Jaguar Land Rover will introduce Spotify music streaming to its vehicles starting this month.
The service will be available on all Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles equipped with InControl Apps. Starting September 27, drivers can download Spotify from the Apple App Store, and once their phone is plugged into the car, the music streaming app will automatically show up on the vehicle's touchscreen. Users don't need a paid Spotify subscription for this feature to work.
JLR says it spent a year collaborating with Spotify to make the user experience just right. The feature allows drivers to scroll through menus and access personalized "Just for You" playlists. When traveling through low-signal areas, users can take advantage of the Spotify "Offline Mode" that will play previously downloaded music.
"The Spotify design team worked closely with us to create the best in-vehicle experience, and have spent many hours with us at our Gaydon HQ running user studies with our employees." said Peter Virk, director of Connected Technologies and Apps for JLR, in a statement. "We will continue to work with Spotify to add new features such as predictive search over the coming months."
JLR isn't the only automaker to pair up with Spotify. Volvo said it will add Spotify integration to its entire global lineup, while Ford has also integrated the feature into its Sync App Link system.
When you ask most people when your love for cars began, they can go all the way back to when they were just a small child and tell you a specific time when that love was ignited. I, on the other hand, can’t really recall a specific moment when it hit me. My channel into cars was through photography. After graduating high school, with a growing passion for photography and cars, I began to really concentrate on my imagery, using up the photography program at my local junior college. This is the point where I can really say that I knew I wanted to shoot for a living. Having easy access to my friends’ cars and also owning a ’05 Suzuki GSX-R 600 and later a ’03 Nissan 350Z--which I still drive to this day--fueled my love for automotive photography. It was the key to my development as a photographer. Being able to take my own car to a desired location and spend as much time as I wanted experimenting with different techniques and setups was invaluable. After feeling very confident in my work and where I could go with it, I enrolled at Brooks Institute of Photography in October of 2009 and continued with my schooling until graduating in December of 2012.
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