The end is finally in sight for 2020, and Spotify has pulled together the big music trends of the year so as to declare the biggest winners in streaming. Just like Apple declared the best apps for iPhone and Mac in 2020 yesterday, Spotify Wrapped does the same for artists, songs, albums, and podcasts - including a way to see just what you were listening to get your through the past twelve months.
Spotify is the latest platform to introduce a Stories feature, though it appears to only be available to a select number of big musical artists at this time. Spotify Stories first made an appearance earlier this year with the official name Storyline, one that was intended to let artists share stories-like content with fans. The company has confirmed this latest appearance as a test.
Hollywood has given us a lot of preconceived notions of hackers to the point that most will imagine them as anti-social geniuses working in dark corners of their room while they traverse the dark sectors of the Web. In truth, not all hackers may be sophisticated and sometimes it just requires some basic knowledge and a lot of patience to reap the rewards. Like in the case of a recent Spotify data breach where the hackers ended up being guilty of the same lax security practices as their victims.
Spotify has added a new feature that gives podcast fans more control over the content they enjoy the most. Called 'Your Episodes,' the aptly named feature enables users to save individual podcast episodes to a special library, making it easier to find specific audio features that caught their eye even if they don't subscribe to the show.
There's a music-playing device in the making called Sleevenote. This device has a focus on albums, with a display that's a square. The square panel displays the cover of the album that's playing via Bluetooth or through the device's headphone jack.
With Google Play Music officially behind it, YouTube Music can now better focus on growing its user base and features. The latter may involve catching up quickly with the current king of music streaming, Spotify (or Apple Music for some). The service's new features bring it closer to that goal, with a daily selection of music collected and personalized for every user, pretty much like Spotify's Daily Mix.
Spotify may be planning to release a special podcast subscription plan, at least based on a survey some users report seeing when they launch the app. The survey asks subscribers what they would be most interested in from a premium podcast subscription, and it includes two potential rates, one for certain kinds of content and another for different premium content.
After a couple of months of testing, it appears that Spotify is ready to bring its most important feature to Apple Watch. Users have started reporting the ability to stream Spotify directly on their wearable, a feature that some competitors have offered for a while, without having to stay shackled to their iPhones. Spotify has since confirmed that it is rolling out the new streaming capability.
Spotify is experimenting with a new feature for creators that will allow them to boost specific songs and albums in user recommendations, helping users find new content while giving artists a way to present their best content to potential fans. The company will be introducing this change in a limited way initially, it says, with Autoplay and Radio getting it first.
In the age of internet-connected gaming, consoles have essentially become multimedia boxes instead of dedicated game consoles. While launch games are obviously among the most important aspects of a new console launch, it's also important to know which media apps that console will support on day one. After all, for a lot of people, these consoles are the preferred way to use services like Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube.
Google revealed a set of feature updates today for the Google Smart Display experience. This update comes to devices like the Lenovo Smart Display and Nest Hub, and will likely be the base UI for all official Google Smart Display units in the future. This new system sets all functionality in a series of five categories, including: Your Day, Home Control, Communicate, Discover, and Media.
Spotify has announced a new offering for the creators who publish their shows on its platform: the ability to include full songs in their shows. The new feature is built upon Spotify's existing music library and licensing deals with record labels, enabling podcast creators to include songs in their shows that listeners can readily access using the Spotify app.