Just a few weeks after officially launching in Uganda and other African countries, popular music streaming service Spotify has rolled out a new design for its web player and desktop app which seeks to align the computer-based experience with that of its mobile app on Android and iOS.
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“Since the desktop experience served as the original window to the world for Spotify, this was not a task we took lightly. It took months of tests and research, talking to users, and gathering feedback,” Spotify said.
“Now, we’re pleased to deliver a new, clean design, more controls, and a great new foundation for our listeners to use Spotify across our desktop app and web player for the years to come,” it stated.
First off, a new and improved look and feel for both interfaces will make it easier for users to access the content they want.
Among these changes are the Search bar being moved to the left side of the navigation pane, top artists and tracks added to listeners’ profile pages, and the ability to start radio sessions by clicking the “…” menu.
These updates are shown in the screenshot of the new interface below.
New playlist features and offline downloads
Secondly, listeners will now have simpler playlist creation features at their disposal. This includes the ability to tailor playlists by adding descriptions, uploading images, and dragging and dropping tracks into existing playlists.
A new embedded search bar will also allow for finding and adding new songs and podcast episodes to new and existing playlists.
The desktop app will now provide the option to edit Queue and view Recently played, in addition to applying new sorting options to their libraries via a dropdown menu in the top-right corner.
Save data with offline mode
One notable new feature in the desktop app is the ability to download music and podcasts to listen to while offline, saving on data usage at later stages. This will eIt is only available for premium subscribers who can do this by choosing the download button (downwards arrow) to the right of the play button in the playlist menu, as shown above.
