At long last, Spotify Miniplayer launches on the desktop

It has been an extraordinarily long time coming, but Spotify has finally launched the miniplayer that users have been requesting for years.

The arrival of Spotify Miniplayer sees the music streaming service catching up with the likes of Apple Music. The new discreet player floats over other running apps, and gives users a choice of UI designs to switch between.

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Spotify says that the new floating miniplayer has been designed to give "maximum control over [...] music and podcasts with minimal intrusion, ensuring the workflow goes undisturbed". The new mode sees the Spotify app working much like a picture-in-picture window, and a simple button click is all it takes to switch back and forth between mini and full modes.

While it is always a good idea to make sure that you have all of the latest updates installed for Spotify -- or, indeed, any app -- this will have no effect on the availability of the new Miniplayer. It is being enabled via a server-side update and, for now at least, it is only available to Premium subscribers. Spotify has not revealed whether or not it will be made available to non-paying users at some point in the future.

If the feature has been enabled for you, you will see a new square button nestling between the volume control and full screen toggle to the lower right of the Spotify window. If you are a Premium subscriber and don't yet see this, you will just have to wait a little longer.

Spotify has more information available here.