Apple announced many new features coming to iOS 17 during yesterday’s WWDC keynote. Although Apple Music was only briefly mentioned, today we have a better understanding of all the new features of the Music app thanks to the developer beta of iOS 17.
Crossfade
The first major update is the ability to crossfade between tracks, which Apple says allows you to smoothly switch between tracks so your music never stops. Apple Music iOS users have been waiting for this feature for a while, making it one of the most important additions to the Music app in iOS 17.
Anyone participating in the current developer beta should be warned that enabling crossfade in the Music tab in the Settings app will cause the entire app to crash. Users report that this happens every time they try to tap the Music tab in the Settings app.
UI changes
Like iOS 16 last year, iOS 17 brings a few minor tweaks to the user interface in Apple Music. The most notable update is found in the music player, which now offers full-screen animated artwork for albums that support animated artwork.
With this change, these albums merge seamlessly into the bottom of the music player, where the controls are located. This compares to the current iOS 16 style, where the album art is in a traditional square box with a color gradient around it.
Finally, the minimized version of the music player now has a hover style over the Apple Music interface. This gives a depth effect to the minimized player as you browse the Music app, and it still has play/pause and skip buttons.
Collaborative Playlists
Apple briefly mentioned in its press release that Apple Music is getting Collaborative Playlists in iOS 17, but so far there are not many details about the feature. In a screenshot, we can see four friends working on a “Game Night” playlist, which shows a song and a profile picture of the person who added it, similar to what the current Apple Music Friends Mix looks like.
There’s also a button at the top of the playlist that appears to be an option to add or remove people from the playlist, and the playlist text mentions a way to “comment” to your favorite songs. Apple said that Collaborative Playlists will be available in an update later this year, so this feature probably won’t appear on the same day as iOS 17.
CarPlay update
There is a minor update for Apple Music in CarPlay with iOS 17. By using SharePlay in the car, all passengers can do that contribute to what is currently playingallowing friends and family to add music to the next track or play/pause and skip the current track.
Other minor updates
Previously on Apple Music, lyrics that were not synced had a very small font that some users found difficult to read, especially compared to the songs with lyrics that played along with the music. In iOS 17, those songs with lyrics that are not synced have a larger and more readable font.
Some images shared by Apple also appear to show a new star button on the music player, although we haven’t seen this ourselves in the current iOS 17 beta. This button resembles the star button on artist pages in the current version of Apple Music, which you can favorite an artist to keep up to date with their releases.
This new star button on the music player could simply be a quick way to favorite the currently playing artist, or it could be an entirely new feature.
If you want to learn more about all the features and updates coming to iOS 17, be sure to check out our post from yesterday. We also recap everything Apple announced during the WWDC 2023 keynote.