Touch Preview on iOS removal

[JackF]

Hey folks, Spotify here!

Just a quick post to let you know we’re in the process of removing Touch Preview, the feature on the iOS app that gives you a sneak peek of a playlist, song, album, or artist before you hit play.

We’ve taken this decision as it currently has a very low engagement rate. We’re committed to offering the best experience on each platform, and we’re actively looking into new possibilities for the long press feature.

The change will take effect with app version 8.4.15, which goes live in the App Store today.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on what long press feature you’d like to see added. Thanks in advance for sharing your feedback!

[JackF]

If you would like to see Touch Preview come back, you can add your vote to this idea:

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/iOS-Discover-Restore-Touch-Preview-on-iOS-App/idi-p/1900370

[LCations]

I've been a premium subscriber for about 4 years now, and whilst I think Spotify is a great service for the price, more and more negative changes have been introduced and features removed for seemingly no reason (such as this). I'm extremely dissapointed in this removal, as it was one of the best ways for me to find new music easily and efficiently. I simply don't see a reason for removal, and I hope this gets enough backlash to be noticed

[Nomi_lv]

Why Spotify why? I've been a loyal paying customer with you guys from the beginning and loved recommending Spotify to my family and friends. We all loved the touch preview so to remove that completely is really upsetting. It was everyone's favorite feature and unlike anything else other streaming apps offered. Please please please bring it back, I'm begging you Spotify because without you doing so you'll be losing so many customers. 

[xirian]

Really? Who gives a **bleep** if it had a low engagement rate? You already did the programming and it took more effort to remove it.

This is bull**bleep**. All you do is remove features. Remember the lyrics feature you claimed would be back? I still don't see it.

[Shiy]

Dear Spotify CEO

May I have your any comment about our Frustration. 

[steventyp]

This is a bull**bleep** reason. This is one of the most useful features on Spotify which sets it apart from the competition. Stop removing features which are working perfectly well for fake excuses like this one. First lyrics now this. Even if there really was "poor engagement" unless you have a better feature to replace it with then just **bleep** leave it alone!

[steventyp]

This is absolutely the REAL reason behind the removal. It was the first thing that came to mind when I realised it was missing. music execs really set out to make our listening experience as bad as possible. And they wonder why people torrent.

[kmaples]

I'm severely dissapointed this feature has been removed. I loved being able to sample a song for just a few seconds. I could blow through a whole album in 60 seconds flat and get a feel for the type of album. It was especially useful using it with my weekly Discovery playlist as some weeks the playlist has a ton of great new content I've never heard and others I'm lucky to find one track I may like. I don't understand why this feature can't just be an option in the settings and let the user make the decision if they wish to enable/disable the feature. This reminds of the Friends feed they decided to remove out of the blue a year or so ago, pissed off a bunch of their users and wound up putting that feature back in. If the feature is already created, works fine and someI've been a loyal Spotify premium member for years now, but due to the removal of this feature and the fact that my desktop app constantly hangs now and just gives me the endless spinning wheel it may be about time to give Google Play a try (especially with YouTube Red included - which I was not aware of until this moment). I'm also an Amazon Prime member so I can even save a few bucks on their monthly service, but I'll be honest I've never been impressed with their interface as much as Spotify's. I hate to make the switch, but I feel like over the past year or so Spotify is pushing me to try out their competitors. 

[robbiecooper]

This was my FAVORITE feature and you guys killed it off. This might be the final straw for me before i just jump to Apple Music. At least they provide 30 sec previews. I used the touch preview feature for basically discovering everything new. This makes me irate. 

[user-removed]

Removing "Song Lyrics" was worse.

[Macatron]

So, here we are at 13 pages of a thread started by Spotify asking for our opinions, and I haven't seen ONE person say that they're happy with the removal of Touch Preview. 

**Shocked Face**

So I have to ask, if you have absolutely NO intention to listen to user feedback, why did you even bother starting this thread?

[1993richalmond]

Very alarming.

I have been using Spotify for over 5 years now and in turn I have been very satisfied with the user experience. The previous touch preview on your app was possibly the best function on any streaming site/app. 

To take away this function and to say (in other words) it was 'unpopular' is very patronising to the Spotify community; we would much rather hear the truth rather than a white lie. I hope to hear back from this forum what lies in future but if you as a company lie again I will look to another streaming app (and I think others will follow)

We're your customers, the truth is the least we deserve. 

