In the coming months, it will be possible to switch to the premium subscription on Android using the platform’s payment system, with Spotify which, in the meantime, has taken to testing the new and intuitive “Car mode” to avoid distracting drivers.
In the past few hours, the project to integrate Greenroom into the main app emerged, Spotify certainly did not remain idle and, on the contrary, entered into an interesting agreement with Google regarding the possibility of charging one’s subscription on Android even with a proprietary system released from Google Play Billing, was also the protagonist of an important test for its use in the car.
Last November, Spotify removed the “Car View” mode, which simplified the app interface when the user was driving a vehicle, so as not to distract him from the road, revealing – on the content being played – only the relative information and control commands. Since an alternative is missing, and considering that shortly thereafter the Swedish giant then launched (on the US market) its hardware dongle “Car Thing”, which is used precisely to use Spotify in the car, the thing had appeared suspicious at least.
The official explanation for that removal was, however, that other roads were actively being explored that would allow drivers on the road to have fun in a safe way: one of those ways has just materialized in the new “Car mode”, confirmed by screenshots by users enabled to the same, although at this time it is not clear if the new feature above is only in testing on Android or if it is available for iOS.
Apart from that, what Spotify’s new “Car mode” consists of is easy to say. When the user has connected his smartphone to the car via Bluetooth, this is a particular tripartite interface, with a Home tab (less densely populated so that it is easier to explore it and touch its elements without looking at it, with suggestions that can be scrolled by emerging in the foreground), a Search tab (for vocal search in the Spotify musical bouquet and podcasts, with voice commands placed via “microphone” also in the player window, where only a few controls stand out, such as play / pause, skip, shuffle and like), and a Library tab (with content recently played by the user).
Putting aside Spotify’s new auto mode, highly appreciated by early feedback because it offers “a complete experience that matches the way you expect the Spotify app to work”, the Nordic streaming platform has scored another nice blow by signing a multi-year collaboration with Google, which will bring – in the markets in which it is operational, in the coming months (max by the end of the year) – a novelty for which users, in deciding to subscribe to switch from the free to the premium plan, duly informed about any discounts and promotions, they will have two systems available: either the classic one of Google Play Billing (the payment method deposited on Google Pay) or Spotify’s own one. According to experts, the novelty in question appears to be linked to the criticism according to which Google (but also Apple for its App Store) would require excessive commissions for in-app purchases, although it is not yet known “what rate it would collect (Google – ed) in new pilot project “.