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.

Different playback options.

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.

[Spannerwerk202]

I’m using the ios client on an iphone. 

I used to use the “enhance” button to find music based on an initial playlist. This has now been removed. 

I did briefly see something about the new Shuffle mode but its suggestions are extremely sporadic and I have no control over it at all, rendering it useless. That and the, uh, “commercial interests” meaning that some songs are suggested more than others? Yeah, na. 

Is there any way to do this now? If no, I’m just gonna go to Apple’s service, the suggestions were the only reason to use spotify and they seem to be actively working against that. 

[nerfsriousbunnie]

i literally never comment on stuff but i’m begging for smart shuffle to be disabled , i hate it asking me if i want smart shuffle, and especially when i have shuffle on and i want it back to no shuffle it switches to smart shuffle and gets me angry

 please change it

[JaffaCake1337]

• I would never have a reason to complain about these sort of ridiculous UI redesigns, but why on earth would you Integrate it into the shuffle button? Now if I want to disable normal shuffle, I need to wait a bunch of seconds while smart shuffle is slowly enabled before I can press it again and finally turn off shuffle.

[meerow]

I hate it. I do not want to use it, and so all it gives me is waiting seconds when using the shuffle button. And it does not even change the icons of the tracks so I cannot see which tracks it added. Just bring back playlist radio and shut off this feature.

[noergaard]

Loving this feature, but it seems to stall sometimes when disabling and re-enabling it. Only way I can make the spinner go away is by restarting the app completely. I cannot interact with the shuffle button when it's in this loading state.

Also, a suggestion for turning this feature on/off could be to make it a shuffle-state like you have "Don't shuffle", "Shuffle all" and "Shuffle 1" now, you could include it as another state so you have 4 "states" in one button - Maybe it gives you a tool tip the first time you enable the regular shuffle, saying "Tap again to enable Smart Shuffle" or something. And instead of taking over the entire button with a loader when it's doing it's smart-shuffle-thing, maybe the loading indicator could just be a small part of the icon, perhaps where the star-shape is, until it's done loading, making you able to click the icon, even if it's not done loading.

[noergaard]

Just realised that it's ofc. the Repeat-function that has these different states, but even so, the shuffle button could similarly have multiple states instead of just on/off. Something like this perhaps:

[Althiche11]

I'm excited to hear about the new Smart Shuffle feature in Spotify! As someone who loves to discover new music and enjoys a good shuffle, this seems like a game-changer.

It's great to know that the Smart Shuffle algorithm will take into account the songs and artists I frequently listen to, as well as my preferred genres and moods. This means that I can enjoy a more personalized shuffle experience, and potentially discover even more songs that I love.

I also appreciate that the Smart Shuffle feature will prioritize newer songs in my library, as I often find myself wanting to hear what's fresh and new. And the ability to easily turn the feature on and off means that I can switch between a traditional shuffle and a more curated one depending on my mood.

Overall, I'm looking forward to trying out the Smart Shuffle feature and seeing how it enhances my listening experience on Spotify. Thanks for continuing to innovate and improve the platform!

[arkanesky]

^ Spotify employee wearing a fake mustache

[floatingpoint]

My thoughts exactly 😂 imagine paying someone to shill for this nonsense instead of just rolling back a few commits and keeping your users happy

[hznsnabz]

so what braindead **bleep** thought this was a good idea, it does nothing different than enhance but is so frustrating to use i just don’t use it. it’s the equivalent of filling the kettle, letting it sit in the freezer, and then boiling it, instead of just boiling the water. for the love of god get rid of it. 

[hznsnabz]

this post as 14 likes and 287 comments, kinda perfect proof how bad this feature is

[javaraccoon]

Plan

Premium

Country

Australia

Device

iPhone 11

Operating System

iOS 16

My Question or Issue

Every time when I connect to my car Smart Shuffle turns itself on and starts dishing me songs I don't know, and rarely enjoy.
This only happens when I'm listening to playlists, not for albums.

I have a few playlists I use when I'm driving, and it's especially annoying as I can't change the setting safely whilst I Drive.
It would be nice to be able to disable this option in settings.

I have had a mostly pleasant experience with Spotify the last few years and this issue plus the new Desktop UI ruining Library view have put me on the brink of cancelling my subscription. I feel as though Spotify is pandering to Music label deals and promoting music I'll never listen to while completely ignoring their paying customer base....

[j13eo-zwu_b8i]

I can't even begin to state how much I loathe smart shuffle. Please either get rid or produce a way where it can be turned off in settings. I pay a premium to be ad free, and you're effectively sneaking in ads. If I want a Spotify playlist, I'll choose one. Its way, way too hard to understand or select when the mode is place - it needs a separate icon that doesn't look like standard shuffle with a link next to it sayings "what's this". Do better - I'm angry enough to move to Apple. 

[Lewkiy]

Great idea on the surface (I actually liked the enhance button) but this… I do not want this. It’s horribly implemented and just painful to use. 

[scryren]

Waiting for the day the "Something went wrong" x2 popups get me into a car accident. Please let us disable smart shuffle from the settings. Smart shuffle makes more sense as a desktop feature, not an offline mobile app feature.

[RogerRoberts]

It's a terrible feature and even more poorly implemented.

[AS221]

I’ve recently had  the smart shuffle activated on my iPhone and it has no option of turning it off!  Must’ve come with the new update as I like listened to my playlist in order. She shuffle button shows activated and is integrated into play/pause button and i absolutely hate it!! Can this be fixed ASAP as seriously considering going back to paying for Apple Music because of this. 

[mrqe]

How can I turn off smart shuffle feature in certain playlist? It's annoying..

[Tarkz]

Stop turning this "smart" shuffle on by default. I don't want to listen to different songs when I'm in my playlist, otherwise they would be in my playlist. This is a terrible feature that NO ONE wanted. Give us a way to disable it. Stop turning it on by default and trying to force it on the community. And stop trying to make this happen. It's a bad feature and needs to be removed.

[thomasruns]

Please stop trying to make "smart" options. An algorithm will never, ever choose what I want to listen to better than I can choose myself. Period. As everyone here has been saying for almost a year now, this is an awful feature on it's own and the UX implementation is even worse. Add an option to turn it off completely so I'm not forced to choose every single time I switch to and from shuffle mode.