5 New Apple Music Features Coming This Year

[tweaknmod]

staying with Apple Music as I go WAYYYYY back from iTunes, and I guess that is what makes my music suggestions so perfect. FWIW I also use Spotify, but mostly for podcasts and sharing music with my youngest who prefers Spotify.

I'm the same, in that I had been with iTunes since as far back as I can remember... maybe just after Winamp?

There are apps to migrate your library from one to the other, by the way, in case you'd like to give it a try to see what it would recommend when it knows everything you like (as opposed to just the few bands you click on at sign-up).

I'm not getting paid by Spotify though, I promise, lol... If you're happy with what you're using, then enjoy!

 

[Badham]

Decouple Apple Music from the OS already! It’s stupid that they only add features with each OS release.

 

[genovelle]

I think iTunes was better at staying at the front of the pack with new features because they were at the front of the pack. Spotify had a significant head start with streaming and some features will be protected by patents or copyrights for a period. Coming up with a feature that does the same but doesn’t infringe can be tricky. Especially when you own the device platform as well. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t

 

[chouseworth]

“The Apple Music app user interface is receiving some nice quality of life improvements….“

I read the article, and I use Apple Music a lot, but honestly I am still trying to understand how this will improve the quality of my life.

 

[cozxta]

Automatic and manual crossfade has been available on Android app for ages now and it works wonderfully, better than Spotify implementation actually.
Cause of that I always thought Apple Music for Android was more feature rich than on iOS, which is ironic.

 

[Fat_Guy]

After CDs, iTunes was the only real money maker. Now iTunes and Apple Music revenue are mixed and no longer separate. The direction here is clearly to wind down iTunes and legal ownership of music or a license to own it.


Check out what is happening in movies as it is now cheaper to take away under performing movies from streaming than keep it for streaming and pay residuals or whatever. If you don’t buy DVDs or Blurays you can no longer watch that content. The gist of this is that streaming is still new and you may end up with less than what you had before.



One example is the Apple lead policy of not allowing artists who change their stage name to change it on their own music that had the earlier name. You now get peanuts from Apple and don’t even have the same rights to the music that is legally yours! Take if off streaming platforms and where do you go now? Does anyone look back decades ago at the artists who were taken advantage of back then and think things are better now?



Anyway the rant is over…

 

[russell_314]

Didn’t cross fade used to be a feature or am I just getting old. Lol

Maybe back from the iPod/ iTunes days but I'm not sure. I know it's a feature on Apple Music for android.

 

[MrRom92]

How about letting your customers add their own locally stored FLAC files to their own music library?

 

[CarAnalogy]

I'd like them to have the Listen Now tab to have some music that I'd like to listen to.

“Listen Now” and “Watch Now” have become Apple proper nouns for advertising. Neither are about continuing to listen/watch what you want. It’s about what Apple wants to promote. Especially Watch Now. Try this. Open the TV app to the TV+ tab (it may default to this tab even if you were just using it on another.) Now switch to the Watch Now tab. The exact same giant ad is at the top of both.

 

[cozxta]

How about letting your customers add their own locally stored FLAC files to their own music library?

Probably not gonna happen, Apple Music uses ALAC for its Hi-Fi music.

 

[CarAnalogy]

How about letting your customers add their own locally stored FLAC files to their own music library?

Apple seems to want people to forget that one can actually own music and video files.

 

[CarAnalogy]

Probably not gonna happen, Apple Music uses ALAC for its Hi-Fi music.

Yeah but if Apple Music is going to be the default media player for all media (like it is on the Mac) it should support more than just Apple Music files.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Didn’t cross fade used to be a feature or am I just getting old. Lol

Yes.

A modern game of rolling out an all-new bit of software to replace the old often strips many features away... and then slowly adds them back again... celebrating the additions as if they are new innovations (again).

I recall a version of OS-X where widgets was the signature visual change gimmick in that version. Then they faded away and out over a few generations. Perhaps someday, Apple will re-introduce widgets again as if they are new and amazing.

 

[CarAnalogy]

I have wanted crossfade play for so long I never thought it would happen, so I won't nitpick too much.
The next feature I want, that was there in the beginning, is landscape mode.

