Introducing Smart Shuffle!

[Joan]

Introducing Smart Shuffle! 

We know that our users love creating their own playlists to capture key moments in time – in fact, playlists created by users often become their most-streamed playlist for the first several months but listening to these playlists slowly fades overtime, and users are eager to discover new music.

With this in mind, we’re excited to launch a new play mode called Smart Shuffle that keeps listening sessions fresh and provides personalized recommendations that perfectly match any listeners’ playlist vibe. 

This update will roll out to Premium users on mobile devices starting today.

How does Smart Shuffle work?

• You can use it in any playlist created by you, and your Liked Songs.
• To activate it, just use the Shuffle button to switch between regular play, Shuffle mode and Smart Shuffle.
• When Smart Shuffle is on, recommendations are added to your session automatically. You can find all the recommendations sitting in your queue.
• You will be able to recognize the music we are recommending with the sparkle (✨) symbol next to the track. For a playlist with more than 15 songs, we’ll recommend one song for every three tracks.
• And the best part, your original playlist remains untouched, so you can add any new track that catches your ear.
• If you like a specific recommendation, just save it using the plus button in the Now Playing View. If that song doesn’t hit right, just tap the minus to remove it from the recommendations. This is then used to better adjust the suggestions we put forward.
• Every time you turn Smart Shuffle off, a new mix will be available every time you activate it again.

Introductory pageHow the queue will look

Adding and removing recommendations.

FAQ

What about the Enhance feature?

For now, Smart Shuffle will replace the Enhance feature.

What will happen to Discover Weekly and other regularly updated playlists?

For the time being, no changes to those will be made. Smart Shuffle aims to improve the listening experience for user curated playlists.

Does this mean that using Smart Shuffle will cause my carefully curated playlists to get cluttered with new recommendations?

No! Your original playlist remains untouched, so you can add any new track that catches your ear. Smart Shuffle won’t change your playlist without your explicit permission. What changes instead is what you'll hear during each specific listening session

We hope you're as excited as we are about this new play mode. The official Newsroom announcement is out, you can check that out too. For any and all feedback on the matter you may have, you're more than welcome to comment in the thread below.

[Big_tony]

It feels like this change is being forced to increase time user spend actively on the app forcing them to shuffle through songs rather than the simple previous method which allowed someone to do the same in a couple of minutes. The enhance button is objectively better. Using the app shouldn’t be an have to be an experience, being able to quickly find and add new music should be all the experience needed.

[Dud950]

Better good idea 

[Shahius]

I do not know about what you have done with shuffle, smart shuffle and so on because usually I don't use shuffle at all.

But... starting last week my Daily Mix playlists seem bugged, shuffling songs without me doing anything.

Every time I turn on Spotify on my Android device in my car and continue playing my Daily Mix, it shuffles songs and plays the ones which I already listened today mixing them with others.

It's EXTREMELY INFURIATING. Do something, please.

Check twice your code, please.

[TONZAMUSIC]

Really exhausted of Spotify self-destroying themselves with these useless features that nobody asked for, not at least the way they made these features work. Considering to cancel my Spotify Premium subscription very soon as it seems like they are going to make Spotify into some lame TikTok-like platform…all we wanted was HiFi lossless streaming and full screen Full HD/4K album cover art mode back!! They never learn lol I bet one day Spotify will no longer exist no one cares if they keep destroying what didn't need fixing in the first place! 😞

[Mumpet-Wombat]

it sucks, bring back enhance. I'm sick of it automatically activating when i just want to shuffle. also i dont want to have to skip through the whole playlist just to find the new songs

[Soundofus]

As much I like Shuffle function, as much I hate Smart Shuffle.

Here is why.

Since 2009 that I am a premium user of Spotify, I have created over 3,400 playlists and I keep track of all of them. All my playlists, the shortest as the longest, are handpicked. None of them have a content coming from any algorithm. Most of them are feeded daily with new releases (found by myself and only added after listening).

Sometimes, I use to listen some of my playlists (usually the longest ones = over 9,000 songs) as a radio. That means I turn Shuffle On and I let the music playing. Doing like this, I never have a same order of songs playling, BUT, the songs playing are the ones I have chosen myself all along the years. That's what make a big difference with any Enhance or Smart Shuffle function.

Enhance : doesn't bother me because it's keep to be an option and doesn't destroy the regular shuffle.

Smart Shuffle : bother me at a highest point because it's not anymore an option, it's forced on user as a default mode and oblige to different moves for going back to just a regular shuffle.

All what is forced is a lack of respect of the user. I can understand that a part of people like suggestions made by some algorithm, but, personally, I am experienced enough in Music to chose myself what I want listen and to not be pushed to anything else by a function not optional.

So, please make Smart Shuffle only optional. (ON / OFF) and keep regular Shuffle as a distinct function.

