According to the latest report, we are about to usher in a year since Spotify announced that its HiFi product is scheduled to be launched sometime in 2021. However, with only a week or so left, Spotify is about to miss this deadline. At the same time, listeners of Apple Music can enjoy HiFi lossless audio for free starting in June this year.
As early as February this year, Spotify announced that its HiFi function will become an additional function for its premium subscribers. In its Stream On event, Spotify even asked Billie Eilish and Finneas to talk about this feature and said that HiFi audio is one of the features users most need. Spotify has never shared the cost of this additional feature, but HiFi will land in specific markets later this year.
In May, it seems that Spotify may be close to launching HiFi because users are beginning to see the “HiFi” icon in the app. However, it turns out that this does not mean anything. But also in May, Apple announced that lossless HiFi audio and Dolby Atmos spatial audio will enter Apple Music, and will be launched quickly on WWDC 2021 in June a month later.
In the second half of this year, we have not heard any news about this feature from Spotify. But as The Verge pointed out, in August there was indeed an onboarding video about this feature leaked. As pointed out by Chris Welch of The Verge, as Apple Music beats Spotify in HiFi and provides users with a free service, it may have forced Spotify to abandon plans to charge additional fees for this feature. And the loss of this financial incentive may make Spotify no longer prioritize the introduction of HiFi features.