How to Make an Apple Music Profile to Connect With Friends in iOS 11

[MacRumors]

Although Apple has fumbled with social network features within its music apps in the past, the company is trying again with an all-new social sharing ability in iOS 11. There's no exact name for the feature, but Apple describes it as a way for you to discover music that your friends are listening to through sharing playlists, artists, and albums on your own personal Apple Music profile.

If you already have an Apple Music account with a paid subscription, or if you're taking advantage of the service's free three-month trial period, follow these steps to enable the social sharing features within Apple's streaming music service. Note that this guide is specifically tailored for iOS devices, but the process is similar on macOS.

Creating a Profile on Apple Music

1. Open Apple Music. (Note: opening Apple Music for the first time after installing iOS 11 should also give you a direct link to "Get Started" with friend sharing, so jump to Step 5 if you tap this button.)
2. Tap the "For You" tab.
3. Tap your profile picture in the top right corner.
4. Choose "Start Sharing with Friends" and then "Get Started."
5. Upload a profile photo, type in your name, and pick a username so other Apple Music users can find you. Tap "Next" when done.
6. Choose "Everyone" or "People You Choose" to determine who can see your listening history.
7. Choose the playlists to share on your profile, or "Hide all" to show none.
8. Pick contacts to share music with.
9. Toggle on/off "Friends" and "Artists and Shows" to choose what kind of push notifications you want. Tap "Done."

If you can't find the friend you're looking for in the recommended contacts section, navigate to Apple Music's "Search" tab. With iOS 11, this area now functions as a profile and user playlist search tool as well. Start typing in their name and you might see an "in people" recommendation, or simply tap the "Search" button and you'll see results for Songs, Albums, Playlists, Music Videos, Connect, Artists, and now People and Shared Playlists at the bottom.

With your own Apple Music profile set up, you can begin listening to music as normal, and the more you do the more your favorite albums, artists, and songs will show up in the "Friends Are Listening To" section of your followers' "For You" tabs. On your own "For You" tab, you can tap "See All" and browse a list of recent albums and playlists listened to by your friends, and then tap to add them to your own library.

If your friends allow it, this will even include their own personally created playlists. To discover and save the playlists of a specific person, follow these steps. Note that this guide assumes the friend in question has their activity shared to "Everyone," or that they have chosen you to share with.

Finding Friends' Shared Playlists on Apple Music

1. Navigate to your Apple Music profile.
2. Scroll down to "Following," then tap the friend you're looking for, or tap "See All" for a vertical list.
3. Scroll through their "Playlists" and "Listening To" to find a collection you want to save.
4. Tap the collection you want, then "+Add" to place it in your library.

From then on, you'll find friends' playlists taking precedence atop the playlists section of your library, alongside any Apple curated collections. The name of the playlist will be there, along with the name of your friend. Once added, it'll function in much the same way as Apple's own playlists, updating in your library when changes are made by your friend.

You can revisit your profile any time by tapping your profile picture in the top right of "For You," and here you'll see your shared playlists, content you've listened to recently, followers, and following. Tap the "Edit" button to customize items like your profile picture, name, username, follower permissions, and reorganize shared playlists.

If you ever change your mind about sharing a playlist (which also makes it searchable to anyone using Apple Music), tap on the playlist in your library, tap "Edit" in the top right corner, then toggle off "Show on My Profile and in Search." You can follow these same steps for adding a new playlist onto your profile whenever you create a new collection of songs.

Article Link: How to Make an Apple Music Profile to Connect With Friends in iOS 11

 

[brianvictor7]

My iCloud music switched off spontaneously after iOS 11 and won’t turn back on. Seems to have been a known issue when in beta. Anyone else seeing this?

 

[Cronowerx]

So how do I follow Eddie Cue or Phil?

 

[M.PaulCezanne]

Ping!

 

[dugbug]

This looks pretty cool

 

[macduke]

Ping!

RIP

 

[Corrode]

For some reason I have these options in iTunes but they’re not showing on iOS 11.

