By now, everyone knows what Spotify is. They are the go-to music streaming app with 205 million premium subscribers worldwide as of last quarter of 2022. Although TikTok isn’t their direct competitor, but the company understands the influence it has globally. Which is probably why they have decided to emulate the TikTok app experience on Spotify.
Yesterday, during its “Stream On” event, Spotify unveiled significant changes that are being introduced to its iOS and Android apps. The TikTok-like updates include the addition of video and audio previews for music, podcasts, and audiobooks in the Home feed. Additionally, there are new video feeds in the Search function to aid in content discovery.
According to Spotify, here’s what you can expect from the new updates:
- Music, Podcasts & Shows, and Audiobook previews on Home: Simply tap into the Music, Podcasts & Shows, or Audiobooks feed to explore visual and audio previews of playlists, albums, podcast episodes, and audiobooks personalized for you. Then, tap to save or share, go deeper into the artist or podcast pages, play from the start, or continue listening from where the preview ended. (Audiobooks previews are currently available in the U.S., the U.K., Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.)
- New feeds for discovery in Search: Scroll up or down to explore short Canvas clips from tracks from some of your favourite genres. Then easily save the song to a playlist, follow the artist, or share it with friends — all from one place. You can also explore related genres using the hashtags within the feed for easy discovery of new favourites. You can even preview tracks on some of your favourite playlists like Discover Weekly, Release Radar, New Music Friday, and RapCaviar.
After previewing the content on the home screen, you can:
- Save, download, or share with just one tap: Simply tap the Plus (+) icon to save your recommendations to Your Episodes or Your Library. Then, download or queue by tapping the three dots at the bottom of the preview.
- Play from the start: Press Play to listen to a track, album, playlist, or episode from the start. For podcasts, tap “continue listening” to play the rest of the preview from where it began.
- Dive even deeper: Tapping a recommendation will take you to the playlist, album, or single to explore even more related audio.
Spotify has not disclosed a specific date for the release of the new user interface, but has stated that it’s “beginning to roll out to Premium and Free users globally across iOS and Android”. So, just keep an eye out for the update to arrive.
