Music streaming app Spotify, like every company in tech, suffers a bit from the Red Queen effect. That is, the moment it stops evolving, something else is going to steal its place. We just get to sit and reap the benefits — as long as they are benefits. This newest feature could well be one of those.
The company, according to Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, is working on an update it’ll call ‘Your Offline Mix’. There are absolutely zero points for guessing what it entails (but we’re going to explain it to you anyway because there’s also this thing called the Dunning-Kruger effect).
Spotify is now offline
We’ve been testing out a new feature called “Your Offline Mix” – a playlist designed for those times when you might not be online ✈️
What do you think? pic.twitter.com/9so0FZMRPX
— Daniel Ek (@eldsjal) June 8, 2023
Little else is known about the feature. We know what it does. The name explains it perfectly, but in case it doesn’t, the description also does the job. It’s a collection of “recently played songs, for when the vibe is high but the connection is low”.
How exactly it’ll work isn’t confirmed yet, since the ‘Offline Mix’ feature is still in testing. Based on the screenshot posted by the company’s CEO, it’ll function on the mobile app and should automatically download a batch of tracks and store them, in case you’re somewhere that internet isn’t. We wouldn’t be surprised if users were able to define how many tracks or how much storage the feature is allowed to consume. A setting for how frequently to refresh the track listing would be nice too, but these are merely guesses and wishes. Still, if Spotify is taking requests…
There’s no timeline for a launch but it’ll possibly be soon. Engadget reports that some users have already encountered the screen on their apps, but it doesn’t seem to be fully functional yet.