If you’re a free tier Spotify user and think the user experience sucks, well, you’re in luck. It’s going to suck much less. At an event in New York City today, Spotify revealed a redesigned app experience for its free customers. This is the first major revamp to the free tier since 2014. Free users will no longer be stuck with shuffled mode, and that’s certainly a welcomed change.
I don’t know about you, but free for me was crazy annoying. It didn’t take too long for me to decide to upgrade to Premium. The good news now is that Spotify is giving free tier a huge boost.
Obviously, free users won’t have the flexibility of Spotify Premium users, however, the redesigned experience is still significant.
Here’s how it works.
Spotify has created 15 select playlists, and you can play any song you want inside these playlists. It’s definitely a step up from shuffled playback. If you do go beyond the 15 playlists, then it’s back to shuffle mode.
The playlists are generated based on your listening habits and tastes, and are constantly updated. Songs may be updated daily, totalling 750 tracks. You’ll notice Spotify-curated playlists like RapCaviar, Ultimate Indie or Alternative R&B, as well as personalised playlists like Discover Weekly, Released Radar, and Daily Mix.
To fast-track playlisting, Spotify will ask you to choose your favourite artists as soon as you fire up the updated app for the first time. The service will then provide personalised playlists tuned to your tastes.
But wait, here’s the awesome part. You also have the ability to create and edit a playlist. Give your playlist a name, search and preview tracks and add them to your playlist. As you save your songs, Spotify will continue to suggest more songs that it thinks you’ll like.
The updated app also has a data saver mode to aid users with limited data or capped data usage plans. It’s a simple toggle that optimises your listening experience to use less data when you’re listening to music.
Spotify has over 90 million free users. The company revealed that 60 percent of its paid users started out as free users before upgrading.
The goal of the big revamp was to keep free users satisfied and not treat them like second-class listeners.
“Our customers always tell us that music discovery and listening is a personal experience, and we are enhancing the free experience with this in mind,” said Babar Zafar, VP of Product Development at Spotify. “This is the beginning of an evolution for Spotify and we will continue to make improvements that mirror our customers’ needs. This is not only about giving users a more customized free experience from the day they sign up, but giving them more control over their listening experience so they can easily find and stream their favorites anytime, from anywhere.”
Spotify is in the process of rolling out the new experience to iOS and Android and it’s expected to hit global markets in the coming weeks. The free tier will continue to be ad-supported.
