Photo Credit: Spotify
Spotify finally realized its barebones Apple Watch app experience is hurting more than helping. The streaming giant redesigned the app with new features.
The Spotify Apple Watch app before the update was barely worth using. Songs on the screen appeared in a text-only list, which made it hard to find music quickly. The latest update brings a more familiar user experience that also features album artwork. The Spotify app for watchOS update is rolling out with this new Library view and in-depth music controls.
Tapping on an album or playlist used to initiate play immediately, but Spotify changed that behavior. Now there’s an additional screen that includes options for downloading and shuffling music. Spotify’s offline playback for the Apple Watch hit in May 2021, but that implementation was severely limited. For starters, users still needed to use their phone to choose offline music, and only songs–not albums and playlists–could be downloaded to the watch.
The latest update allows users to download playlists and albums without needing an iPhone. And finally, for podcast listeners, the app now remembers where you left off when you stop listening to an episode. The previous version would always restart the episode, meaning you’d lose progress and have to scrub your way through to find your old position.
All of these changes are designed to make the Spotify Apple Watch more competitive with the Apple Music experience. Apple Watch owners have been complaining for years on the Spotify Community forums about some of the features that were implemented today. The redesigned interface should make the app more useful for anyone who uses their watch to listen to music.
Spotify’s Apple Watch experience has been barebones since 2018, when the app was made available. It started life as a simple remote control option for music still streaming on an iPhone. Updates followed that brought direct streaming to the Apple Watch. This latest update finally gives users something worth using on its competitor’s platform.