So Spotify recently changed from a green heart and a block song button to and + and a - for liking and disliking. What is your opinion?
My personal preference would be to bring back the green heart and make a deep red broken heart.
And I know spotify is proprietary yada yada I don't care for music streaming. So pls don't let it be a part of the discussion.
To reference this is an old screenshot I found on the internet.
I pay for Spotify and do not like the pop ups for podcasts and now audiobooks. I really do not like how they ruined the shuffle button and now the ugly check mark instead of the heart. I am not fond of the ui at all and will start looking at other alternatives. Imo, Spotify has gone downhill. I miss the old time Spotify.
I HATE the shuffle button on Spotify. It used to be better. I have a Playlist that I used to listen to with the 'enhanced' shuffle. Spotify would add similar songs into the queue. It was nice. Now Spotify just plays the same 20 songs or so, over and over again. My Playlist has over 200 songs without even adding the variety into the queue. I've started actively removing songs because they are all I hear. This isn't how listening to music should work.
I also really dislike the pop-ups and “recommendations” that I have no interest in. It feels like I’m being advertised to when I’m specifically already paying, in part to remove ads.
That, along with their incessant and poorly communicated A/B UI testing, is making me more and more frustrated. Don’t get me wrong, the price for a Duo membership is excellent for the amount of music available, but I have started to build out my own collection that I can stream through Plex as a backup, since I expect their platform to only get worse over time
Yes! The shuffle button! Every time I want to shuffle/unshuffle a playlist, it seemingly has to toggle through the smart shuffle bullshit first, which disables the button and shows a loading icon (which can be 5+ seconds on a mobile connection) while it finds awful songs to inject into my playlist.
Oh how I wish there was a way to disable it
I switched to TIDAL. Same price, and they pay the artists better per stream.
I dislike all the algorithms being pushed on Spotify. I just want to listen to albums and that's it.
The radio function is nice in theory, but it tries too hard to guess what I want to listen to to the point where it felt like any radio I played ended up being variations of the same thing. It is just not a good way to discover new music in my experience.
These days I have cancelled my subscription in favour of actual radio. Fip.fr is brilliant.
I would really appreciate a configurable Radio playlist. Just a slider from "very similar" to "here be dragons" would do.
Actually, I noticed exactly what you're describing too. There are like 3-4 clusters of artists that Spotify thinks I love, and that's it. Unless I'm actively searching for something else.
This was old Slacker Radio. You could create a station with any number of artists and then tweak it to discover new artists or just listen to ones you know.
I agree and it's getting to the point where it's almost unusable for me too.
Every "Spotify" playlist which is what they shove down your throat in every search consists of the same few dozen songs that it thinks I want to listen to. Well if I wanted to listen to the same EDM playlist I've already created for myself, I would Spotify. I have to search for specific albums to get any value from the service these days, but that's difficult when it doesn't really introduce me to any new music.
This is why I switch to Tidal + Plex. It allows you to just maintain a library and listen to albums while keeping the algorithm recommendations out of the way.
I know what you mean with the radio function I would also love if it would give me something similar to the song i was listening to not the stuff I usually listen to
I see the plus, but where is the minus button you mentioned?
If you press the 3 dots in top right you'll get a bunch more buttons including the " - hide this song" one.
Sorry it was a bad screenshot I changed it to a better one
For context the old one was that one
Ouu, fairphone earbuds? Slayy
My app only has the plus currently. I think it's a dumb change. The type of change you make because you need to change something. Nobody that is competent enough to use a smart phone app would see any benefit from it being changed to a plus and as others have pointed out.. it's a music app, plus and minus are usually associated with volume.
That kinda looks like volume control lmao.
Heart or even thumb icons for likes and dislikes are acceptable. This looks stupid like if it belongs to c/assholedesign
I was thinging adding and removing from playlist or something. The old icons are so much more clear, why would you change that 🤦♀️
I didn't know Spotify changed this. I opened up the app, and sure enough it popped up with "the heart is now a plus."
Yeah, I don't like it. Just a random plus sign on the "now playing" screen isn't obvious what it does. Yes, the app told me, but that only appears once.
I wonder if we can complain and get them to change it back.
Also it now takes multiple taps to remove something from my liked songs.
I don't use spotify, and I thought those are volume buttons, and did not understand where are the like and dislike buttons until I read the post. I think this is just a dumb design choice.
I completely hate the new "+" symbol, the heart was so easy to understand
Don’t use Spotify and it took me a while to even find the mentioned buttons in the screenshot. Looks like either volume controls or add/remove from playlist. Better would be thumbs up/down.
It's pretty misleading if your not familiar with the interface, isn't it?
The plus to me signifies that the song will be added to a playlist and personally, I'd be pretty confused if it doesn't bring up a prompt to choose said playlist. The minus is even more confusing in that context.
What's wrong with just a thumbs up and thumbs down?
There's no functional difference between +/- and 👍/👎.
So what is the result of 5👍2?
That's easy
There are definitely differences. + And - imply addition and subtraction, while 👍👎 imply pleasure and displeasure, or agreement and disagreement. The + and - in this context is quite ambiguous, because it could mean volume up/down, or adding or subtracting the song from a playlist for example. Those would be my first guesses without context I think. Color coding them would help, because it would give more weight to the action, but I think the iconography is still overly ambiguous compared to other options. Source: am professional designer.
Press it once to add to Liked. Press it again to add to another playlist. Not great, not terrible.
I just read through all the top-level replies to this post, and you’re the only one that actually understands this change. They didn’t just change the icon, they added new functionality.
Your description isn’t quite complete, though. Pressing it once adds to the playlist you most recently added to. Basically, it remembers which playlist you last added a song to, so if you’re listening to a radio station that matches one of your playlists vibes, it makes it really easy to add the songs as they play.
This new functionality perfectly matches my “flow” of music collection, since I add to separate playlists instead of to Liked. This feature changes nothing if you only ever add to Liked.
So basically, everyone in this post is complaining about a feature Spotify added that genuinely enhances my experience and is only a minor visual change for everyone else.
Don't use Spotify much and I never would have guessed those were like and dislike.
They aren't. The plus adds the song to a playlist, by default the liked songs-list (a second tap on the plus lets you change which list it goes to). The minus is a "don't recommend this"-button.
I see the plus in a circle symbol. What are you adding the track to? Some sort of list?
I don't see a minus in that screenshot.
The plus is adding to liked songs playlist
I’m just annoyed that it replaces the repeat and shuffle buttons, but only sometimes.
Looks worse, does the same thing however so whatever. Spotify once again focusing on the wrong things. Prime enshittification There are songs uploaded with the wrong name that I've reported 8-ish years ago that have still not been fixed. Every now and then I'll get a notification for a new release from an artist that I've never listened to because they share a name with an artist that I'm following. That thing doesn't need fixing, nah...changing the heart button, that's real stuff
My app doesn't have this , but it also doesn't have a like button anymore. The only button is a checkmark to add the song to a playlist. Please spotify, change it back!!!! The only reason I pay for spotify is for conveniance. If spotify stops being 14 bucks more conveniant than piracy I will happily switch.
Can you point out the minus for grandpa here who can't see for shit apparently?
Funny enough, people had the same reaction when Spotify changed the plus button to a heart a few years ago
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