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How to make a Spotify app. Look inside a Spotify app and find out the cost of app development

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Vlad Dm
How to make a Spotify app. Look inside a Spotify app and find out the cost of app development
Either you drive a car, take the subway, or wait for somebody in the street - music is always with you thanks to the growing web and mobile technologies. The music streaming app seem to be very simple and available to anyone, till you question how to make a Spotify app clone for your own business needs. Heres where it gets interesting. 
Do you want a bit of statististics This one is quite impressive.
The Nielsen's year-end Music report says that 91% of Americans listen to music regularly, 75% of them do it online, and 44% use smartphones for this purpose. The same study points out to the increase in popularity of audio streams that grew 97.4% in 2016 compared to 2015 which is equivalent to 113.5 billion streams.
Along with that, I cannot fail to mention that the biggest number of paid subscribers belong to Spotify, that is ahead of Apple Music and Pandora with its 30 million compared to 15 million and 3.9 million respectively.
best music streaming apps
Leading music streaming apps according to the number of paid subscribers (Source: Statista)
It is no wonder that such figures may inspire you to create your own Spotify. In this article, I am going to answer all the questions concerning this topic.

Where to start: Fresh idea behind Spotify

Non-trivial ideas and quality work are the main components of success. As you may have guessed, Spotify has both. If you want to create a Spotify-like app, first explore the idea and technology behind it, as its operating principle significantly differs from other online streaming services and aims to provide customers with the best user experience ever.
So, what exactly does it do This is simple: it streams music promptly, accurately, without any delays. To achieve that, it uses a peer-to-peer (P2P) network which basically turns all application users into micro servers for interactive data exchange. It means that when you play a particular track, Spotify doesn't stream from a single central server but searches for nearby devices that have this record stored in their cache.
It is not necessary that one user is the entire track donor. Spotify can collect a certain song or a whole playlist from small fragments stored on the devices of different people.
Moreover, the app is smart enough not to address third-party servers if proper track is kept on your gadget. In this case, it just retrieves the needed data from your cache folder and plays your favorite song even if you are offline. Here is what the Spotify app developers suggested to stand out in a fairly tough competition.
Additionally, Spotify remembers the habits of its users. That is, if you launch the first track of Adele's album, it prepares the second in advance. Thus, you do not experience any lags while switching the songs. If you suddenly decide to change the usual order of tracks, Spotify bends with the wind immediately and uses its smart engine for fast and accurate music streaming.
Another thing that distinguishes this music streaming app is Spotify developer API. The main point of it is to let music app developers build playlists in their own apps.
That said, let's move on to actual Spotify app development steps.

How to create a Spotify app: Development flow step-by-step

Any project, regardless of the product type, passes through stages of preparation, actual development, and finishing works. Let's take a look at the Spotify development process as an example.
At the preparatory phase, we describe the application options, compose user storyboards, set the test plan, and provide the client with the detailed estimate.
At the development stage, we work on the design, implement the app options, and conduct testing.
The final stage includes delivering the project to the client and some corrections of minor issues if they take place.

Licensing

When you build the Spotify-like app, there is one important thing you have to take care of -- Licensing. Legal music streaming service requires legal audio content. If your service is aimed at US, you should get Public Performance Rights, which is handed by The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers or Broadcast Music Incorporated. In case your target market is Europe, go straight to European Stage Authors and Composers for the permission.
I suggest that we consider the development stage in more details. Here are the basic steps of Spotify app development.
 
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Vlad Dm
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