An update to the official Spotify Linux client is rolling out.
Spotify doesn’t publish change-logs for Linux client updates but a couple of very noticeable improvements come bundled up in the latest build.
Such as?
For quite a while now Spotify’s MPRIS integration hasn’t been able to show album/track artwork due to a malformed URL on Spotify’s end (which no-one was in a hurry to fix).
Although this was purely a cosmetic issue — music played fine and player controls still worked — the absence of album art did irritate enough folks for a slog of third-party workarounds, extensions, and other fixes to emerge.
This wasn’t a GNOME specific thing either; the missing artwork affected Linux users across desktops and distros.
But with the latest Spotify for Linux client the issue is fixed. Those workarounds (I was using the Spotify artwork fixer GNOME extension) are no longer necessary.
Spotify Snap App is MUCH Faster
The other “big” change in this update concerns the (finally updated) Snap app: Spotify starts up a lot faster.
Oh, I know — you’ve heard claims about supposed Snap speed-ups before only to see little appreciable improvement in use. But this time, honestly, I think you’re gonna notice a change because, well, I certainly did — and I’m not exactly Snap’s biggest fan.
Ubuntu says it worked with Spotify devs to imbue this iteration of the client some “magic” (spoiler: LZO compression). For me, the new Spotify Snap app opens within a second or so. This is a massive reduction to the 15-20 second pause I’d get on a cold boot, prior. Subsequent launches of the app are near instant.
You can install the official Spotify Linux client on Ubuntu (and other distros) from the Snap Store.
We also wrote a guide showing other ways to install Spotify on Ubuntu, so if you’re Snap-averse do check that out.