Spotify has been working on a new home tab design that would generate distinct streams for your music and podcasts. The business claims it’s part of an attempt to provide you with more and better suggestions, but it also tackles a frequent critique of the Spotify experience: with all types of music smushed together in the app, it may be difficult to figure out what to listen to.
The redesigned home feed, which is already available for Android users and will be available for iOS “in the near future,” doesn’t seem to be that different at first sight. However, there are two new buttons at the top of the screen: one for Music and one for Podcasts & Shows. Tapping one of these will take you to a different stream. Music will offer you recommendations based on what you’ve been listening to, while Podcasts & Series will show you the most recent episodes of your favorite shows as well as ideas for new ones. It’s not so much new home screens as it is new home screen filters.
The move seems to be especially beneficial for podcast listeners since it transforms Spotify into something more akin to a podcast app. Until today, it was very difficult to just open Spotify and pick a podcast to listen to; Spotify typically decided to mix podcasts and music, relegating your podcast feed to a playlist labeled “New Episodes.” The firm seems to be revamping its Library page indefinitely, while the home screen has remained essentially unchanged for many years.
Podcasts are now much more prominent, which is good for listeners but also shows how essential podcasts are to Spotify. As the corporation frantically seeks methods to earn money from audio, it has spent extensively on becoming the market’s largest podcasting participant. It’s also making a huge push towards video, which seems to be the kind of function that requires its own section of the app.
Spotify’s overall strategy to dominate audio has included bringing everything from music to books to podcasts to live audio into a single location. That’s a hard user interface challenge that the corporation hasn’t always handled right. In this scenario, it seems that giving everything their own area is the correct decision. And it provides Spotify a slew of new opportunities to entice you to listen to Joe Rogan and the rest of its pods.
