What you need to know
- Spotify is rolling out a refreshed home experience on mobile.
- The new update will give music and podcasts their dedicated feed for easier discovery.
- It is coming to Android phones first before rolling out on iOS.
Spotify's home screen has been nothing more than a hodgepodge of content that makes discovering new songs or podcasts a bit confusing until now. The service is addressing one of its main criticisms with a new update to its home experience.
In a blog post, the service announced the launch of dedicated home feeds for songs and podcasts. It will first be available on Android devices before making its way to iOS devices.
Spotify's new home experience won't replace its existing home page: you'll still be able to glance at your recently played songs or mixes in a single feed. Instead, at the top of your home screen, you'll soon see two pill-shaped buttons for music and podcasts/shows. Tapping on either button will take you to the type of content you're looking for at a given moment.
The music feed will display song suggestions based on your listening habit. You'll also stumble upon album and playlist recommendations, complete with buttons for sharing, playing, and saving songs to your personal playlists.
Meanwhile, the podcast feed will show the latest episodes of shows you're following along with personalized recommendations. There's an option to read episode descriptions, save episodes to your library, or start listening to podcasts without exiting the page.
Until now, discovering songs or podcasts can take you hours thanks to Spotify's jumbled home screen. For example, podcasts are placed in a playlist called “Episodes for you." The new update gives this type of content its own space.
More to the point, Spotify's latest announcement underlines its growing desire to dominate the podcast space, what with recent investments it made as part of that effort. Last April, the company expanded its video podcasting feature to creators in the U.S., Canada, UK, Australia, and New Zealand, with plans to bring it to other markets in the future. Spotify has also been testing a new tab dedicated to podcast discovery, displaying podcasts in a TikTok-style carousel.
The most recent change appears to be the first step in that direction, and it's a logical addition to one of the best music streaming services with deep pockets in the podcast market.
