Feedback on a US Spotify UI (that works!)

[arlorose]

Hi, all.

I'm working on a pretty straightforward project in the absence of US Spotify support.

TL;DR: I'm building a Tesla browser optimised web app that will control your Spotify playback, organization, and features while the audio streams via your phone.

This project started as me building an app for iOS that acted as a bridge between Apple Music APIs and a website. It turns out Spotify makes this much easier, and it's cross-platform, so I'm going with that instead.

The end goal will be to have playback, scrubbing, playlist access, some playlist management (adding current track, etc.), and access to Spotify's daily stations.

I'm in the early stages. I have the control piece working (with no UI yet), and next step will be to get the UI to work well in the Tesla browser. This part won't be trivial, I know. Also, my car was broken into Friday night, so I won't have access to it for a little while.

So does this sound like something people would want to use?

I'm notorious for starting this kind of stuff and moving on to something else that's a challenge once the challenging parts of the current one are over. So if people are interested, I'd love feedback to keep me going.

Also "man, what if it did this?" kinda suggestions.

 

[headcase]

Personally, I don't see much of an advantage of this over using the native app on the phone. Especially given the slow-as-molasses Tesla browser, which is pretty useless in its current state.

 

[Bebop]

I’d have to try it out myself to see if it would really be helpful vs a dedicated app within the UI itself of the car.

It is kind of hard to imagine anything better than the app on the phone itself. Aside from a dedicated app on the car itself. But I would absolutely test it out for you and provide feedback since I am a avid daily Spotify user. I do have the premium subscription on Spotify.

 

[arlorose]

Well, for me the benefit is leaving my phone in the cradle and not having to futz with it. Also being able to see details at a glance that are accurate. Like track time, time remaining, actual album art, etc.

Yes, their browser is awful. So this could be a waste of time, but I’m hoping to make use of Web 1.0 standards to make it decent. :-D

 

[nigelboid]

I agree -- I see clear advantages in using the Tesla screen as the controller rather than fiddling with my phone. I would love to give this a try and to provide feedback...

Cheers!

 

[FlyingCookie]

This would be awesome for people like me that, for the most part, leave our phones in our pockets while driving. Aside from a true US Spotify app in the car, I think this is the next best thing.

 

[Xenoilphobe]

so much safer than screwing with bluetooth, and then trying to use Spotify on a tiny iPhone screen, dude you rock, when can I start using this manna from heaven?

 

[Bebop]

I agree -- I see clear advantages in using the Tesla screen as the controller rather than fiddling with my phone. I would love to give this a try and to provide feedback...

Cheers!

+1

 

[SeminoleFSU]

Can you even get audio from the in-car browser to play through the system? IIRC, I haven't seen that and it's a show-stopper

 

[arlorose]

The audio comes through your mobile phone. This is just a controller.

So here's an update. So far everything is working for pulling data, and I'm using the most basic web technology to avoid speed problems. The only issue I need to work out (which I feel like I can, but isn't a priority yet), is that the Tesla browser isn't keeping the token data around as long as my laptop, and when it goes through the Spotify login flow, it takes you through the Facebook flow which also expires as often (I use my FB login for Spotify). I think this is resolvable by storing token server-side. I hope it is because having to enter my FB email and PW every other day is a show stopper.

More soon!

 

[arlorose]

P.S. Who ever thought tables were a good idea?

 

[tadslippy]

As one of the many US owners wishing for a direct integration - this sounds like it could bridge the gap. Here's my wishlist:

- As a start i'd love to just have the display of what's currently playing (via the phone) on the big browser
- Being able to browse or jump to a different recently played or daily generated playlist
- Third would be being able to jump around to various songs in the current playlist

 

[arlorose]

And that's the order I'm doing it in.

So far this authentication issue is the only show-stopper, but I haven't gotten to working on a solution yet. You'd think that'd be first since it is, in fact, a show stopper if I can't get it to work. Nobody is going to want to enter their login info every time they get in their car. Trust me; I don't even use this right now as a result of this.

Right now it's working with current playback. There can be up to a 4-second delay if the user changes tracks via the steering wheel, but overall the basics are in decent shape.

I'm about to hack on the authentication piece a little, and then I'll post a URL for people to play with and see what issues come up.

 

[SeminoleFSU]

If I didn't keep the Nav on the top and tesla waze in the browser on the lower half of the screen I'd be all over this... but since I can't live without those two I probably wouldn't use this much. If you post more details I can try to test a little to help out though

 

[SeminoleFSU]

Considering now I understand what you're trying to do I thought you were trying to run spotify entirely in the browser at first

 

[arlorose]

Well... which Waze app are you using? That's another piece I'd love to add at some point. I can certainly make a frame to run them both... but I'd also like to see if there's a better one than what I'd seen before, as it was pretty visually rough looking.

 

[arlorose]

I found the most recent version of the Waze browser. (Tesla Traffic Incidents and Information) and it's much better than what I saw before.

I reached out to the guy that did it to see if he wanted to collaborate on a combined experience. I'll let you know if I hear anything.

 

[Bebop]

I finally got my car! And so I’m ready to test this out as soon as you release it

 

[arlorose]

I made a huge amount of progress today on getting the core thing behaving and hooking the buttons up. There are some intra-script communication issues with updating the timer correctly, and knowing when to pay attention to my internal timer vs the progress timer their API returns (mostly a non-issue, but causes the seconds to stutter every once in a while).

I'm really struggling with how to deal with this authentication problem in a way that requires minimal user interaction. I know EVE (teslaapps.net) is able to persist some data somehow even though cookies are purged frequently on the car, so once I figure out how they did that, I'll be in good shape.

More soon!

 

[arlorose]

Trying it on my way to work. Yay!

I’m slammed with meetings today and out of town for two weeks as of tomorrow, so I’ll try and get something for people to play with before I jump on the plane in the AM.