Apple’s biggest competition in the music streaming business may be preparing to become a hardware rival, too.
Jobs listings posted by Spotify indicate the company is planning to make a hardware play. Spotify says it’s working on a “category defining product,” but based on what the company compares it to, Apple might not have much to worry about.
Spotify is looking for a senior product manager of hardware and a product manager for voice.
The hardware product manager job description says the company is looking to build Spotify experiences though connected hardware devices: “You will be leading an initiative to deliver hardware directly from Spotify to existing and new customers; a category defining product akin to Pebble Watch, Amazon Echo, and Snap Spectacles.”
Spotify speaker?
The products listed don’t really have anything in common, so it’s hard to tell what Spotify is working on. A smart internet connected Spotify speaker could be one possibility. Google and Amazon already offer such devices, though, so it’s hard to see what type of innovation the music streaming service could bring to the table.
Spotify envisions selling its hardware to “millions of users.” In the other job listing, the company mentions that voice is becoming an increasingly important input mechanism. Perhaps the company is looking to free Spotify from smartphones.
