In January of last year, Spotify released Stations, a simplified streaming app with a minimalistic design that allowed users to jump directly into streaming, saving some of the hassle of setting up a profile. The app suffered from very limited availability due to only being available in Australia and only for Android devices, but one of those conditions is changing today, and it"s probably not the one you"d want. As reported by TechCrunch, Stations is now available for iOS as well, but you"re still out of luck if you"re not in Australia.
Stations offers a quick way for users to listen to a wide variety of preset stations based on genres and eras of music, but it"ll also learn from your likes and dislikes as you use the app, tailoring the stations to your taste and creating new ones based on them. It also gives you the option to create your own station by selecting some of your favorite artists, if you have some more time to put into it. Just as with the main Spotify app, you can listen for free, but having a Premium account lets you skip as many tracks as you want, and you also get no ads.
Unfortunately, the new release doesn"t come with broader regional availability. If you"re outside Australia, you"re out of luck. While regional exclusivity is often a thing for many companies, it"s certainly interesting to see Spotify withholding Stations from the rest of the world for so long. With the app reaching more users now that it"s on iOS; maybe the company will start considering bringing it to other regions as well.
If you do live in Australia, you can get Spotify Stations for Android from the Play Store, or for iOS from the App Store.