No more Spotify on Zumo
Re: No more Spotify on Zumo
I just ran into this and wanted to see if anyone had any luck finding a workaround for this issue. Like one of the other posters I'm able to get the Zumo to properly load Spotify when I connect my iPad, but not my iPhone, which is odd given both are running ios 18.x. What's annoying to me is that even when I can get it to sorta work via changing the source to 'Bluetooth Media' half the time the artist and song will not appear properly in the media (Spotify and regular 'Media') apps. The whole reason I got a 595LM and sold my old 396 was to get access to the Spotify app and now I'm annoyed that's broken. Oddly, Pandora seems to have fixed their issue that was similar to Spotify and that works.
Re: No more Spotify on Zumo
Last night I spent way too much time on troubleshooting this. I found some interesting things, which I'll explain below.
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Device - iPhone
OS - iOS18.0.1
SmartLink Version - 2.9.8
Spotify Version - 8.9.86
Behavior - Spotify App will not work on the 595LM in the expected way - connection fails.
Workaround A) - Launch Media Player app and use input (iPhone/iPod). Album art shows and artist/song title show. Unable to browse Spotify playlists.
Workaround B) - Launch Media Player app and use input (Bluetooth). Album art/artist/song title do not show. Unable to browse Spotify playlists.
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Device - iPhone (old iPhone 6s)
OS - iOS12.x
SmartLink Version - 2.9.8
Spotify Version - Old (can't remember)
Behavior - Spotify App will work on the 595LM in the expected way.
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Observances/theory - The crux of the issue is not the SmartLink app or the Garmin 595LM firmware, but with Spotify. On my newer iPhone within the Spotify app I noticed that when connected to the 595LM it went into 'Car Mode'. On my older phone that did not happen. I suspect that's the crux of the issue. Sometime in the first half of 2022 Spotify made a change to their iOS app (and likely Android) that messed up Car Mode - I think it's to do with their CarThing, which I have oddly enough. I'm hoping that when they fully unsupport the CarThing that the iOS/Android app update will as a side-effect fix this issue. That's not until I think Dec 9, 2024, so have a little way to go before we'll know if that works. For now, I'll just work-around it via changing the input to iPhone/iPod in the Media Player app.
------------------
Device - iPhone
OS - iOS18.0.1
SmartLink Version - 2.9.8
Spotify Version - 8.9.86
Behavior - Spotify App will not work on the 595LM in the expected way - connection fails.
Workaround A) - Launch Media Player app and use input (iPhone/iPod). Album art shows and artist/song title show. Unable to browse Spotify playlists.
Workaround B) - Launch Media Player app and use input (Bluetooth). Album art/artist/song title do not show. Unable to browse Spotify playlists.
------------------
Device - iPhone (old iPhone 6s)
OS - iOS12.x
SmartLink Version - 2.9.8
Spotify Version - Old (can't remember)
Behavior - Spotify App will work on the 595LM in the expected way.
------------------
Observances/theory - The crux of the issue is not the SmartLink app or the Garmin 595LM firmware, but with Spotify. On my newer iPhone within the Spotify app I noticed that when connected to the 595LM it went into 'Car Mode'. On my older phone that did not happen. I suspect that's the crux of the issue. Sometime in the first half of 2022 Spotify made a change to their iOS app (and likely Android) that messed up Car Mode - I think it's to do with their CarThing, which I have oddly enough. I'm hoping that when they fully unsupport the CarThing that the iOS/Android app update will as a side-effect fix this issue. That's not until I think Dec 9, 2024, so have a little way to go before we'll know if that works. For now, I'll just work-around it via changing the input to iPhone/iPod in the Media Player app.