Spotify is closing the car view. A sign that it’s no longer needed?
When Spotify announced that it was going to offer its car view in 2019, it was seen as a pretty smart way to keep drivers from getting too distracted from the road. Every time you connect your smartphone to your car via Bluetooth, the app removes “stray”items such as menu buttons and album art. Instead, we have large buttons for pausing or starting playback, skipping to the previous or next track, or adding a track. Very practical! But today Spotify is announcing that the feature has been removed.
Spotify removes car view
In response to a question from a user who noticed that the feature had disappeared from their Android app, a Spotify moderator noted that Spotify is “actively exploring many more ways to provide the best in-car music experience.”He added that the removal of the car view mode was necessary to “make room for new innovations”. Pretty reasonable explanation, although it doesn’t justify removing a very useful feature, much less public safety, without a replacement.
The respective moderator also suggests using Google Assistant or Siri on iOS to control Spotify hands-free, much like navigating Google or Apple Maps. And to be honest, this is certainly something that many drivers are already doing.
A sign that it’s no longer needed?
It could also be a sign that Spotify is downgrading Car View because there are so many other ways to control your music in the car today. If you have a recent car with CarPlay or Android Auto, you use the dashboard screen directly without even seeing Car View. Many cars made in 10 years also have a steering wheel music control system.
Of course, there are also darker lenses, as some Spotify users have mentioned on the forums. This could be an attempt by Spotify to push the use of the Car Thing, its small screen accessory that sells for $80. If this product is very useful on fairly old cars – more precisely, without a multimedia control system – it’s completely overkill if you can already control Spotify. On the other hand, without the car view mode, this gadget makes sense. However, in such cases, the simplest explanation is often that the company realizes that certain features are no longer used or are not sufficient.