Spotify has decided to give its iOS app a bit of a redesign, which the music streaming service giant says will overall make it easier to use its most popular features on the move.
Rolling out for both Free and Premium subscription members, Spotify says it’s cleaned up the UI, introducing elements like a big universal Shuffle Play button to shuffle tracks in an album.
- Apple Music vs Spotify: the music streaming titans go head-to-head
- Apple launches Spotify Wrapped-alike to highlight your favorite tunes of 2019
- Spotify Kids protects your child from explicit content
The first change, which may confuse folk, is to the 'Shuffle Play' button - it's now a big play button with the shuffle icon alongside:
The new Spotify app is also putting the icons that let you ‘play’, ‘download’ and ‘like’ music in the centre of your screen - although only for premium users. The music-playing service hopes by moving them more centrally, it will help when you’ve only got one hand free to find that next album full of gold.
Speaking of podcasts, the Spotify app is now also using the same icon for downloading content for offline playback, which of course remains a feature for Premium users only.
Other changes include the ability to view cover art, though that’s not available in ‘Album’ view. It’ll now highlight songs you’ve already liked, showing the heart icon next to the previously liked track.
The updated app has started rolling out worldwide, so you’ll need to check the App Store to see if it’s landed for you - although if you've got automatic app updates on, you're probably seeing it already (or will do soon).
Android users - hold tight
For Spotify users on Android phones casting an envious eye over these new features, they’ll be heading your way too. Spotify said the updated features will be ready “soon”.
The iOS app refresh comes hot on the heels of the revamp Spotify made to its podcasts section.
It decided to make changes to the podcast discovery, adding descriptive show categories as well as moving trailer snippets to the top of the episode lists.
Quite frankly, anything that Spotify can do to make it easier to just get to listening is something we are all for.
