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Spotify announced Tuesday that Blend, which allows two users to create a shared playlist that combines both their musical tastes, is now available. It was released in beta in June and is now accessible by both free and premium users.

The experience includes new cover art to easily identify each of your Blend playlists, taste match scores to see your listening preferences compared to your friends’, and shareable data stories that are unique to every listening pair and can be shared across social channels. Blend, which will be updated daily and adapts based on what listeners stream, combines the best of Spotify’s personalization capabilities and collaborative playlist functionality into a single shared playlist, making it easy for users to get into a social listening session that is made just for them. But creating this experience was no simple feat. There’s a massive team behind the experience, blending their own different skills and expertise to bring it to life.

It’s not just Apple Music and Podcasts that are getting an upgrade. Spotify too announced some upgrades for both its iOS and Android apps, with the rollout starting Thursday.

Starting today, we are rolling out a new version of Your Library to all Spotify mobile users. Now, you’ll have a more streamlined way to easily explore your collection and find your saved music and podcasts faster. Your Library’s updated design and added features will enable you to spend less time looking for content and organizing your collection, and more time rediscovering the music and podcasts you’ve loved over the years. And as always, keep adding even more content for a library that grows alongside you into the future. The new Your Library is packed with a new layout and features that make browsing your music and podcast collection easier than ever.

Spotify launched in-car entertainment system Car Thing in the U.S. on Tuesday, TechCrunch reported. It’s the company’s first ever hardware product.

The company explained its interest in Car Thing is about solving a need for customers who want a “more seamless” and personalized in-car listening experience. Although many cars today support Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, Spotify points out that the average age of a car in the U.S. is actually 11 years old and the average lifetime of cars is 18 years. That means there are still a large number of cars on the road that don’t support modern, in-car infotainment systems. Car Thing is being introduced to serve this market — and likely, to give Spotify the opportunity to explore future business models where it has a more direct relationship with customers inside the vehicle, though the company isn’t speaking to its longer-term ambitions at this time.

Spotify users on both iOS and Android can now use the phrase ‘Hey Spotify’, GSMArena reported. It activates the audio-streaming app’s built-in voice search when the screen is on and the app itself is open.

A notification was received by the Spotify app. It brought us to a screen that prompted us to turn on “Hey Spotify”. Saying the wake phrase will prompt Spotify’s built-in voice search while the screen is on and the Spotify app is open. This means that the app is continuously listening for the wake phrase. Spotify’s privacy policy for voice data usage states that Spotify says it only holds recordings and transcriptions of the searches that you perform when tapping the voice button or saying the wake phrase. The feature doesn’t really add any function outside of enabling Spotify’s own voice search for hands-free use.

Spotify announced Tuesday that it had acquired the creators of live audio app Locker Room, and will be moving into that space. The move is part of its attempts to take on Clubhouse.

“Creators and fans have been asking for live formats on Spotify, and we’re excited that soon, we’ll make them available to hundreds of millions of listeners and millions of creators on our platform,” said Gustav Söderström, Chief Research & Development Officer at Spotify. “The world already turns to us for music, podcasts, and other unique audio experiences, and this new live audio experience is a powerful complement that will enhance and extend the on-demand experience we provide today.” In the coming months, Spotify will evolve and expand Locker Room into an enhanced live audio experience for a wider range of creators and fans. Through this new live experience, Spotify will offer a range of sports, music, and cultural programming, as well as a host of interactive features that enable creators to connect with audiences in real time. We’ll give professional athletes, writers, musicians, songwriters, podcasters, and other global voices opportunities to host real-time discussions, debates, ask me anything (AMA) sessions, and more.

Spotify is finally rolling out its Live Lyrics feature to some users in the U.S, Engadget reported. Equivalent features are widely available on rivals Apple Music and Deezer.

It’s worth noting that Spotify’s “new” approach to lyrics — which is once again powered by Musixmatch — isn’t really all that new. The company has been testing the feature in markets around the world for years, and officially launched it in 26 markets — including Brazil, Mexico, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Thailand, India and more — around the middle of 2020. More recently, live lyrics were also made available to users in South Korea when the service launched there earlier this month. At the risk of sounding a little obvious, though, not every test market ultimately gets access to the feature at wide scale. Spotify, for instance, ran a similar test in Canada before discontinuing it around June 2020; to our knowledge, the feature has never reappeared. This move puts Spotify on more even footing with competing services like Apple Music and Deezer, and should help the company from losing competitors to more feature-rich rivals.