I’ll be honest: when Spotify arrived on the Snap store I thought: “hurrah”.
Hurrah for an easier way to install the music streaming client (no need to futz around adding the Spotify repository like in the past) and hurrah for automatic background updates that ensure I’m always running the latest release.
At least, that was the theory.
Alas, the official Spotify for Linux Snap package has not been updated since April of this year.
“Oh,” I thought, “I guess there hasn’t been an update to the Spotify Linux desktop client since then!”
But there has — several updates, in fact!
Now, to be fair, Spotify has done a pretty stellar job of maintaining its Snap app since 2017 — it’s only 3 months out of date.
But as the chart below shows, the Snap build is slacking compared to other formats:-
| Spotify Repo | Flathub | Snap Store | |
| Version | 1.1.10.546 | 1.1.10.546 | 1.1.5.153 |
Anyone who uses the Spotify desktop client enough will know how badly any and all bug fixes are needed! The client, to put it mildly, is a fudge (although it’s not “officially” supported on Linux anyway, despite providing official packages).
Jamie Bennett, VP of Engineering, Devices & IoT at Canonical heralded the arrival of the Spotify Snap in late 2017 by stating that: “Spotify has ensured that their users in the Linux ecosystem are now able to enjoy the latest version of their leading music streaming application as soon as it’s released.”
Alas, it’s not quite turned out that way.
Ways to Get Spotify on Linux
There’s no immediate need to purge or panic as the outdated Spotify Snap still works on Ubuntu (though admittedly “works fine” is subjective with this app, and I say that as someone who uses it daily).
But if you’re the sort of Linux user who likes to run the latest software on your system you might want to look in to an alternative way of getting Spotify for Linux — at least until some sort of consistent released cadence is revived for the Snap build.
The good news is that you’re not short on choice.
The latest Spotify for Linux build is packaged and distribution as a Flatpak app on Flathub (though do note that this is an unofficial build).
Ubuntu and Linux Mint users might prefer to update the old school way and use the official Spotify repository instead.
What’s Up?
Spotify (like Skype, who’s out-of-date Snap build we mentioned earlier this month) is yet to respond to my email querying the current status of their Snap package. One hopes the packaging pipe block is only temporary.
Update: it was. They’ve since updated Spotify Snap app.
And yes: I appreciate I sound like a scratched record with these “out of date Snap app” posts — but they’re only because I care. Snaps are supposed to be the user-friendly way to install apps and get updates automatically. It’s why I (and perhaps you) use them.
But the whole ease-of-use caboodle only works when app developers play ball.
Thanks Tom