Since the past couple weeks, we received reports from our sources stating that there will be upcoming changes to spotify’s free arm of service, now, it seems as if the service is rolling out the updated UI to selected users. Although there is no confirmation if this is officially the new form of the free version for mobile expected to be released next week, these UI changes which include the option to play songs on demand in select playlists, would make the free tier to function more like a premium account.
Last week, our sources reported that the updates would impact mobile users specifically; more so, a flyer for the company’s upcoming April event confirmed recently that modifications were coming to Spotify mobile.
There are a lot of remarkable changes in this version of Spotify free for mobile, the biggest being the new option to play certain playlists on demand as with the “Gold Edition” playlist. If a playlist can only be played in shuffle mode, that is denoted with a blue shuffle icon. Before now, on the free tier, all playlists could only be played in shuffle mode.
Also, there’s a new way individual songs are displayed while playing. Spotify formerly used full-screen art with a few prominent playlists like RapCaviar. Now, virtually everything in the new version of the Spotify free is remodeled, from the Search page – which now has colourful boxed prompts like “Workout” and “Mood” to previews under playlist icons that show the songs contained therein.
The browse button at the bottom strip of navigation has been removed and penned up into Search. The Radio button is also gone and is not in any menu. Also, there’s a Premium button to the right for free users that want to upgrade.
The Voice control feature which Spotify was testing earlier this month was not included in the upgrade.
