Holy moly — Spotify actually added support for an iOS feature before Apple released the next version of its operating system!
In a blog post, the company announced it is finally launching a lock screen widget for the iPhone. You’ll need to be using iOS 16, of course, as that is the version of iOS that introduced lock screen widgets, but if your iPhone is up to date, have at it!
While it’s cool that Spotify built a lock screen widget, its functionality is pretty basic. Instead of doing something cool like showing you a song’s progress or some funky way of displaying the album art of the song you are listening to, it’s just a launcher.
Spotify says that its lock screen widget just opens the Spotify app. That’s it. Instead of going to your home screen and tapping the Spotify icon, you can now do so from your lock screen. Cool.
After you add the new Spotify widget to your Lock Screen, tapping on it will quickly open the Spotify app. So whether you’re busy on the go, in the car, or at home, the Spotify app is now always just one tap away.
Even though the implementation is underwhelming, I’m still glad to see Spotify support an Apple feature relatively soon after its launch. The company is definitely not known for being the fastest to support the latest technology available on Apple devices. I remember waiting years for the Spotify for Apple Watch app and even longer for them to support music streaming from the watch.
Spotify also still notoriously isn’t available on HomePod as a supported service. While you can AirPlay to HomePod with Spotify, you can’t tell Siri to “play a song” and have it start streaming on Spotify.
Today’s update comes a day after Strava announced that it was adding Spotify integration to its fitness app.
