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Spotify is finally preparing to add some social features to its mobile apps. The company is developing a dedicated hub called Community where users would be able to see what their friends have been listening to. The hub will also tell what playlists they’ve recently updated.
The Community feature on the Spotify mobile app was spotted in development a few weeks back. The streaming giant recently confirmed to TechCrunch that the feature is in the “early testing phase”. While the company didn’t officially share many details on it, some people have been able to access the Community hub. Perhaps iOS users can enter “spotify:community” into the Safari browser to open the page. It’s not functional yet, as the songs listed can’t be played. But it gives you a fair idea of what’s coming.
At the top, this Community hub features a horizontal carousel of playlists that your friends updated recently. It comes complete with the playlist title and a timestamp denoting when it was last updated. Below it, you get a vertical list of songs your friends are listening to. The songs are listed in chronological order. If a friend is active on Spotify and is listening to a song, it will appear up top. All other entries on this list also feature a timestamp that tells that listening took place.
Since Spotify is still developing the Community hub, things may change by the time it’s ready for prime time. We will keep you posted.
Spotify mobile apps are finally getting some social features
Spotify already offers these kinds of social features on its desktop apps for Windows and macOS. A dedicated “Friend Activity” panel tells you what your friends are up to on the platform. You can check out what they are listening to and also share playlists with them. Thanks to the streaming giant’s Facebook integration, this makes for a fun experience for a group of friends.
Unfortunately, Spotify never offered most of these abilities on its mobile apps for Android and iOS. Its community forums are full of people asking for social features on mobile. But the company publicly stated a few years back that it doesn’t have any such plans. Thankfully, it has now decided to add the highly sought-after features. Hopefully, the streaming giant will not backtrack on it.
If Spotify proceeds with the development of the Community feature on mobile, it should be ready for the public in the coming weeks. We will let you know when the rollout begins.
