Opera browser gets Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music support
Opera Software released a new version of the company's Opera desktop browser to the public today. Opera 72.0 Stable is all about music, or more precisely, integrating some of the most popular music services directly in the browser.
Opera users may control music playback directly from the sidebar, and Opera Software believes that this is more comfortable than having to control playback from a browser tab or a standalone application.
The integration uses Opera's sidebar implementation that has been expanded widely in recent releases. This year, Opera Software integrated direct access to Instagram and Twitter to the sidebar, complementing the already available Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp messenger services.
The music player integration works similarly but it is grouped together under a new player icon in the sidebar. A click on the icon displays the supported services -- Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube Music -- and a click on a service opens the site of the service in the sidebar.
All that is left then is to sign-in to an account or create a new account, and start using the service from the sidebar. Music playback is controlled from the sidebar, but options to use media keys if supported are also available.
Opera Software designed the player with other web activity in mind. If a user plays a video or other audio in open browser tabs, sidebar music playback is paused automatically and resumed automatically when the video or audio stream.
Users have full manual control over music playback as well. All it takes is to hover over the music player icon in the sidebar to get controls and information about the song that plays currently.
The controls support pause/resume, move on to the next or go back to the previous song. There is no need to open the full player interface for these controls, as they appear on hover automatically.
Opera users may sign-in to multiple supported services using the new player functionality. The feature to switch to another service is a bit hidden at first; you find a small down-arrow icon next to the icon of the service that is displayed currently in the title bar. A click display all supported services and an option to switch to another.
Opera users may hide any of the sidebar icons if they don't use them. Sidebar extensions are also available to integrate other services in the sidebar directly.
You can check out the official blog post here. Download links for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux are also provided on the page.
Closing Words
If you like to play music while you are using your computer, you may find the new sidebar player useful as it makes everything a tad easier to control for many users. Those who are using media keys may not get the same mileage out of the new feature but those who controlled playback in a tab in the browser, will.
Now You: do you play music in your browser?
No, I don’t play music in browser but my MP3 player. I use Tunelf Spotibeat Music Converter to download and convert Spotify playlist to MP3 then import to MP3 Player for listening.
Don’t understand the need to run everything from the browser.
I this case, I reckon it’s mostly about advertising. As for browser apps and those that open in a browser (such as Jellyfin), understand many devs like them as they are often considered easier to code, as with cross-platform implementations, updates, security, and such. Also, any software that heavily relies on the web can often benefit of what’s already baked-into a web browser.
Furthermore, server/client software you can access with a browser has been a thing for a very long time. What’s new is this trend is getting much bigger and streamlined for the masses.
That said, I don’t like web browser apps.
I’d rather us a standalone desktop app for better sound quality. Spotify and Apple Music limit the playback quality within web browsers.
Huh, this kind if functionality I was expecting from the Vivaldi guys considering the long extents they have gone for their browser.
Skipping this that this post is a bit late (Opera 72 was released at Oct 2020, now we have Nov).
Need to say that Opera takes the easy way. Just only adds simple things and forgot about functionalities. For example ‘Workspaces’ are nice only the problem is this is limited to 5, so 5 is enough for all?
Martin, this post is not entirely accurate. Opera 72 was already released in late October (https://blogs.opera.com/desktop/2020/10/opera-72-update/), whereas this update is – strangely – a feature addition to the existing v72 branch. Confusing, I know…
do you play music in your browser? – no. I am not a multi-tasker and need quiet to think.
Strange, I got Opera 72 on Ubuntu yesterday. I didn’t check on Windows.
Poor OLD man :(