Spotify

Spotify has announced that it is now rolling out its highly anticipated Blend feature for creating shared playlists to all users. This feature launched in beta to a small percentage of Spotify users earlier this year, and it’s now widely rolling out.

Back in April, Spotify announced that it would counter Apple’s new Podcasts Subscriptions platform with its own support for allowing creators to offer subscriptions to their shows. The feature launched earlier this year to select creators, and now Spotify has announced that it is expanding the platform to all US podcasters.

Spotify users may have to wait longer to get full AirPlay 2 support on Apple devices. The company confirmed this week that plans to add AirPlay 2 to Spotify’s iOS app have been delayed indefinitely.

Spotify profitability is still not a priority for the company, claims the streaming music service, as it announced another loss-making quarter.

The company lost €20M ($24M) in the second quarter of the year, and also failed to hit its own growth targets, but there was some good news in the mix …

Spotify is adding a new way to find the latest releases of podcasts and music to its iOS app. The company announced today that Spotify for iOS now offers a “What’s New” feed that will immediately gather “all the new releases from the artists and shows you follow on Spotify.”

People love to share their music tastes online. While Apple Music still has a long way to go with its shareable features, like the Replay playlist, Spotify has given its users a variety of options for them to show what they’re currently listening to.

Even so, this doesn’t stop other people to create clients to help share how their music taste works. Spotify Palette, for example, creates a palette of colors based on what you’re listening to.

Apple has expressed caution about a proposal to increase the share of streaming music revenue paid to artists from the current typical 16% to a far higher 50% rate.

The British government has proposed a “complete reset” of the business model for streaming music, so that artists and songwriters are better compensated …

Offline playback for Apple Watch has been a top requested feature from Spotify users for a long time and today the platform is delivering on it. The ability to download content to Apple Watch is starting to roll out to Premium subscribers now.

Update 7/6: The global rollout of Apple Watch offline playback appears to be picking up speed.

Nearly eight months after the first M1 Mac, Spotify has officially launched a beta version of its Mac app that is optimized for Apple Silicon. This means Spotify for Mac can now run natively on the M1 Macs without requiring Apple’s Rosetta 2 translation technology.

Over the last two months, Spotify has dabbled with in-app paid virtual concerts. Now a new report from The Information says that the streaming service is exploring not only getting further into virtual events but possibly live events as well. If successful, the potential move could mean another revenue source for Spotify, improved artist relationships, and a way to differentiate itself from Apple Music.

As big tech companies are increasingly investing in podcasts, Spotify on Thursday announced the acquisition of startup Podz, which is focused on AI technologies to enhance audio content discovery. The company wants to integrate Podz’s technologies to push its own podcast platform.

Spotify announced today a new global campaign called “Only You,” an in-app experience with personalized playlists to celebrate its users’ uniqueness. The new feature is accessible via the Spotify for iOS application and it comes with six different in-app experiences.

Spotify’s chief legal officer Horacio Gutierrez has said that he likes Apple products but considers the company a disingenuous bully.

Gutierrez made the remarks in an op-ed in the WSJ, and in an interview with The Verge …

Following its expansion into the podcast segment, Spotify is now investing in audiobooks for its platform. The company announced on Thursday a new partnership with Storytel Group that will bring audiobooks to its users.

A Reddit user was able to find the Spotify HiFi menu in a song in its iOS app, which could indicate the new subscription tier could be launching soon. This finding happened as Apple Music just announced its Lossless audio quality with Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio support coming in June.