Spotify announced on Wednesday an update to an app designed to give users more control over their listening experiences and recommendations. Refresh Experience introduces some new features that gradually roll out users and premium subscribers to Spotify users and premium subscribers, including the ability to manage queues, the current listening experience, and the creation of playlists.
This change helps balance apps that are leaning heavily towards algorithmic recommendations to suggest and play music, giving users instead what has been played, when and how often to shape it.
For premium users, Spotify’s queue has been revamped. The new design will make it easier to access controls such as shuffle, smart shuffle, repeat and sleep timers, the company says. Smart shuffle and autoplay can also be switched completely from Spotify settings if necessary.
Additionally, premium subscribers recommend that Spotify play after the queued track. So you can pre-select what will stay in the queue.
If you hear a song that feels bad within the playlist, you can tap on the updated hide button that is more intuitively placed, Spotify claims. The button hides tracks in the playlist for all devices. However, the company will soon introduce an even stronger version of “hidden,” launching a new 30-day snooze feature, and temporarily remove tracks from recommendations.
The company is also introducing features that improve the management of playlists on mobile. At the top of the playlist, you can add, edit and sort buttons to add tracks, change the playlist title, change the cover art each, and organize the song sequence.
Listeners in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, UK and the US can first filter by genre, then create a playlist using arousal songs and tap on the new option to “turn to playlist.”
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Other music compensation tools have also been relocated. Users can tap the Create button at the bottom right of the mobile app to access the tool to create a playlist, collaborate with friends on the playlist, and join the blend (a playlist that combines two’s music preferences, both featuring songs they enjoy).
Premium subscribers, on the other hand, can access the new AI playlist feature and JAM by tapping on the Create button. This is a real-time listening session in which multiple people can contribute to the shared queue.
As a result of the change, Spotify has relocated the (Library) tab to the third option at the bottom of the mobile app.