 

[ipedro]

Of the few attempts Apple made into social media, they seem to have learned. There’s no use trying to build an Apple branded social media platform to compete with the too entrenched dominance of Facebook. Instead, individual apps can have social features.

iMessage is their most social app and it’s implementing more and more of what we find on platforms like Snapchat. Photos has album sharing and friends can even like photos. Now, Apple Music has a social feature I think many people can get behind. I’d love to know what my friends are listening to. Odds are that because we’re friends, we have similar tastes and that’ll help me discover music I wouldn’t have otherwise found on my own.

Eventually, Apple can build an app that brings all of this together into a sort of feed where you’d be able to see what shared albums you’re a part of, what your friends are listening to, and articles they’ve favorited in Safari.

This is social media, done right.

 

[Brien]

I guess this is good for those who like it? Too old to understand the “share everything” mentality I guess.

 

[OtherJesus]

I don't think this is an attempt at building a social network. Just a great way to share music with friends. I think if Apple Music was a thing when Ping came out it would have made much more sense.

 

[riverfreak]

I guess this is good for those who like it? Too old to understand the “share everything” mentality I guess.

It’s a great way to discover music. People can, say, make a public playlist of all songs heard on a radio program or TV show and make it available to everyone. You don’t have to be annointed hipster DJ.

 

[ozreth]

Oh boy. This is the one feature that could pull me over from Spotify. Honestly can't believe Spotify hasn't implemented such a thing yet.

 

[itsmilo]

For some reason I have these options in iTunes but they’re not showing on iOS 11.

I dont have this button on my iPhone either. Only choose artists

Oh boy. This is the one feature that could pull me over from Spotify. Honestly can't believe Spotify hasn't implemented such a thing yet.

I hope that is sarcasm

 

[JGIGS]

Oh boy. This is the one feature that could pull me over from Spotify. Honestly can't believe Spotify hasn't implemented such a thing yet.

I hope that is sarcasm[/QUOTE]

As do I.

 

[radgar]

My iCloud music switched off spontaneously after iOS 11 and won’t turn back on. Seems to have been a known issue when in beta. Anyone else seeing this?

Yes. Saw this in beta. Signed out of iCloud/iTunes. Signed back in again. Waited a while. Stuff came back.

 

[earthTOmitchel]

So how do I follow Eddie Cue or Phil?

Go to the "Search" tab and type in their names! They should show up with an "...in people" suggestion. Works the same for any friend you might be looking for, or any playlist someone has created.
[doublepost=1505992390][/doublepost]

I dont have this button on my iPhone either. Only choose artists

You guys might be facing the same problem I was. Did you previously turn off the Connect features of Apple Music on earlier versions of iOS? I did, and because of that the new social profiles were hidden. Try checking: go to Settings app > General > Restrictions > make sure "Music Profiles and Posts" are toggled on.

Also worth noting is that Apple doesn't allow the music profiles on child iCloud accounts (13 years or younger).

 

[brianvictor7]

Yes. Saw this in beta. Signed out of iCloud/iTunes. Signed back in again. Waited a while. Stuff came back.

Thanks! I tried signing out on Phone briefly, but no fix. Did you have to sign out of both the Mac and iPhone?

 

[whyamihere]

You guys might be facing the same problem I was. Did you previously turn off the Connect features of Apple Music on earlier versions of iOS? I did, and because of that the new social profiles were hidden. Try checking: go to Settings app > General > Restrictions > make sure "Music Profiles and Posts" are toggled on.

This was my issue exactly. I had previously signed out/in, and went to "Music" in settings. Had never thought to look in Restrictions. Thank you!

 

[earthTOmitchel]

This was my issue exactly. I had previously signed out/in, and went to "Music" in settings. Had never thought to look in Restrictions. Thank you!

No problem I've been scratching my head over its disappearance from the beta on my iPhone 6s Plus since July. Now that I'm seeing it I love it, it's a really cool little space to discover new music. If Apple adds stuff like directly sending a song/album recommendation to a friend, or could even do something like last.fm's specific track counts, I'd love that.

