Soundrop’s addictive, Spotify-powered social listening app comes to iOS

Social listening may have lost some of the hype it had as a concept back when Turntable.fm first caught our imaginations last summer, but listening to music with like-minded strangers via an app is still an appealing idea, and Soundrop is one of the leaders in bringing it to the masses. Until now it’s only been available as an app within Spotify, but now it’s launching on iOS.

As with the Spotify app, the idea here is simple. You browse through a bunch of themed rooms (called ‘Spots’), either set up by Soundrop or other users, and then listen to the same playlist as anyone else in the same Spot as you.

You can see the next few songs lined up to play, and can vote for which one you’d like to hear next. As the current song finishes, the one with the most votes is next to play. You can contribute to the playlist by searching Spotify’s library. Any song you add is then open for voting by others in the room.

The iOS app requires a Facebook account and a Spotify Premium subscription to work (as this enables mobile streaming access). While it’s not the most exciting app to look at (the word ‘functional’ describes its design well), it fits just about everything from the desktop version except the creation of new rooms. You can, however, ‘remote control’ rooms you’ve already created.

Soundrop is a fun way to listen to music, and voting to get your favourite songs played adds an enjoyable dynamic to listening to music on the go. Soundrop for iOS is free download and available now.

➤ Soundrop