Spotify’s Apple TV App Gets a Fresh Look — And New Video Features
Spotify
Toggle Dark Mode
Spotify is rolling out a major redesign of its Apple TV app — the first since it launched six years ago — bringing video podcasts and music videos to the big screen.
While it’s somewhat ironic that it took this long for Spotify to bring video to an app designed for the big screen in your living room, this kind of pace is par for the course for the streaming provider, which has never been quick to embrace the Apple ecosystem. For example, Spotify didn’t release an Apple Watch app until 2018, and that was just a remote control for the iPhone app. Direct streaming took two more years, and offline playback came another six months after that. Spotify was also late to the game with Siri support and remains missing on the HomePod to this day.
Either way, this redesigned Apple TV app lands squarely in the ‘better-late-than-never’ category.” It should be welcome news for Spotify fans who are also Apple TV users — although we’ve often wondered what the Venn diagram of that looks like.
A Fresh Design and Smarter Features
The new tvOS app is also about more than just adding video support. Spotify says it’s redesigned the app from the ground up to be “a faster, smarter, and more visual experience.” This means even those who can’t enjoy the new music video experience — which excludes users in the US and Canada for now — will still benefit from other upgrades that bring the Apple TV experience closer to the iPhone.
For example, Spotify for Apple TV now offers several long-overdue basics that have been conspicuously missing for years, including song lyrics and queue management. There’s also Spotify DJ to provide AI-based recommendations, and control via the Spotify app on the iPhone, iPad, or any other smartphone or tablet, via Spotify Connect.
Most Spotify fans agree the company’s tvOS app has been in desperate need of an update for years, lagging significantly behind even the Google TV version of the app. It’s likely we can thank the streaming giant’s recent push into video podcasting for inspiring this new update.
While music videos haven’t reached North American audiences yet, they are available in 97 other countries and regions, though the catalog remains limited. A “switch to video” prompt will appear when streaming a song with a video, just as it does in the mobile app.
However, video podcasts are available everywhere, and Spotify has been pushing harder into that market, including a new partnership to stream The Ringer and Spotify Studios exclusively on Netflix.
It’s unclear if Spotify’s new Apple TV app will address some of the other recent complaints, such as a lack of support for Spotify Lossless. Nevertheless, the design refresh at least makes it look at home on the Apple TV, narrowing the gap with Apple Music in some significant ways.
