Spotify Upgrade Adds Gapless Playback, Crossfade

We like Spotify. Ever since the overseas music service came to the US, it's been steadily gaining market share and working its way into A/V hardware from receivers to Internet radios. This week, Spotify announced the launch of new gapless playback and crossfade features. Gapless playback lets songs flow seamlessly, one to the next, without any silent spaces in-between. While you may not care much about this for traditional album streaming, it's rather nice for dance and classical music, live recordings and also concept albums (though Pink Floyd remains elusive on the service as well as every other streaming media app we've encountered).

Spotify’s latest update will have gapless playback switched ‘on’ by default in the Preferences, which we think its probably the default you'll want, but you can turn it off if you don't like the new feature. Another feature - the result of user requests, according to the company - is the ability to crossfade songs. This lets you fade out one song as you bring another in. When you set up a playlist, this might be the ultimate feature if you just want to let your music ride. If you're using Spotify to host your next party, this is a great addition. On top of just allowing you to crossfade, you can even select from 1 to 12 seconds as the duration. You do this by going to Spotify's Preferences, flipping the ‘on’ switch, and setting the fade duration.

• Gapless playback (‘on’ by default)
• Crossfade support (turn ‘on’ via Preferences)
• Faster artist browsing
• Better sorting of albums & top hits
• New save and restore feature for 'Now Playing'
• Improved Subscribe, Buddy List and Favorites options
• Drag & drop fixed on Windows
• ‘Hide purchase buttons’ option (Premium users only)
• ‘Offline Mode’ via Spotify menu
  

Spotify started rolling out the new release last week. For current users, the application should ask you to restart to add the new features. To get your hands on the new features now, click here for Mac OSX or here for Windows.