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Spotify adds QR-like codes for quick music sharing

Spotify adds QR-like codes for quick music sharing

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A la Snapcode

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Spotify is rolling out a new feature to its mobile apps that offers a new way to instantly stream music or share songs with friends nearby. Called Spotify Codes, you might now notice that under individual songs, playlists, and albums, there is an addition of a soundwave-like barcode. To use them, go to your Spotify app, click the search button, and you’ll see a camera icon in the search bar. Hover the camera over the code and you should be taken straight to the music in question.

Spotify

In our tests, Spotify Codes worked extremely quickly — sometimes successfully loading a song even before the camera got a steady look at the code. The implementation is similar to those you might have seen from Messenger, Snapchat, and most recently, Twitter, for adding new friends. The QR-style code might be Spotify’s way to reintroducing a social way to share music on the app, considering it killed its inbox feature in February.

Spotify Codes appear to have been quietly introduced last month — Spotify’s support Twitter account, @SpotifyCares, told a few users who noticed the barcodes in their apps as early as April 10th that it was a new feature that it called “Spotify Scannables.” As of today, the support team still calls it by that name even though the online help page refers to it as Spotify Codes.

Whatever it’s actually called, Spotify says there are no current plans to make codes for the desktop app.