Summary
- A Spotify APK teardown from the folks over at Android Authority has uncovered references to a change in track shuffling behavior.
- A new setting could allow users to pick between a truly random shuffle order, and an optimized version that prevents unwanted song repeats.
- I’m hopeful that this feature will ship in the near future, but for the time being, Spotify hasn’t made any statement on the matter.
Spotify appears to be working on a brand-new function within its standard music shuffle mode, as spotted by the folks over at Android Authority in a recent APK app teardown. New strings within Spotify’s version 9.0.84.1313 beta code for Android make reference to an algorithmic behavior that drops pure musical randomness in favor of a system that deprioritizes tracks from repeating themselves.
If this ‘reduce repeats’ shuffler is implemented in a stable, user-facing release, it’ll be a useful change in the way Spotify’s shuffle feature functions, allowing for more musical track diversity than a random cycle of songs could achieve on its own.
Spotify, for its part, hasn’t commented on the matter, and there’s no clear timeline as to when we might see this revised shuffle make its way to the public. It’s also unclear whether introducing algorithmic shuffle would work globally across both the standard shuffle mode and the company’s optional Smart Shuffle mode, which throws in a recommended song for every three tracks you listen to.
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Spotify is a popular audio streaming platform that offers music, audiobooks, and podcasts. It can be used on mobile and on desktop, allowing you to listen to music in a ton of different places. You can even download music to your smartwatch.
Putting the power of shuffle into users’ hands
A much-needed addition to Spotify’s existing shuffler tool
Personally, I hope to see Spotify implement this new, better optimized shuffle mode within its flagship music streaming service sooner rather than later. A pure, truly randomized shuffle order works fine enough, but it can occasionally resurface the same song a second (or even a third) time in a row by simple luck of the draw.
Of course, I don’t want to see this classic shuffle behavior be removed from the Spotify experience entirely — rather, I simply want the algorithmically bolstered version to exist as a toggleable settings entry for users to select if they so desire.
In general, when it comes to media players, my mantra is that the more user-facing options there are, the better. I appreciate a flexible multimedia consumption experience, and I don’t mind having to dig deep into settings to tweak behaviors if it results in a cleaner playback screen.
