Spotify Updated With Home Screen Widgets on iOS 14 - MacRumorsOpen MenuShow RoundupsShow Forums menuVisit ForumsOpen Sidebar
Skip to Content

Spotify Updated With Home Screen Widgets on iOS 14

Following a brief beta testing period, Spotify today updated its iPhone and iPad app with a new Home Screen widget that provides quick access to recently played playlists, artists, albums, or podcasts. The widget is available in small and medium sizes.

spotify ios 14 home screen widget
To access the widget, update the Spotify app to version 8.5.80 or later and open the app. Then, tap and hold a widget or an empty area of the Home Screen until the app icons jiggle, tap the plus sign in the top-left corner, tap on Spotify in the list, and select the size of the widget. Home Screen widgets require iOS 14 or iPadOS 14 or later.

As with other Home Screen widgets, this one only serves as a shortcut to various parts of the Spotify app, as Apple does not allow Home Screen widgets to offer playback controls or toggles due to battery life considerations.

Popular Stories

General Spotify Feature

Spotify Launches Fitness Hub With 1,400+ Peloton Workouts

Monday April 27, 2026 11:05 am PDT by
Spotify today launched a new Fitness hub, bringing over 1,400 on-demand Peloton workout classes to Premium subscribers alongside a range of free content from independent wellness creators. The Peloton classes span strength, cardio, yoga, pilates, barre, meditation, stretching, and outdoor run and walk, and require no specialist equipment. Peloton's bike workouts are not included. The catalog ...
General Spotify Feature

Spotify Now Plays Personal Podcasts Generated by Your AI Agent

Friday May 8, 2026 3:31 am PDT by
Spotify has launched a new feature that lets users save AI-generated audio briefings called Personal Podcasts directly to their Spotify library. It uses a new command-line tool for desktop that works with AI coding agents like OpenAI's Codex and Anthropic's Claude Code. After you install the Save to Spotify CLI from GitHub and sign into your Spotify account, you can prompt the agent to...
General Spotify Feature

Spotify to Adopt Apple's Technology for Video Podcasts

Thursday May 14, 2026 9:02 am PDT by
Spotify today announced plans to adopt Apple's HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) technology for video podcasts, a move that will allow creators to distribute video shows across both platforms without changing their existing setup. Apple introduced an enhanced HLS-based video podcast experience for the iPhone, iPad, Apple Vision Pro, and the web at the end of March. The upgrade significantly improves ...

Top Rated Comments

insomniac86 Avatar
73 months ago

Restricting playback buttons because of 'Battery life limitations' codswallop. This is 100% to try and get more subscribers to Apple Music.
Lol. You do realise that apple’s OWN music widget has the SAME limitation as Spotify’s right? Derp.

EDIT: I agree the widgets are crap on iOS 14 due to these limitations. But to say it’s to drive more subscriptions to Apple Music is ludicrous.
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Kylo83 Avatar
73 months ago
Without them being interactive I just don’t see any reason for them
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
otternonsense Avatar
73 months ago
Totally useless widget without control buttons.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
73 months ago
Restricting playback buttons because of 'Battery life limitations' codswallop. This is 100% to try and get more subscribers to Apple Music.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
73 months ago

Without them being interactive I just don’t see any reason for them
Basically nothing but an option for a bigger app icon.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Kylo83 Avatar
73 months ago
To me widgets that can’t act as quick shortcuts to interactive things like play stop are useless I wish next year apple changes this
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)