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Are you chomping at the bit for your Spotify Wrapped to pop up, despite the end of 2024 being half a year away? Well you can quit it, because Spotify is set to bring a form of Wrapped all year round.
The music streaming service touted its new ‘My Spotify’ feature for the Spotify app’s homepage, which aims to serve up personalized banners and messages revealing a user’s listening habits; effectively it could be a bit like a real-time Wrapped.
Spotify has now explained that My Spotify will combine features like its AI DJ, Daylist, Blend playlist and the ‘Made For You’ playlist into a “one-stop shop full of personalised playlists, podcasts, features, and recommendations for each and every listener.”
How good My Spotify will be at providing users with new and fresh music to listen to based on their tastes has yet to be seen, but it’s a new level of customization being added to Spotify.
There’s a caveat in that My Spotify has a limited rollout for now. But it will at least be available to all users rather than those with the Spotify Premium subscription – as an aside that’s been ramped up in price by $1 / £1 a month with Spotify offering nothing extra; such are the times we live in.
Spotify could soon let you chat to friends during a group listening sessions
Speaking of Spotify Premium, the Jam feature looks set to provide a chat function within it. That’s going by some code-diving by Android Authority, who found a code string referring to “campfire chats” from which it posited that there’s a new chat function in the works.
Currently the Jam option in Spotify Premium lets a group of people listen to the same playlist together, as well as add songs to that list. Yet the feature is limited in that people can’t chat about the playlist within Spotify – likely they’d need to opt for an alternative messaging service in order to discuss if in-nearly-everything-these-days Dua Lipa belongs on with in the ‘big tunes to head-bang to’ playlist.
Now the discovered code in the Android Spotify app isn't an indication that the chat feature is in any way official, but it would be a sign that Spotify is seemingly testing it. And having a chat function to go alongside the Jam mode does make sense.
On that note, one thing that perhaps doesn't make sense is the $5 add-on for Spotify Premium that could bring in a HiFi feature to the service. The potential add-on is in addition to (or separate from, if you prefer) the recent June price hikes for the streaming service.
While this upgrade will likely introduce better quality audio to the mix, other services already provide hi-res and lossless tiers for no additional fee. It certainly raises the question of whether Spotify is worth it at a time when Apple Music is not increasing in price, while still offering more in terms of resolution…