Spotify updates make it easier to discover new and old favourites

New updates to Spotify’s iOS and Android apps will make music discovery easier for users.

A change on the mobile Home hub will let free and paid subscribers find their faveouruite tracks, pick up where they left off, or discover something new.

“We’re constantly working on ways to improve our user experience,” Spotify said in a blog.

‘Recently Played’ allows users to run through what they’ve streamed over the previous three months in the form of individual tracks, including playlists or albums.

Premium and free users can browse through individual tunes and episodes recently played along with the playlists, albums and shows that they were streamed from.

‘Podcast improvements will let premium users see at a glance whether a podcast they are about to play is a new one, or one that they’ve already started.

New episodes will have a blue dot accompanying their listings, and episodes that have already been started will display a progress bar to show how much of the episode has been consumed.

‘Music Discovery’ is aimed at Premium users who can now see a new surface highlighted on top of the Home screen that showcases discovery-oriented recommendations.

The features could be seen to counter each other: pushing for users to be adventurous enough to find new thrills, but at the same time consolidating recycling habits.

Nevertheless, Spotify is diving deeper into offering personalised recommendations – to the point these will be made in the future detecting what mood they’re in and where they are located.

Wrapping up the new features, Spotify suggests, “We believe that together, these updates will improve accessibility of both podcast and music content across mobile for your users.

“We’ll continue to adapt and evolve our platform to meet the needs of our users, ultimately providing the best possible audio experience for our listeners around the world.”