Spotify is trying to stabilize its advantage against competing music services with a new design that it claims is “the biggest update to the app ever.” Spotify promises a dynamic experience that will encourage the discovery of new music and more meaningful connections between the artists and the fans.
In practice, it seems that this is a design that draws quite a bit of inspiration from social apps such as TikTok and Instagram: a kind of endless flow of photos and short videos, replacing the familiar look of album covers for music recommendations. The new flow will be displayed after choosing to filter between music and podcasts on the main page of the application, which also receives a more minor update when its upper part will remain unchanged, while below it recommendations will sometimes be shown in the form of short videos that will be played automatically.
The new stream will also be displayed in the search results, and in viewing automatic playlists such as Discover Weekly and Release Radar. In addition, Spotify announced a new feature called Smart Shuffle, which will try to refresh old playlists with new songs in the same style. Also, Spotify adds an auto-play feature to podcasts as well: when you finish listening to a podcast, the application will automatically select another episode of the same topic or style.
The new features are now making their way to Spotify’s premium users, and will be rolling out to most of them over the next few days. These announcements join the company’s AI DJ, which remains exclusive to US customers for the time being.