Our long international nightmare is over: Spotify has quietly restored the original 2D app icon for the iPhone after about a month-long takeover by a disco-ball-ified version of the logo, which many users had expressed a strong dislike for.
On Thursday (June 11), an update to the Spotify iOS app switched the icon back to the well-known logo users have been familiar with. That did away with the glowing green mirrorball icon for its mobile app for Apple devices that Spotify introduced the second week of May.
The disco-ball icon for the Spotify iOS app was meant to be a fun celebration of its first 20 years connected with the “Spotify 20: Your Party of the Year(s)” mobile-only in-app experience that provides look back at your music listening history. And it was always intended to be temporary.
Some people had defended Spotify’s disco-ball as a festive and fun — and an example of a big company taking a creative risk with its well-known logo. But many Spotify users voiced displeasure at the change-up, with some complaining that the disco ball looked pixelated on a small phone screen — and, generally, was visually displeasing.
“The person who designed this logo should be fired,” one user on X groused. The official Spotify account responded to them on May 17 by saying: “We know glitter is not for everyone. Our temp glow up ends soon. Your regularly scheduled Spotify icon returns next week.” It took a little longer, but now the Spotify app is back to the way it used to look.
The whole episode is a reminder to product designers everywhere that users can be extremely sensitive to the seemingly smallest changes — and Spotify clearly had not anticipated that a teeny-tiny disco ball drop would prove to be unpopular.