[Jaybroonz]

When adding a song from Smart Shuffle to my playlist, Smart Shuffle stops completely and I’m unable to play any songs from my playlist. 

iOS 16.3.1, iPhone 14 Pro Max, App Version: 8.8.16

[SjPepe]

I highly dislike this feature for two reasons.

1. Now the shuffle button requires 3 actions to cycle through

2. Enhance was easier to use, and provided a more streamlined expiernce. Taking away features is not how you grow a service.

The tik tokification of spotify is making me seriously consider switching to apple music, and many people I know are having the same feelings with recent changes. 

[Knightlok]

Judging from all the other replies, I am not the only one with complete disdain for this new feature.

How are these decisions even made? Do you guys even research how your customers will feel about this? It is EXTREMLY obvious that a simple community post asking what everyone thought of the change would have highlighted how absolutely worse it is compared to the previous one.

Not only did you not even bother to see what your users actually want, you don't even give the option to chose one or the other; as all beyond smart app developers, you just remove a long-standing feature everyone is used to and loves, change it a much worse one that everyone hates, for no reason and then go absent when the complaints come through....

Stop. Removing. Features. Everyone. Loves. For. Features. No. One. Asked. For

[arkanesky]

Fully agree with everything you said. I'm on the verge of 'vote with your wallet' and just going back to my old days of bandcamp & winamp, but I want to emphasize that the reason I'm so **bleep** off is that when the developers aren't doing clown antics, I like Spotify. I want to use Spotify.

So when they do things like unceremoniously remove last summer's barcode-group-session feature for a busted *** "maybe sometimes you can share your bluetooth speaker MAYBE and if you're on the same wifi POSSIBLY" and hamfistedly decide to break their own shuffle button, it seriously makes me question my allegiances.

I'm TRYING to give you my money, but you're so committed to slipping on your own banana peels that it's honestly making me feel like I'm the **bleep** here for having faith in this app.

[NilsonMr]

Hi guys, 

took me some time to realize what's happening, when I couldn't search my playlist for a specific song. Turns out Smart Shuffle disables the search bar on top of the playlist.

Is there any reason why this won't work when smart shuffle is enabled or could you provide the search bar for that mode as well? 

[atombomb979]

When will this feature be available on the desktop version?

[user-removed]

"We know that our users love creating their own playlists " - but you keep insisting on interfering with them. I do not ever want Spotify to add to my playlists. You do not know what criteria I have used to curate them, some are by genre, some are by release year, some are by record label, some are by bpm. Neither Enhance nor Smart Shuffle is capable of adding according to those criteria. So give me the option to turn those features off permanenetly in my account settings.

[jmar91]

This update is one of their worst yet.  I often just shuffle my liked songs.  I may get one that’s on an an album that I like and go to turn off shuffle.  
Well guess what, we can’t do that anymore!

I go to turn off shuffle and it puts on Smart Shuffle.  When I turn that off it goes back to my most recent songs saved and plays that in order…

I swear the Spotify UX team only does usability tests on themselves.  This is their worst update since having to like artists, songs, and albums to get them in your library.

if this feature is really important AT LEAST let us turn it off.  But the most likely won’t…

[Alex_F]

this is an atrocious addition. my playlists are curated as a, well. as a playlist, which as a concept has the inherent implication that i added specific songs to a list so i only listen to those specific songs.

if i want recommendations, i go to the radio feature, which could honestly use fewer songs i'm familiar with. the last thing i want to do is tap the shuffle button TWICE. all the shuffle button ever needs to do is shuffle the songs on an album or playlist. nothing else. ever.

add a disable option in settings, at the very least, pay your artists more, and don't let your userbase familiarize themselves with a UI only to redesign it as soon as they get used to it.

i am going to switch services if these things continue to go downhill. your service, the features, and the app to go with it just keeps getting worse and worse.

[karimdc]

Yeah. It’s gotta go

[Coalguy1]

Please bring back enhanced. I don't like shuffling my playlist I just go from top to to bottom and I liked the enhanced so I could add new songs as I liked them. Now I cant

[ZSTZKDZ]

Smart Shuffle is just an excuse to promote the song you guy got paid for to advertise and I hate whatever force me to get advertise on and this just a last straw for me Spotify recommendation is very annoying and repetitive tho I tried to get away from it by changing the way I listen to and genre and the recommend never change this Smart shuffle is cherry on top and this is my last month subscription and time to move to YTMusic

You got an excuse to had your paid songs advertise and I had my reason to Unsubscribe too.

[JeroenRijken]

I want to shuffle my playlist around but now every 2 clicks it goes to smart shuffle which makes it (alot) slower and also buggier.

[FurryFox]

To me, this is not an improvement, quite the opposite. I really liked the Enhance feature. All I can say is thank you for punishing your customers who have given you their money for years by taking away features they've grown fond of. You have definitely taken a step back instead of forward. I don't know who came up with this idea, but I hope in the future you think twice about who you let make decisions like whether or not it is good practice to take good features away from your customers.