All the New Apple Music Features Coming to iOS 18
There's been a lot of talk about all the new iOS 18 features in Messages, Notes, and the Phone app, but not enough has been said about Apple Music. The service is getting some really cool new features, and from my time using some of them in the developer beta, I'm quite excited about them. Now that the public beta is out, you can easily try these features too, but before you do so, make sure that you have a full backup and that you're installing the beta on a secondary iPhone if you can.
Here are the best new iOS 18 features coming to Apple Music.
You can read full song names
Long song names, very common with Western Classical music, were nearly impossible to read in the Music app up until iOS 17. On the upcoming iOS 18 version of Apple Music, the iPhone app displays full song names and makes it much easier to tell which song you're looking at. Making playlists is so much easier now, because I actually know which song I'm selecting. You can see the change whenever you open any music album in Apple Music on iOS 18.
Queueing is much better
Apple Music is making it much easier to queue songs. Previously, you could select multiple songs using two fingers and drop them in your queue, but otherwise you just had the "Play Next," and "Play Last" options. In iOS 18, Apple Music shows an "Add to Queue" button when you tap the three-dots button next to any song. You'll also find an "Add Songs to Queue" button on the Now Playing screen. This makes it much easier to queue up a few songs. The best thing is that once you hit "Add Songs to Queue," you'll see a popover that lets you search your entire library. Here, you can play songs to preview them before you add them to your queue. This reduces the chances of accidentally messing up your queue.
Better controls for playback
Apple Music has never placed much attention on shuffle, repeat, and the recently added "infinity" button, which lets the algorithm pick songs for you. After a few UI changes, iOS 18's Apple Music may have found a good solution. These buttons are still on the Now Playing screen, but they're larger and much easier to tap.
Music Haptics for the hard of hearing
I love it when companies add accessibility features to their products. Apple has a great track record with accessibility features, and Music Haptics is another good example of that. It syncs your iPhone's Taptic Engine, responsible for haptic feedback, with Apple Music songs so that people who are deaf or hard of hearing can enjoy the music, too.
SharePlay for everyone
When you're listening on Apple Music, iOS 18's SharePlay will allow multiple users to control playback and add songs to the queue. This could be a lot of fun when you have friends over and want to listen together. This feature doesn't require collaborators to have an Apple Music subscription, which widens its appeal.
The inclusion of Music Haptics in iOS 18's Apple Music is a testament to Apple's dedication to accessibility, allowing individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing to experience music with the iPhone's Taptic Engine.
With the release of iOS 18, SharePlay in Apple Music is no longer exclusive to subscribers, making it an enjoyable and collaborative listening experience for non-subscribers as well.
