Spotify adds “What’s New” feature to keep you on top of the latest releases

Spotify is rolling out a change to the Android and iOS apps which should make it easier to stay on top of new musical and podcast releases in the future.

It’s called “What’s New” and will appear in the app as a bell icon with the familiar blue notification circle when it has something to share. Tapping on the icon will reveal new podcast episodes or musical tracks from the artists and creators that you follow. It’s updated in real time, so you can be amongst the first to listen to new content the second it’s created.

This is especially handy for podcasts, which have been somewhat shoehorned into a design that was designed for displaying albums, singles and playlists. While other dedicated podcast apps efficiently show podcasts in chronological order, the traditional Spotify layout makes listening to episodes sequentially that bit more challenging.

But it’s not just about podcasts and, as Spotify notes in the press release announcing the change, its dominance in the music streaming sector means that plenty of interested parties upload a lot of content each month. According to the company, over 50,000 hours’ worth of audio is uploaded to Spotify every day which means that your favourite artist could very easily be lost in the noise.

Of course if you follow a lot of artists you may still end up feeling overwhelmed. Perhaps for that reason, Spotify says it has added additional filters to help you sort the new content as it arrives. “What’s New also includes filters that allow you to sort for new music releases or new podcast and show episodes, helping you find what you’re looking for more quickly,” the company writes.

“What’s New” is rolling out globally on iOS and Android “over the coming weeks”. We asked Spotify whether this will be limited to mobile platforms and were told that currently there are no plans to extend the feature to desktop or anywhere else.