[Mjmthesecond11]

This was a very bad decision! The only reason that I use spotify, is because of its ability to allow me to find new music quickly. I can preview songs, and if I like the preview, I add it to my playlist, where every so often, I go through and delete the old songs that I am tired of. With no ability to "preview" new songs, my playlists are going to quickly become full of my old music, which I will get bored of. I find absolutely no motivation or purpose in listening to "new music" or "discover" playlists, as they are usually a crapshoots for finding new songs, and once you are out of skips, you are forced to listen to new songs that you dont even like. Apple music and pandora One are both much cheaper options than spotify to begin with, and this feature removal has me very close to giving up spotify all together and moving to a different service that allows me Much better opportunities to find new music.  

[fhgvhgkjbl]

I have an idea for the new long press feature: a preview of the song. This would make it easy for users to get a glimpse of a song without playing it. It would also make music discovery much smoother and faster. Sorry I'm being facetious, but I'm really tired of the lies that you keep telling to your customers (the problem with paying for the student discount with PayPal that has been a "top priority" of your customer service for the last several years is one of the more glaring examples that I've come across). Really what is the problem with telling us the truth? That there was a licensing issue (which was already somewhat apparent with some songs not allowing previews), a problem with implementing the feature universally, or whatever the actual issue was. The truth would be a lot better than some made up "engagement rate" issue because you all won't ever make the long press more functional than the preview. I used it very frequently. It was actually one of the features keeping me on Spotify. Now it's gone just like the tablet interface, PayPal discount, and all of the other things that were losing your company money. I completely understand that it is difficult to turn a profit in the music streaming industry and am fine if you have to kill good features in order to do so (because Spotify should be making money), but honestly, I'm tired of continually coming across instances of dishonesty with your consumers and I hope that you all learn from these mistakes before it's too late (mostly because it would take a lot of my time to transfer my library to another service).

[mbug90]

---

@scalv3rt wrote:

What's the point, you never listen to us anyway!  The feature could have stayed for people who did use it and for those who didn't use it, they were still having a good user experience, it made no difference to them.

It's just like the song limit, no limit wouldn't effect those who weren't bothered or aware of it.

---

We need to MAKE them listen, now more than ever.

[pixeluxe]

Well the only reason not to switch to Apple Music is now gone - so later Spotify...

[MattSuda]

If you would like to see Touch Preview come back, you can add your vote to this idea:

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/iOS-Discover-Restore-Touch-Preview-on-iOS-App/idi-p/1900...

[Gdiaz093]

This is a step backwards. If it was really because of low usage, then I think that's the fault of your marketing team. I discovered this feature on my own and every time I showed a friend this neat little trick, they would get so happy. As someone who is constantly looking for new music, this feature was a god send as it saved me loads of time. Please bring it back 

[B_Lemonde]

Disappointing. If only I had known. I would not have upgraded. How do I restore to the old version? This was what made Spotify above all even when I can listen to an entire song through other apps. Best smart feature to discover new artists. Since you asked. The long press feature that I would like to see added is the song Touch Preview. Please consider in restoring it. 

Not a good idea to undermine your app followers by saying "very low engagement rate." Very much doubt that was that was it.

Because of this removal I downgraded your app review on app store to one star. I had come to love the minimal clean functional Euro design. I'm curious to see if you will lose your edge with this. I hope Apple Music picks up this smart tool. Time to make room Daniel Ek for the next rock star of music tech or maybe the rock star was Martin Lorentzon.

[B_Lemonde]

Disappointing. If only I had known. I would not have upgraded. How do I restore to the old version? This was what made Spotify above all music apps. Best smart feature to discover new artists. Since you asked: the long press I would like to see is Touch Preview. Please consider restoring it!

Not a good idea to undermine your app followers by saying "very low engagement rate." Very much doubt that was it.

Because of this removal I downgraded your app review on the app store to one star. I had come to love the minimal clean functional Euro design. I'm curious to see if you will lose your edge with this. I hope Apple Music picks up this smart tool. Time to make room Daniel Ek for the next rock star of music tech or maybe the rock star was Martin Lorentzon.

[tltodd18165]

i have a habit of previewing the song before i add it to a playlist and it was the most helpful thing on the app- i could use regular apple music seeing there's no more song preview. terrible idea to get rid of it