Spotify Updating Home Hub with Recently Played Section, Deeper Podcast Integration

As announced by Spotify last week, the company is rolling out a refreshed home hub in its mobile app featuring a new Recently Played section, an easier way to stream new releases from your favorite artists, and shortcuts to play and resume podcast episodes with one tap:

About a year ago, we reworked the Spotify mobile experience to refresh our Home interface. Since then, Spotify users have been able to access the content they love more quickly and easily—and maybe even discover something new straight from their home screen. But the ease and discovery don’t stop there. This month, we’re announcing a series of updates that will make the Home experience even more personalized for each and every listener.

We’re constantly working on ways to improve our user experience. Through this latest update, we’ll be rolling out several advancements on the mobile Home hub designed to make finding the audio you love easier and more intuitive. These will roll out to users globally on iOS and Android this month.

The redesigned home hub is the latest announcement in a series of recent product updates, including genre and mood filters for liked songs, real-time lyrics, and the upcoming lossless tier.

In my tests with Spotify this year, I’ve been positively impressed by the company’s pace of updates. What I find particularly intriguing in the refreshed home hub design is the integration with podcasts: I was very skeptical of blending music and podcasts in the same app when I switched to Spotify at the end of last year, but the more I use it, the more I understand why podcast listening in Spotify is growing rapidly. There’s something about making both kinds of audio content accessible in one place that works well for removing friction from having to choose what I want to listen to. I’m curious to see how Spotify will balance music and podcast episodes in new home hub (which I don’t have in my Spotify app yet).