The vertical TikTok-style video feed has invaded many apps we use on a daily basis and now it’s officially coming to one more. After announcing a beta test last year, Spotify will begin rolling out a new design for the Home section of its mobile app with a “more visual, dynamic” look. The company says the visual feeds are “built for deeper discovery and more meaningful connections between artists and fans.”
The Music, Podcasts and Audiobooks sections will also give you the ability to “scroll with purpose” through new feeds where Spotify will offer audio and video clips for you to preview. If you find something you want to hear in its entirety, there are options to save, share, preview multiple songs (playlists or albums), read episode transcriptions and watch of video podcasts. These visual feeds will also be available in the Search interface, where you can scroll through clips sorted by genre. In addition, Spotify said it will place visual content within curated playlists such as Discover Weekly, Release Radar, New Music Friday and Rap Caviar. The company sees it as a way to offer previews for songs in collections before you hit play. Unlike some of the early attempts, Spotify didn’t add a fourth button to the app’s navigation bar for these new scrollable feeds.
For the Music tab, users in the US and Canada will find Spotify’s AI DJ just below a collection of eight personalized shortcuts. When you start scrolling, the app will serve up an audio and visual snippet of a song (you can watch it muted if you want). From here, you can view up to five different songs from an album or playlist by tapping on cards – just like you would for Instagram Stories. Spotify will also give you some brief context as to why you’re seeing these recommendations.
Spotify
For the Podcast section, you’ll see eight shortcuts at the top while the rest of the feed will preview selected shows for you. Each recommendation has an audio sample and a real-time transcription or a video clip if the show was recorded in that format. If you want to continue listening, you have the option of taking the part you previewed or starting from the beginning. Spotify says the Audiobook feed will work like Podcast previews.
Spotify also revamped its Enhance tool that debuted in 2021. Now called Smart Shuffle, the feature not only adds suggestions to playlists “that perfectly match the vibe,” it also shuffles the order. You can activate it by double tapping the shuffle icon. Once you’ve done this you’ll notice a shuffle icon with a star on the top left and any track added via suggestion will be highlighted in the list. You can quickly remove all of the app’s recommendations by tapping the Smart Shuffle button once more, returning the playlist back to your curated collection.
Finally, the company has added auto play for podcasts to its app. Just like it does with music, Spotify will give you the ability to automatically start “another relevant episode” based on what you’re listening to. Just like it does for music, the company gives you the ability to turn off auto play, so when your podcast ends you can enjoy the silence.
Spotify says some of these new features will be available now, while others will debut in the coming months.