Spotify revamps its Apple Watch app with bigger art work and new options, like direct downloads • TechCrunch

Spotify at present introduced it’s revamping its Apple Watch expertise. The brand new model of the small-screen streaming app has been redesigned to make it simpler for customers to seek out the music or podcasts they wish to hear from the “Your Library” part, in addition to meet up with the most recent podcast episodes, obtain playlists for offline listening, and extra. Total, the app has additionally been up to date with bigger art work and smoother animations, making it really feel extra like a sized-down model of the Spotify cellular app, slightly than the text-heavy expertise it was beforehand.

First launched in 2018, the Spotify app for Apple Watch has been via just a few iterations over time. Notably, it gained standalone streaming assist two years in the past, making it a extra helpful streaming companion for on-the-go listening. Final 12 months, it additionally helpfully added the flexibility for Premium customers to obtain playlists and podcasts to Apple Look ahead to offline listening.

This 12 months’s replace, in the meantime, appears to be geared toward taking higher benefit of the bump in display screen actual property supplied by newer Apple Watch fashions, like the brand new Sequence 8 and the marginally older Sequence 7.

You’ll discover the up to date app now’s extra colourful, due to the bigger art work, and the titles are simpler to learn in its new structure. Podcast pages higher resemble their cellular counterparts, too, with art work, the run time, and an enormous, inexperienced play button above the present’s episode listing — an enchancment on how the older model of the app would simply present a listing of episodes as textual content.

With at present’s adjustments, Spotify says the app’s design will make it simpler for customers to seek out content material, like favourite tracks, artists or episodes in “Your Library.” Right here, you’ll additionally have the ability to swipe to “like” tracks and also you’ll have the ability to toggle shuffle mode “on” or “off ” earlier than you begin taking part in.

For podcast listeners, the replace will now help you see the place you left off in an episode so you may bounce again in and end listening in your watch. The app may even now mark new episodes with a blue dot so it’s simpler to see when your favourite present has up to date, just like how the cellular app makes use of a blue dot to flag reveals with new and unplayed episodes on the house web page.

One other new characteristic helps you obtain content material to your Apple Watch with out having to make use of the Spotify app in your smartphone.

Earlier than, subscribers who wished to obtain playlists, albums, or podcasts would accomplish that by tapping on the “Obtain to Apple Watch” possibility within the Spotify cellular app. The up to date model of the Spotify app for Apple Watch, nonetheless, will enable customers to obtain favourite playlists instantly from the Watch app itself. This makes it simpler to shortly prep your watch with some music in your exercise or run, maybe, or different instances whenever you plan to depart your telephone behind.

The up to date Spotify Apple Watch app is rolling out beginning at present and can turn into out there to all customers globally within the coming week, the corporate says. Which means you might not see these adjustments instantly, however ought to quickly.

Spotify additionally means that customers replace their Apple Watch to the most recent model of watchOS.