Software development has come full circle. We don’t want new features anymore. We just want the features that have been taken away from us by inferior redesign after inferior redesign.

 

[CarAnalogy]

Yes.

A modern game of rolling out an all-new bit of software to replace the old often strips many features away... and then slowly adds them back again... celebrating the additions as if they are new innovations (again).

I recall a version of OS-X where widgets was the signature visual change gimmick in that version. Then they faded away and out over a few generations. Perhaps someday, Apple will re-introduce widgets again as if they are new and amazing.

Oh they will. Widgets are like bell bottoms.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

“The Apple Music app user interface is receiving some nice quality of life improvements….“

I read the article, and I use Apple Music a lot, but honestly I am still trying to understand how this will improve the quality of my life.

Carrying around too much money in a pocket can stress certain lower vertebrae. Apple continues to innovate ways to extract more of that burden from us so we can walk in an optimally-aligned way. Geniu$. 💰💰

 

[zoomp]

They should just take a hint from Roon. Best use of metadata, best way to find new music.

 

[Expos of 1969]

Sadly for me I have no use for or interest in any of these 5 "notable" new features. I am pleased for those users who will enjoy them.

 

[arkitect]

I left Apple Music for Spotify a few years ago for one simple reason: music discovery on Spotify is vastly superior, in my experience.

I try Apple Music periodically, to see if it’s improved, but it remains one of the few areas where I’ve been happier to stay outside of the Apple garden.

I’ll try it again when iOS 17 launches, but if music discovery still hasn’t improved, I won’t be returning.

I’m glad others are excited about the new features though.

Same here — Spotify as my daily music player/provider… for exactly the same reason as you: I find the ease of discovery of music I might be interested in far superior.


I do use the MacOS Music app as I have a **** ton of legacy music on there that I collected over many decades, but not as a gateway into Apple Music service.

Every few months or so I subscribe to Apple Music to see if it has gotten any better. I usually unsubscribe within a few days.

When Apple Classical Music launched I was full of hope and resubscribed. As an experience it certainly is an improvement over the usual Apple Music "Urban" heavy offerings relentlessly pushed at me.

But I waited in vain for a MacOS app… so, yesterday after a couple months I unsubscribed again.

Oh well…

“The Apple Music app user interface is receiving some nice quality of life improvements….“

I read the article, and I use Apple Music a lot, but honestly I am still trying to understand how this will improve the quality of my life.

Indeed… I had the same thought when I read that. 🙂

 

[Apple Fan 2008]

The camera feature on Apple TV is the coolest update for tvOS

 

[spillled typos]

iTunes is what originally got me into the Apple ecosystem but it / "Music" has been complete trash for over 10 years now and it gets progressively worse every year.

 

[mjschabow]

How about adding curated playlists (that don’t suck)?

This. Spotify still does such a better job of this.

 

[dotnet]

Perhaps one of the most requested features coming to Apple Music this year, Collaborative Playlists will give subscribers the ability to invite friends to add and edit songs in a shared playlist. Rival streaming services like Spotify have had similar features for a while now, so it's good to see that Apple has finally read the room.

Huh? This has been a feature of iTunes since before streaming was a glint in the milkman’s eye.

 

[k1121j]

Yes.

A modern game of rolling out an all-new bit of software to replace the old often strips many features away... and then slowly adds them back again... celebrating the additions as if they are new innovations (again).

I recall a version of OS-X where widgets was the signature visual change gimmick in that version. Then they faded away and out over a few generations. Perhaps someday, Apple will re-introduce widgets again as if they are new and amazing.

Reminds me of when the phone gets thicker and the next year it gets thinner, think i have seen that at least two times already.

 

[bscheffel]

I have long given up on the Music app for iOS and iPadOS achieving parity with the Mac Music app. You are still locked into using the desktop app to add your own music to iTunes Music Library and you can't edit metadata or create smart playlist except on Mac Music app. It's a shame that an iPad which can cost more than a Mac still can't do basic Music management. For a company that proclaimed "Music is in our DNA" they abandoned those who own their own music libraries as soon as the Apple Music subscription model came along.