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Spotify Removes 'Car View' From Its Mobile Apps

The company says it's "retiring" Car View so it can focus on other features.

By Nathaniel Mott
November 27, 2021
(Aytac Unal / Anadolu Agency / Getty Images)

Spotify has confirmed that it removed Car View, a feature that presented a simplified Now Playing screen when connected to a vehicle's entertainment system, from its mobile apps.

Android Police reports that Spotify users started to notice that Car View was missing in mid-October. Those users questioned the feature's removal in a community forum thread, which prompted one of Spotify's moderators to confirm the company had bid adieu to Car View.

"This however doesn't mean we don't want to improve on how our users listen to Spotify while driving," Spotify's forum moderator said. "On the contrary, we're actively exploring a variety of new ways to deliver the best in-car listening experience. Think of retiring car-view as something that needs to happen in an effort to make way for new innovations coming down the track."

The moderator recommended using Google Assistant to control Spotify without manually navigating the app while driving. In the meantime, the company is supposed to be working on some improvements to using its apps in the car, but it hasn't said what exactly that means.

Car View's removal from Spotify's mobile apps follows the introduction of Car Thing, a device that pairs with Spotify Premium subscriber's phones to allow them to control audio playback with voice commands, the built-in touchscreen, and a dedicated volume knob, in April.

It's not clear if Car Thing's release influenced Spotify's decision to remove Car View from its mobile apps, but as Android Police notes, "making people buy an $80 add-on to give them access to functionality they already had isn't great" even if the changes are actually unrelated.

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About Nathaniel Mott

Contributing Writer

I've been writing about tech, including everything from privacy and security to consumer electronics and startups, since 2011 for a variety of publications.

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