IMPORTANT! The Spotify Android SDK is currently a beta release; its content and functionality are likely to change significantly and without warning.
Spotify Android SDK
Welcome to Spotify Android SDK. This project is for people who wish to develop Android applications containing Spotify-related functionality, such as audio streaming and user authentication and authorization.
Note that by using this SDK, you accept our Developer Terms of Use.
Beta Release Information
We're releasing this SDK early to gain feedback from the developer community about the future of our Android SDK. Please file feedback about missing issues or bugs over at our issue tracker, making sure you search for existing issues and adding your voice to those rather than duplicating.
For known issues and release notes, see the CHANGELOG.md file.
Getting Started
- Download the latest Spotify Android SDK.
- Have a look at the beginner's tutorial on the Spotify Developer Website.
The SDK's structure
The Spotify Android SDK consists of two libraries. One of them handles authentication flow and the other one manages audio playback. The libraries work well together but can also be used separately, for example if the application doesn't need to play music it can use just Spotify Authentication module by itself.
Spotify Authentication Library
This library is responsible for authenticating the user and fetching the access token that can subsequently be used to play music or be used in requests to the Spotify Web API.
To add this library to your project copy the spotify-auth-{version}.aar file from the
SDK archive to the libs
folder in your app project and add the reference to its build.gradle file.
For version 1.0.0-beta12 it would be:
compile 'com.spotify.sdk:spotify-auth:1.0.0-beta12@aar'
To learn more about working with authentication see the Authentication Guide and the API reference on the developer site.
Spotify Player Library
This library can play music from Spotify after the user logs in with the access token. Only Premium Spotify users will be able to log in and play music with this library..
To add this library to your project copy the spotify-player-{version}.aar file from the
SDK archive to the libs
folder in your app project and add the reference to its build.gradle file.
For version 1.0.0-beta12 it would be:
compile 'com.spotify.sdk:spotify-player:1.0.0-beta12@aar'
To learn more about working with the player see the Beginner's Tutorial and the API reference on the developer site.
Spotify Web API
The Web API wrapper is currently not a part of the SDK project but there are a few open source Web API libraries available for Android.
Authenticating and Scopes
You can generate your application's Client ID, Client Secret and define your callback URIs at the My Applications section of the Spotify Developer Website.
When connecting a user to your app, you must provide the scopes your application needs to operate. A scope is a permission to access a certain part of a user's account, and if you don't ask for the scopes you need you will receive "permission denied" errors when trying to perform various tasks.
You do not need a scope to access non-user specific information, such as to perform searches, look up metadata, etc. A full list of scopes can be found on Scopes section of the Spotify Developer Website.
If your application's scope needs to change after a user is connected to your app, you will need to throw out your stored credentials and re-authenticate the user with the new scopes.
Important: Only ask for the scopes your application needs. Requesting playlist access when your app doesn't use playlists, for example, is bad form.