 

[whyamihere]

No problem I've been scratching my head over its disappearance from the beta on my iPhone 6s Plus since July. Now that I'm seeing it I love it, it's a really cool little space to discover new music.

Another interesting thing to note is before I found your fix, I had my girlfriend send me a request via iMessage to share/follow her. I thought clicking that invite would kickstart it for me. But all it did was open the Music app and give a blank error page, with no explanation the what caused the error or how to resolve it. Hopefully Apple makes that error page more helpful in a future update for others. I'm sure they are under the delusion that everyone loved Connect and anyone who would like to share with friends must have of course wanted to follow the handful of artists actually sharing content! Alas, no. Connect was useless and I had no problem turning it off. Never thought that would imply I don't want to share music with friends.

 

[earthTOmitchel]

Another interesting thing to note is before I found your fix, I had my girlfriend send me a request via iMessage to share/follow her. I thought clicking that invite would kickstart it for me. But all it did was open the Music app and give a blank error page, with no explanation the what caused the error or how to resolve it. Hopefully Apple makes that error page more helpful in a future update for others. I'm sure they are under the delusion that everyone loved Connect and anyone who would like to share with friends must have of course wanted to follow the handful of artists actually sharing content! Alas, no. Connect was useless and I had no problem turning it off. Never thought that would imply I don't want to share music with friends.

Yeah.. I kicked around the idea for a PSA blog post but it still appears like a small amount of people are facing the problem. I just know how frustrated it made me so trying to share as many place as I can online.

It makes little sense on Apple's part. Connect =/= music profiles, like you said. I want to see recc's from my friends; I don't want to see 3-month-old posts from Little Mix about a now-outdated single drop.

 

[ozreth]

I hope that is sarcasm

Nope, I share music with my friends all the time but right now we have to do it though sending youtube playlists to each other or telling each other to look stuff up. Just being able to send songs, albums, playlists etc within the same app with the click of a button? That's great.

 

[Corrode]

You guys might be facing the same problem I was. Did you previously turn off the Connect features of Apple Music on earlier versions of iOS? I did, and because of that the new social profiles were hidden. Try checking: go to Settings app > General > Restrictions > make sure "Music Profiles and Posts" are toggled on.

Also worth noting is that Apple doesn't allow the music profiles on child iCloud accounts (13 years or younger).

Oh my gosh thank you. This was exactly my issue. Wish I would’ve checked your reply a few days ago.

 

[randy98mtu]

I don't see a way to search for people. On my iPad, I go to the bottom of my profile screen and it says "Find More Friends" I tap on that and I get suggestions "From my Contacts" list, and logins for Facebook and Instagram. I log in to those and no new suggestions appear. I can't search for Tim Cook or anyone. Is search functionality limited to iTunes on a computer? If so that's really stupid. I love discovering and sharing in music, but in my opinion, nobody has figured out how to tie it all together yet. Last.fm, Spotify, Genius, Apple Music... I wish all these things could be brought together into a music specific "social media"

 

[0970373]

I don't see a way to search for people. On my iPad, I go to the bottom of my profile screen and it says "Find More Friends" I tap on that and I get suggestions "From my Contacts" list, and logins for Facebook and Instagram. I log in to those and no new suggestions appear. I can't search for Tim Cook or anyone. Is search functionality limited to iTunes on a computer? If so that's really stupid. I love discovering and sharing in music, but in my opinion, nobody has figured out how to tie it all together yet. Last.fm, Spotify, Genius, Apple Music... I wish all these things could be brought together into a music specific "social media"

You search in the same place you search for everything else. Just scroll down past Songs, Albums, Playlists....until you get to People. (Tim doesn't seem to have a public profile but Eddy Cue does.)

It's new and Apple hasn't done a good job of promoting this so most people probably haven't even created a profile to follow yet, much less have connected it via FB or Insta. But give it time. They just rolled it out.