Spotify’s latest Premium feature is a Play button, but you probably can’t use it yet

Spotify is bringing the most basic functionality to its Android and iOS app — the ability to play and shuffle tracks in a playlist or an album separately. The music-streaming giant today announced that in the coming weeks it will roll out separate buttons to its Android and iOS app that will give users greater control over how they want to play music in the app.

“This new change will allow you to choose the mode you prefer at the top of playlists and albums and listen the way you want to. Whether you love the joy of the unexpected with Shuffle mode, or prefer listening to tunes in order by simply pressing Play, Spotify has you covered,” Spotify wrote in a blog post announcing the change.

It is worth noting that as of now, tapping the play button in playlists and albums also enables the shuffle mode, which in turn changes the original order in which tracks are supposed to be played. In order to play tracks in the listed orders, users need to tap the individual song. But Spotify’s latest update changes that.

Now, Spotify users will be able to tap the Play button in Playlists and Albums to play tracks in the listed order. In order to shuffle the songs, they will have to tap the separate Shuffle button that appears right next to the Play button.

But there is a catch.

Not everyone will get access to these seemingly basic features or in this case buttons. Spotify, in its blog post, said that the separate Play and Shuffle buttons will be available only to Spotify Premium users. “So to make that choice even clearer and simpler, we’re improving the listener experience and separating the Shuffle and Play Buttons for Spotify Premium users,” the company added in the blog post. This means that Spotify users who are using the free tier of the music-streaming platform will have switch to its Premium service to get the flexibility to play songs in albums and playlists in the listed order.

Interestingly, Spotify’s lack of separate play and shuffle buttons has not irked users but also artists. “We don’t create albums with so much care and thought into our track listing for no reason,” Adele had tweeted last year. Following this tweet, the company had started displaying the standard play button by default on album pages instead of the play/shuffle combination. Now, it is rolling out this functionality to at least some users as a default option.

The post Spotify’s latest Premium feature is a Play button, but you probably can’t use it yet appeared first on BGR India.