After years of requests, the Spotify finally fulfilled one of the oldest wishes of its s: the possibility to start playing a playlist from the application on the chromecast from the desktop version of the program. 48486d
Until then, if the wanted to start playing a playlist or a podcast through Spotify on Chromecast, it was necessary for this playback to be started through the Spotify app for mobile devices, and from there it was possible to choose to send the playback to the TV through Chromecast.
Now, starting with version 1.1.38 of the desktop app, it will also be possible to connect to Chromecast directly from your computer. To do this, just press the “available devices” button (which is in the lower right corner of the program, on the left side of the volume control) and, if you have a Chromecast connected to the same Wi-Fi network as your computer, it will appear in the list of devices on which audio playback can be controlled.
Prior to this update, only people using a ChromeOS laptop or computer could control Chromecast playback directly from the machine, as the Spotify of this operating system was the same used in mobile devices. With the new update, the same can now be done from any computer or notebook that uses Windows or macOS as an operating system.
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The possibility of connecting the version of the Spotify for computers with Chromecast is just the latest of some news that the company has been making available in recent months.
At the end of June, the application had already made available in Brazil the visualization of the lyrics of the songs that are being played in a synchronized way with what is being played. This function has been in testing since 2019, and since June 30 it has been officially available for countries in Latin America and Asia.
For now still exclusive to the version of Spotify for mobile devices, and the lyrics are automatically available on the playback screen, just below the controls to pause or change the song.
Lyric-to-song syncing isn't exactly new to the service, and older s should that it's been around before. The function was present in Spotify between 2015 and 2016, but a change in the business model and the end of the partnership with Musixmatch (which provided the synchronized lyrics) left the app without this tool for the next four years until the new implementation in 2020, which everything indicates that this time it will be permanent.
Although it was a pioneer in making this function available in 2015, the Spotify ended up falling behind the competition in this aspect, since all the major competitors of the app (Apple Music, Deezer and YouTube Music) had already made available the option of synchronized lyrics of the song that is playing to their s.
Another novelty is that, since the 21st of July, the Spotify also started offering its s the option of video podcasts — a direct response to YouTube, which has been increasingly successful with video podcasts being made available on the platform.
For now, only a few programs in English that were already successful on YouTube are being made available by Spotify (such as The Morning Toast, The Misfits Podcast and Higher Learning), but it shouldn't take long for the program offering to increase.
Among the advantages provided by Spotify is the fact that, if you leave the app to use another app on your phone, the podcast continues to play normally only as audio (which doesn't happen on YouTube, which pauses playback as soon as the app goes into the background).
Another advantage is the possibility of ing the episode from Spotify and play it, both in video and audio only, even in places where there is no internet connection, allowing you to watch your favorite podcast without spending cellular data.
Source: 9to5 Google, TechCrunch, Spotify
