It seems Christmas came knocking a tad early for Spotify fans, especially folks who are on the free tier. Merely a few days after announcing the lossless music streaming facility, the company is rolling out a bunch of new features that won’t require a Premium subscription and will be accessible globally.
What’s the big shift?
The most notable feature addition to the free Spotify experience is “Pick & Play.” If the name didn’t already give it away, you can now open any album or playlist, tap on the desired track, and enjoy the tunes beaming into your ear canals. To date, this perk has been limited to Premium customers.
So far, non-paying users have been at the mercy of the shuffle algorithm to play the song they wanted to hear from within an album, but no option to directly play it. On a similar note, Spotify is opening the doors for “Search & Play,” which lets users look up a particular song and play it right away.
Of course, ads are not going away, so be prepared to hear a cool commercial before you lose yourself in the beats the heart has been yearning for. Finally, we have “Share & Play,” which lets you listen to a song directly, wherever the link was shared (read: internet or social communication platform).
What else is new on Spotify?
The music streaming platform has been on a roll lately. In a bid to boost its social appeal, Spotify launched a new messaging feature that essentially acts like a built-in DMs section and lets users share the audio content they love. Of course, the addition of lossless streaming quality was a big move, especially considering the fact that it came years after Spotify originally announced the Hi-Fi tier.
Earlier this month, Spotify also rolled out new Smart Filters that make it easier to find and enjoy tracks based on a certain mood, activity, or genre. It tagged alongside the ability to hide tracks in a playlist, snooze certain songs for a month, and more granular queue controls. For bibliophiles, Spotify launched a dedicated Big on BookTok hub in partnership with TikTok to help users discover audiobooks.
