premium subscription enables users to access content when offline.

Here's a look at other music streaming platforms that have recently taken measures to enhance users’ music experience.

Pandora Premium:

Pandora, one of the oldest music streaming services, has over 4.39 million subscribers and 81 million active monthly users. In the most recent update, Pandora users will now be able to choose their own music. The company launched Pandora Premium, on Monday, at a monthly subscription price of $9.99.

Pandora users can now search for albums, artists, create playlists and also browse through suggestions.

Pandora acquired Rdio, an on-demand music streaming platform for $75 million in November 2015 and has been since working on its new Premium update. With this, Pandora will now legitimately compete with the likes of Spotify, Google Play Music and Apple Music.

Google Home App:

In an update, Google Home App made it easier for users to navigate through their choice of music, by creating a new Listen tab. The Listen tab will help users to find a variety of music from more than “200+ cast-compatible” music and audio apps, including Google Play Music and Spotify, the official Google blog said Tuesday.

Users can now find their curated content and immediately cast it on another device such as the TV. The “Listen” tab is located at the top of the interface, in-between the “Watch” and “Discover” tabs.