It Just Got Easier To Rock Out … Even If You’re Off The Grid

For those of you old enough to remember the days of CDs, cassettes, or records, it’s only natural that the internet shouldn’t be a requirement for enjoying music. But the Spotify generation has become used to accessing tunes through a digital service that only operates when it’s online.

But an industry giant is rolling out a new feature aimed at addressing this issue.

An automatic playlist

Spotify has long been using the preferences of individual listeners to create unique playlists, and the same concept now extends to a new feature called Offline Backup. Essentially, this is an evolving playlist based on what a user has been listening to — but this one is still accessible offline.

This is a notable improvement on Spotify’s existing in-app downloading feature, which saves songs or playlists and is useful when preparing for a flight or some other period without internet access. That feature requires subscribers to search for and select the files to download, as opposed to the Offline Backup, which does everything automatically.

And the beat goes on

The apparent appeal of Offline Backup is that it is always ready to stream in case of an unexpected — or expected — internet outage. Spotify says it has made it easy to access this feature on the app as soon as your device loses connection.

Before you get too excited, there are a few other details to consider:

• It only works if you’ve enabled offline listening
• For now, it’s only available to premium subscribers
• You must have recently listened to at least 5 songs

But if you clear those hurdles, you can jam out to a customized playlist whenever the internet drops … or add it to your library if you want to put it in the online mix.

Chris Agee October 4th, 2024

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