While Spotify crosses its fingers Apple will approve its client for iPhone’s App Store, some folk are already using Spotify on the handset. Spot, an unofficial counterpart that we discovered, has been available for jailbroken iPhones since May.

Joachim Bengtsson, a student developer from Sweden (where else?), built the client using Spotify’s libspotify API to woo Spotify itself in to giving him a job. It comes with search, artwork and plays tracks and albums, just like the real thing (see our gallery)...

But playlist support is rudimentary and, like Spotify’s own app, Spot requires the £9.99-a-month premium subscription (£0.99 day pass won’t work). That’s because Spot also relies on despotify, the unofficial library for accessing Spotify, which Spotify blocked to day pass and free users in March.

The desktop app has been getting rave reviews in Europe as it tries to make a successful freemium model. By letting a thousand apps bloom on a variety of platforms, Spotify could swell its user base. But by limiting those apps only to premium service, it could improve its chances of making a buck. “I should get commission from Spotify, since I’ve got them so many premium accounts now,” Bengtsson says.

Here is his video introduction...

And here’s the app demo video (note the tunes - a cheeky reference to Apple’s own iPod ads)...

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