Music streaming platform Spotify has revamped its Car View mode that aims to minimize the distracted driving risks for motorists.
Spotify announced this in a blog post on Jan. 16. Users can now lis ten to their favorite music via Bluetooth. The new program is immediately activated once the user’s phone will detect the Bluetooth from the car.
Your favorite music will then start playing immediately from the last song or podcast that you were listening to. You can also browse for another song using the Your Library option or the Browse bar. You can skip to another song easily or shuffle your library for random songs to be played.
The three dots menu will allow you to exit from your playlist. Again, the last song you played will be picked up when you connect to your car again.
One big change of the new layout for the Spotify Car View is the big fonts of the song details, track controls, and shuffle, all for more comfortable viewing. The user will no longer see the Album art when the music is being played in this new mode.
The bad news, however, is that new program doesn’t yet include voice commands. This has been speculated on for some time now, since July of 2017 in fact, as Spotify was said to be working on adding the microphone icon on the program.
Unfortunately, users will have to wait for some time for that. It’s not clear how far along Spotify is on the voice command feature for the Car View.
The easy view and automatic play activation will hopefully minimize distracted driving for users behind the wheel.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Association, distracted driving is as dangerous as driving while intoxicated. In fact, in 2016, distracted driving claimed more than 3,000 lives. But drivers are still ignoring the risks as the group said that more than 400,000 motorists daily are on their phone while driving.
For users who don’t like the new style, they can easily disable it permanently under the Spotify Settings. It’s being rolled out globally although not all Android users will be able to experience the new mode simultaneously. Those who can’t see the new Spotify Car View mode need to wait a little bit for it to roll out to their devices.
The Spotify new Car View mode is only available for Android right now. The company promised to announce if it’s already available on iOS.