Is Spotify secretly building gadgets? FCC offers new evidence
What would you like Spotify to build?
Hardware is a hard business (just ask Snapchat) but music subscription service Spotify doesn't seem to be shying away. As spotted by Variety, the company has now officially registered with the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC). This is the strongest evidence yet that Spotify is secretly building a piece of consumer hardware for gadget lovers like you and me.
Mind you, all that's technically happened here is that Spotify has been granted a five-digit code -- 2AP3D -- that it can use to submit products to the FCC if it so chooses. But it's actually a huge hint: Companies don't need to register with the FCC unless they're building wireless devices, and some companies don't register if they're merely white-labeling products from another manufacturer.
The FCC registration suggests that Spotify is designing a wireless device in-house, which lines up with a mysterious job posting from February. Is the company building its own smart speaker? Or a wearable device, as suggested by a separate job posting last year?
At the Code Conference last week, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said he "wouldn't rule out" the company building its own devices, but said the Spotify service is his company's primary business. "If we do things, it is to enable that service. It isn't to be in the hardware [business] selling these things," he told attendees.
What would you want Spotify to build?
