Spotify appears to be ditching its HiFi plans for now
One trend that we’ve been seeing recently from some of the best music streaming services is the addition of Hi-Fi quality. Spotify is notably missing, while Apple Music and Amazon Music are now offering HiFi streaming as an option. In the early part of 2021, Spotify announced that it was working on a HiFI tier, with plans to launch the features before the end of the year.
Unfortunately, Spotify missed its self-imposed deadline, and until now, did not provide any insight as to when HiFi would arrive. As spotted by 9to5Mac, it seems that Spotify just isn’t ready to launch the HiFi option for its subscribers. A new post in the Spotify Community was found, as users wanted some type of answer as to why the deadline was missed and when the new feature would be landing. Spotify responded with the following statement:
Hey folks,
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.
On the bright side, it appears as though the feature addition isn’t being tabled entirely. Instead, it could be that Spotify is pivoting from releasing a new subscription tier with access to HiFi music. Due to the phrasing of the provided statement, it seems that Spotify could end up including HiFI streaming for existing Premium subscribers.
Of course, it’s unclear whether this would mean a price increase is on the horizon, but that definitely wouldn’t be a great look. Apple added Lossless Music with Spatial Audio for existing Apple Music subscribers, without upping the price. But Spotify could opt to do something different whenever the time comes for Spotify HiFi to actually arrive.