Introducing Spotify’s New Compact Player Feature: Enjoy Music, Podcasts, & Videos

It’s long overdue, but Spotify now offers a miniplayer for desktop users. The resizeable miniplayer floats over other applications on your desktop, providing music and podcast controls without distracting you from other tasks. You can even watch podcast videos in the miniplayer!

The Spotify desktop app is basically a web app. As a result, this miniplayer behaves like a picture-in-picture window instead of a desktop widget. It floats above applications and includes a simplified set of playback controls—play, pause, skip, go back, add to liked songs, and the shuffle toggle. Podcast viewers can also skip forward or backward by 15 seconds from the miniplayer, just as they would in full-screen view.

In its smallest configuration, the miniplayer is just a “sleek bar” with play/pause and skip controls. Those who like to see album artwork will probably use the miniplayer in its larger “square” size, which is also used for podcast videos. Artist, album, and podcasts names are always visible in the miniplayer and can be clicked to see additional details in the full-sized Spotify app.

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Up until now, Spotify users have had to rely on third-party miniplayers, such as SpotMenu . I should also note that some of Spotify’s rivals, including Apple Music, already offer an integrated miniplayer. Spotify is late to the game, but its miniplayer looks great, so maybe it was worth the wait.

Spotify claims that the miniplayer will reduce distractions and save users from endlessly jumping between windows. I’m sure that this will be true in some circumstances. However, I can already control Soptify playback from the media buttons on my keyboard. I only get distracted when switching between playlists. So, I’d love for Spotify to add a playlist shortcut menu to the miniplayer.

Note that Spotify recently began offering music videos in select countries, including the United Kingdom, Brazil, and Colombia. We reached out to Spotify, and the company confirmed that its miniplayer supports music videos.

The Spotify desktop miniplayer is rolling out as a server-side update. If you don’t see the mimiplayer button in your Spotify app, wait a day or two and check again. Note that the miniplayer requires a Premium account “for now” but may roll out to free users at some point.

Source: Spotify

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