IT House December 24 news, according to 9to5 Mac reported that since Spotify announced that its HiFi product is scheduled to launch sometime in 2021, we are about to usher in a year. However, with only a week or so left, Spotify is on the verge of missing that deadline. At the same time, Apple Music listeners will be able to enjoy HiFi lossless audio for free starting in June.
IT House learned that back in February, Spotify announced that its HiFi feature would become an add-on for its premium subscribers. In its "Stream On" campaign, Spotify even asked Billie Eilish and Finneas to talk about the feature, saying that HiFi audio is one of the features that users need most.
Spotify has never shared the cost of this add-on, but HiFi will land in specific markets "later this year."
Fast forward to May, and it looks like Spotify may be close to launching HiFi, as users start seeing the HiFi icon in the app. However, it turns out that this does not represent anything.
But also in May, Apple announced that lossless HiFi audio and Dolby Atmos spatial audio would make their way into Apple Music, and a month later, at WWDC 2021 in June.
In the second half of the year, we haven't heard anything from Spotify about the feature. But as The Verge points out, there was an onboarding video leak about the feature in August.
As The Verge's Chris Welch points out, as Apple Music beat Spotify over HiFi and offered users a free service, it may have forced Spotify to abandon plans to charge extra for the feature. Losing that financial incentive could cause Spotify to stop prioritizing HiFi features.
![Spotify HiFi feature jump tickets, officially said is still under development[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)