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On first play with the iPad app, this reviewer was excited to note that editing playlists was a joy. Like other iOS apps, you can choose to edit the line up, which gives you the option to 'unlock' and then delete playlists as you see fit. Easy peasy and a prime opportunity for a playlist spring clean.
Although your existing folders are there to browse through, it doesn't seem that you can add playlists into folders or create new ones, which is a shame because organising playlists like this on the desktop app is a real pain. That's a minor point though, so don't let it put you off.
Given the focus on discovering music, the process for subscribing to and creating playlists has been made really easy. It's really a one-tap process once you've found the playlist or song you're after. Although long-time iPad users may instinctively want to drag and drop songs but Spotify has deemed tapping a more intuitive control mechanism.
As with the iPhone app, you can sync playlists to the tablet to listen to offline by toggling the offline sync control. We synced 14 songs over Wi-Fi at extreme quality and it took only a few minutes.
The good news is that anyone upgrading from the old iOS app to the new iPad app will retain their synced playlists. Hurrah.
Search
The iPad app is geared more towards music discovery, so some real thought's gone into the search function. Results start to populate as you type, with the best match hoiked up to the top of the screen, before sections for artists, albums, playlists and tracks, with artists and songs already in your library prioritised above others.
It's a nice change from the annoying tabbed layout of the search function in the iPhone screen, and being able to browse relevant playlists (as you can in the desktop app) is a really welcome addition.
