Spotify on Wednesday announced an update to its app designed to give users more control over their listening experience and recommendations. The refreshed experience introduces a handful of new features that will roll out gradually to Spotify users and Premium subscribers, including those to help you manage your Queue, your current listening experience, aid with playlist creation, and more.
The changes help to balance out an app that often leans heavily on algorithmic recommendations to suggest and play music by instead giving users the power to shape what’s played, when, and how often.
For Premium users, Spotify’s Queue has been revamped. The new design provides easier access to controls like Shuffle, Smart Shuffle, Repeat, and Sleep Timer, the company says. Smart Shuffle and Autoplay can also be switched fully off from Spotify’s Settings, if preferred.
Plus, Premium subscribers will start seeing the tracks that Spotify is recommending to play after their queued-up tracks, so they can choose in advance what gets to stay in their Queue.
As you listen to music, you can tap a refreshed Hide button that’s now more intuitively located, Spotify claims, when you come across a song you’re not in the mood for within your playlist. The button will hide the track in the playlist across all devices. However, the company will soon introduce an even stronger version of the “hide” with the launch of a new 30-day Snooze feature that will temporarily remove a track from your recommendations.
The company is also introducing features to improve the management of playlists on mobile. At the top of your playlists, you’ll now find Add, Sort, and Edit buttons that allow you to add tracks, change the playlist’s title or cover art, and organize the sequence of songs.
Listeners in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, the U.K., and the U.S. will be able to use their Liked songs to create a playlist after first filtering it by genre, then tapping the new option to “turn into a playlist.”
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Other music curation tools have also been relocated. Now, users can tap the Create button at the bottom-right of the mobile app to access tools to create playlists, collaborate on playlists with friends, and join a Blend (a playlist that combines two people’s musical tastes by featuring songs they’ll both enjoy).
Premium subscribers, meanwhile, can tap the Create button to access the newer AI Playlist feature and Jam, a real-time listening session where multiple people can contribute to a shared Queue.
As a result of the changes, Spotify has relocated the Your Library tab to be the third option at the bottom of its mobile app.
