As a Spotify and iOS user, I’ve wondered for quite some time why the service’s iPhone app it didn’t have widgets for the home screen. Since these elements arrived in Apple’s operating system, the app for its streaming music service has three for the home screen, which provide very quick and convenient access to the application.

Admittedly, the relationship between Apple and Spotify has not been the best for some time. Let’s recall, for example, that Apple Music decided to jump to HiFi quality without increasing the price of its subscription, which was a huge setback for Spotify, from which it has not yet recovered. I’m talking, of course, about its already announced (over time, you know what I mean) plan for HiFi music, something that’s still in the company’s plans, but hasn’t materialized yet and probably won’t. short term..

But of course, one thing is the problems between the two companies, and another very different is the experience for those who are users of both at the same time. But also not having widgets for the home screen in iOS is something that also went against Spotify’s interests. Because? Because this add-on provides instant access to the app, which translates into increased usage of the app and thus a higher likelihood that users will retain their subscription services.

Fortunately, someone in the company must have realized this and as we can read on his blog, the Spotify app for iOS now has lock and home screen widgets. And here’s the exact opposite of what I mentioned above, because Spotify has taken the lead over Apple Music because it doesn’t have a lock screen widget, which might be surprising.

So with the latest iOS app update, version 8.8.26, we can now add a widget to the iPhone lock screen that will take us directly to the Spotify app when pressed. Its design is the simplest, single-width, showing only the service icon, but it is still really practical.

Two home screen widgets are of one height, one of them is full width and the other is 50% width. The largest widget shows up to five references to what you last heard: Artists, playlists, albums or podcasts. A smaller widget shows the cover art of what you played last time. In both cases, clicking on the image will take you directly to the given content.