Particle.news
Download on the App Store

Spotify Makes 'Fewer Repeats' the Default Shuffle for Premium, Adds Tap-to-Play-Next and Audiobook Recaps

The company aims to make shuffle feel less clumpy by selecting the freshest option from many truly random playlist orders.

Overview

  • Premium listeners now start with the Fewer Repeats shuffle by default, with the option to switch to Standard Shuffle in Settings > Playback.
  • Spotify generates hundreds of random playlist orders and picks the one with the highest freshness score, deprioritizing tracks played recently and improving early-sequence variety.
  • Both Free and Premium users can tap any song during shuffle to play it next without reshuffling the queue.
  • An AI-powered audiobook recap is available in iOS beta for selected English-language titles, surfaced via a recap button that plays a summary of progress so far.
  • Recaps appear after roughly 15–20 minutes of listening and update as you continue; Spotify says audiobook content is not used to train models and recaps do not replicate narration.