- Spotify is working on a new feature called Page Match that will allow you to seamlessly switch between audiobooks and physical books.
- When you scan a page in a physical book with your phone’s camera, Spotify will take you to that exact spot in the audiobook.
- The feature works both ways and also allows the transition from an audiobook to the physical copy.
How does Page Match work?
The idea is simple. You open Spotify, scan a page in a physical book with your phone’s camera, and Spotify takes you to that exact spot in the audiobook. The feature uses optical character recognition (OCR) to read the text, identify the passage and match it with the appropriate timestamp in the audiobook.
Spotify’s own onboarding strings describe Page Match as a beta feature that will allow you to “match your progress from the book page to the audiobook – and back again.” This is where things get even more interesting.
Code
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! Going from paper or ebook to audiobook makes sense. But Page Match also seems to work in reverse. Based on the sequence below, we think Spotify will tell you the exact physical page in a book that corresponds to your current audiobook position.
Unlock this book to use Page Match That means you can pause your audiobook, pick up your book, and flip to that page without having to spend time looking for that exact page. We see this as a super useful feature for book clubs, where someone listens to an audiobook while others read the physical book.
Here’s a screenshot we managed to grab from the Spotify app showing how Page Match would work with a physical book.
AssembleDebug / Android Authority
There is more…
It appears that Page Match only works if you own or unlock the audiobook on Spotify first. If you do not do this, you will be asked to purchase the product before using the feature. Once linked, you can save your progress to your library and come back to it later. Spotify also seems to be aware that OCR is not perfect. If your page cannot be identified, you will be asked to scan a nearby page.
Code
Unlock this book to use Page Match
Progress matched. Playing %s Save for later
Progress matched. Added to Your Library Try a nearby page with text. "We couldn't match your page" Support for Page Match should be limited to markets where Spotify already offers audiobooks, including the US, UK, Canada, much of Europe, Australia, and a few other countries.
There’s no word yet on when or if Page Match will roll out publicly, but if Spotify pulls this off, it could be one of the most thoughtful audiobook features we’ve seen in a long time.
⚠️ A MOT disassembly helps predict features that may appear on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
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