Spotify's Game-Changing Audiobook Feature Revealed

Spotify has made a name for itself by offering users high-quality music and podcast streaming, but in a bid to diversify, it entered the audiobooks market in late 2022 in select countries, competing with Amazon's Audible. While Amazon is still the market leader in this segment, Spotify is hard at work to match, if not outsmart, what Amazon does right with audiobooks. In an APK teardown of the Spotify app version 9.1.18.282, Android Authority found code references that point to a new feature called "Page Match." The folks over at the outlet haven't been able to enable it on their phones, but the code references have given us all the key details about how the feature will likely work. What's Page Match in Spotify, and how does it work? The code string clearly suggests that the "Page Match" capability will allow users to seamlessly switch between reading a physical book or an ebook and listening. And to do so, the audio streaming platform will allow users to scan a page in a physical book using their phone's camera. This will, in turn, trigger Spotify to play the audiobook from the exact spot. This is optical character recognition (OCR) at work, reading the text of the passage of the physical book you scanned. That way, it becomes easier to identify and then take users to the exact timestamp in the audiobook. What's also interesting about the feature is that it works in reverse. string name="page_match_onboarding_title">Jump between the book (or Ebook) and the audiobook Beta Scan a page to match your progress. Grab your book to get started Use your camera to match your progress from the book page to the audiobook – and back again! "Page Match" will also show you the exact page in a physical book to match your progress from the audiobook. This sounds like a promising feature for all book lovers, allowing them to start reading a physical book and then pick its audio format later on Spotify without losing progress. However, this will only work if you own both a physical copy of the book and its audio format on Spotify. If you don't have the audiobook on the Spotify library, it will prompt you to buy it on Spotify to start listening from where you stopped reading. Amazon already has something similar, but it works between ebooks and Audible audiobooks. string name="page_match_locked_book_message">Unlock this book to use Page Match Progress matched. Playing %s Save for later Progress matched. Added to Your LibraryTry a nearby page with text. "We couldn't match your page" If the company manages to pull this off, it'll surely give Spotify an edge over Amazon in the audiobook segment. However, this is pretty niche, and not many people will want to use it every day. This is still beneficial for Spotify, as it helps the company to create the perception that it can do what the market leader does, but better. As of now, Spotify's audiobook service is limited to a total of 22 countries, including the US, the UK, Canada, much of Europe, Australia, and more. If Spotify materializes this in the near future, "Page Match" will be available only where Spotify's Audiobooks feature works. The code strings didn't reveal anything about the release date, but since the references have emerged, we can safely assume that Spotify has gotten close to making this a reality. Hopefully, it won't cancel the feature midway.