Spotify has just launched a major design update for its desktop app, iPhone and Web users, with a darker theme and a few long-awaited interface tweaks. You’ll also be able to navigate the platform’s 20 million tracks more easily, with ‘Your Music’ replacing ‘Collections’ for better storing, showing and sharing the individual tracks and albums you’ve liked and saved. An Android overhaul to bring that platform up to date is still in the works, though.
Since its launch in 2008, Spotify has added millions and millions of music tracks, but hasn’t really updated its interface to keep up with the times. Today’s overhaul, which is rolling out shortly to all users, comes in response to user requests for a more modern design that focuses more on music discovery and curated playlists. Feedback from existing users and extensive surveys were used, with the request for a darker colour scheme chief in customer demands.
“A new darker theme, refreshed typography and rounded iconography” form the backbone of Spotify’s updated design, with the music streaming service aiming to more prominently display music on its apps — expect larger album art, more obvious song title and artist info, and so on.
Take the desktop app as an example. Here’s the old, staid interface:
And here’s the new, slick interface:
Along with the generally darker and more attractive design, the main Browse page of the Spotify web, desktop and iPhone apps is getting a time-sensitive list of curated content; a Spotify team in Australia will share perky wake-up and workout music on a Monday morning, for example, and a Friday evening might mean a late-night dance mix or bedtime collection is on the cards.
‘Your Music’ is Spotify’s evolution of the existing ‘Collections’ section, adding the ability to save individual tracks, entire albums and your favourite artists without having to create a new playlist each time. The playlist system was our chief gripe with Spotify generally, so it’s great to see it addressed. Playlists are still accessible and useful, of course, but for most users adding the ability to sort by artist and album and song will be a long-awaited feature.
Updates to the three platforms — all of which will look nearly identical after the overhaul — will begin rolling out shortly to Spotify’s tens of millions of active users shortly. The design and app development team at Spotify is still working on the Android app, though. We reached out to a spokesperson to check in on the progress of that, and were told: “Coming soon, stay tuned.”