Spotify preparing a redesigned Android widget w/ album art color matching

Ben Schoon | Jun 25 2021 - 10:25 am PT

Android 12 puts a new emphasis on widgets, and perhaps just ironically, Spotify is now preparing a brand-new homescreen widget.

As a part of the Spotify 8.6.40/42 update, the app is adding support for a brand-new homescreen widget that ditches the old look, adopting rounded corners and a color-matching theme that’s based on the album art of the song currently playing. That functionality seems to be hit or miss, though. It does not appear to support Android 12’s wallpaper-based theming and even the album art matching isn’t working properly on Android 11. Our Dylan Roussel managed to see it working on his Android 12 device. It’s still pictured in the widget picker for everyone, though.

The new Spotify for Android widget still defaults to a 4×1 size but can be resized. The widget also seems to be working better when it is resized.

This comes two years after Spotify removed its widget entirely, but then brought it back as a result of user complaints regarding the removal just a couple of months later without any changes. The new widget is available alongside the old one, at least for now.

It’s unclear when this will be released in Spotify’s stable update channel, but the minor version bump implies sooner than later.