The streaming service just formally launched a major update to Canvas, a looping video feed functionality with similarities to TikTok, as announced in an official blog post. The update moves Canvas loops to a personalized feed that lives right on the app’s home screen. The intent appears to be to give Spotify users another way to discover new music, as the content of these video loops is produced by the artists themselves. Each Spotify user gets 15 algorithmically-chosen Canvas loops per day. Like what you hear or see? Follow the artist, add the song to a playlist, or simply keep it on repeat directly from the loop. You can also use Canvas loops to immediately share the song to a wide variety of social networks, as the tune will loop in the background of your TikTok, Facebook story, or Instagram story. Navigating is easy and similar to TikTok; just scroll up or down on your feed, though with only 15 loops a day, that feed isn’t exactly a lengthy, old Russian novel. This feature is in beta, for now, and is only available to iOS and Android users in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and the UK. Lifewire reached out to Spotify to find out if or when the functionality might arrive in the US. They responded via email: “At Spotify, we routinely conduct a number of tests. Some of those end up paving the way for our broader user experience and others serve only as an important learning. We don’t have any further news to share at this time.” Update 04/08/2022: Added Spotify quote as it came in after publication.
