Image: Spotify
At its annual Stream On event, Spotify revealed plans to redesign the app in a way that draws more people in visually.
Spotify is getting a makeover that will make it look more like a hybrid between TikTok and Instagram, and less like the mosaic of album covers that it currently is.
The idea is to redesign the popular music streaming app into a “dynamic mobile interface” that is built for “deeper discovery” of artists and podcasts that users may not have come across before.
“It gives listeners a more active role in the audio discovery process and gives creators more space to share their work,” Spotify wrote in an announcement yesterday (8 March). This coincided with Spotify’s annual Stream On event.
Perhaps the biggest of these visual changes is the introduction of separate feeds for music, podcasts and audiobooks that show short previews of what to expect from the content. These recommendations will be powered by AI, technology Spotify has been exploring recently.
The new home feed. Image: Spotify
While the home page will still have a few album covers at the top, a video posted by the company shows how users will be able to scroll down like one does on TikTok or Instagram Reels to explore short Canvas clips of tracks taken from some of the user’s favourite genres.
Tracks from popular personalised playlists such as Discover Weekly and Release Radar can be previewed in a visual format in the redesigned Spotify, and users will also be able to explore related genres using the hashtags within the feed for “easy discovery of new favourites”.
“The world today pulls us in a million different directions,” said Gustav Söderström, Spotify’s co-president and chief of product and technology. “So the most important thing we can do for creators is to reduce the distance between their art and the people who love it – or who would love it as soon as they discovered it.”
In its latest earnings report in January, Spotify revealed it had surpassed the 200m paid subscribers milestone in 2022. However, the company’s operating losses continue to mount.
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