Spotify gets its biggest upgrade in years – gunning for YouTube and TikTok

While we still await the launch of Spotify HiFi (or a Hi-Res Audio tier of another name), the company continues to be busy in other areas. In fact, it's latest major update could well be even bigger that an upgrade in sound quality.

Announced by Spotify boss during its Now Playing event in Los Angeles, the service is expanding more rapidly into video – not just music videos, which it has dabbled in before, but video podcasts and presentations from some of the world's biggest influencers.

It's coming for YouTube and TikTok, basically.

A host of features have started to roll out to the app already, with some yet to arrive soon. For example, from January, Premium members in the US, UK, Australia and Canada will be able to watch video podcasts uninterrupted by adverts.

Seamless streaming has also arrived, giving both free and Premium users the ability to stream videos in the foreground or background, with the ability to switch easily between watching and listening.

Many of the additional features are for creators and partners, to encourage them to make videos for the platform. Spotify for Podcasters is morphing into Spotify for Creators, which will include video uploads and all manner of new controls.

And the platform will enable creators to post Podcast Clips – short-form, vertical clips to promote episodes and the like.

"We have been steadily investing in video because of its growing popularity on our platform, and we’ll always focus on things that we believe will make Spotify an even more powerful destination for creators and listeners," the company said on its online newsroom.

Spotify is certainly a very different service today than it was even a year ago. With audiobooks, audio and video podcasts, and even course for students, the app is jam-packed with more than music.

Now, if only we could have Hi-Res, lossless streaming, that'd be the long-awaited icing on the cake.