Apple Music on iOS 16 Introduces Playlist Sorting and Ability to Add Favorite Artists

[MacRumors]

Although Apple didn't focus on Apple Music during its WWDC keynote yesterday, there are a few changes coming to the app in iOS 16.

Lock Screen Player

The changes to Apple Music start on the new iOS 16 Lock Screen, where the Apple Music Now Playing widget is now located at the bottom of the display. This falls in line with iOS 16's new focus on de-cluttering the Lock Screen and pushing all notifications to the bottom portion of the screen, where you can choose to hide them throughout the day if you get too many.

For Apple Music, the Lock Screen player has all of the expected controls for playback and connecting AirPods or other headphones. You can also expand the controls to a full screen view, which will enlarge the album artwork of the currently playing song and become your new iPhone Lock Screen image.

This is part of iOS 16's new "Live Activities" feature, which aims to help people stay on top of things happening in real time through various app widgets placed directly on the Lock Screen. This includes tracking live updates from sports games, workouts, ride share apps, food delivery orders, and more.

Favorite Artists

You can now add artists to your "Favorite Artists" list by navigating to their artist profile on Apple Music and tapping a new star button at the top of the page. After doing this, Apple says that you'll get better recommendations and notifications about new releases from that artist.

Apple Music originally had a similar feature where you could follow artists, and you'd receive updates about their music and sometimes updates about upcoming releases. The new Favorite Artists feature seems more streamlined and focused on improving push notifications and recommendations surrounding your favorite artists.

Playlist Sorting

Apple Music in iOS 16 lets you sort playlists by a few different orders: regular Playlist Order, Title, Artist, Album, or Release Date. Furthermore, you can choose ascending or descending order for each of these categories.

This is a notable addition given that Apple Music doesn't have any automatic sorting options. Any time you add a new song into a playlist, it's dropped to the bottom of the list, with the oldest songs remaining at the top. If you want to sort it, you have to manually drag it to where you want it to go.

With the new feature, you can choose to reverse the traditional Playlist Order so that new songs appear at the top. These sorting features are found in the ellipsis menu in the top right corner of the playlist screen on iOS 16.

UI Changes

Lastly are a few very slight UI changes that can be found within the full screen player in the Apple Music app. Apple has subtly updated the UI to feature slightly thicker playback and volume bars, among other small tweaks.

Apple Music on iOS 16 (left) vs on iOS 15.5 (right)​

We've been recapping all of the latest news from WWDC, including iOS 16 tidbits and improvements coming to tvOS 16. For a full recap, check out our video that breaks down everything Apple announced during its WWDC 2022 keynote in 13 minutes.

Article Link: Apple Music on iOS 16 Introduces Playlist Sorting and Ability to Add Favorite Artists

 

[nortonandreev]

The bare minimum… The Music team has been lazy.

 

[HacKage]

Favourite artists for recommendations is welcomed, but the ability to block certain artists from being included in playlists would massively appreciated!

This feature works very well with Spotify, and is one of the main things keeping me there. Even if an artist I don't want to hear from appears on Discover Weekly or similar, it just skips that song without me knowing. The only sign that the artist was on a playlist is the greyed out song in the list.

 

[antiprotest]

A bit frustrating that some basic functionalities are just being added now.

 

[MLL63QNA]

Without followed artists tab this feature is pointless.

 

[211]

Still too much space wasted to have to hide other options like Shuffle, Repeat, Like/Dislike.

 

[Galley]

99% of my playlists are collections of albums. I only wish these playlists could be grouped by album, as they can on the desktop app.

 

[windywalks]

Well, it's about time!
I was baffled as to why this wasn't there in the first place.

 

[Attirex]

But yet....still no shuffling of your music library on iOS by album (which iTunes on Mac has had since 1882). Guess need to wait for a more powerful neural engine/chip for that. OK, well, will keep waiting for tech to catch up!

 

[upgradeordie]

Don't get too excited. They'll change it back after a few years when analytics decide not enough people are using it.

 

[djlythium]

But can we use an EQ with CarPlay? 🤔

 

[jav6454]

A bit frustrating that some basic functionalities are just being added now.

Functionalities that existed back in the original iPhone and have slowly been taken away are not popping out now. Next up? Cover Flow 2.0

 

[unlimitedx0]

Bring back the old ITunes pre-Catalina

 

[Wilson1313]

Whole Music UI is a mess. No back button, convoluted menus, unreliable saving, too many clicks... need an entire rethink.

 

[AppleUser2]

EQ and overall speed improvements still needed then?

 

[maticore78]

Music live activities isn't working for me. Anyone else having the issue too?

 

[jonnyb098]

The fact we have to wait for massive releases for basic stuff to be added is pathetic. Also Im pretty sure the missing volume and track scrubbers is a bug, not a feature.

https://images.macrumors.com/article-new/2022/06/apple-music-player-ios-16.jpg

 

[sjsharksfan12]

My annual subscription to Apple Music ends at the end of July. I'm still not sure they did enough to convince me to renew, but at least there was something. I would have really liked folders for curated playlists and the like button on the main player itself, and enhancing the radio section and pinned playlists at the top, and being able to save radio shows/playlists for later. It didn't need to be new, just better navigation. Doesn't look like Apple did that, again. You keep writing in feedback and it goes ignored again and again. Kinda hard to keep renewing a service that Apple doesn't seem to take seriously.

 

[VolceOntra]

How do you even get the full size music player on the Lock Screen?

 

[RemedyRabbit]

This is a start but they need to do so much more. Such as being able to follow record labels as well as artists, and being able to view a list of complete albums only (without every individual track from a playlist appearing as an album).

A general overhaul of the browse area to make it easier to explore and discover would be great, rather than pushing you toward the curated playlists all the time.

 

[ToxicBlue]

Is there a way to be able to create an ordered queue inside my favorite songs without having to create a new playlist?, you know, play this, then play this etc. I still haven been able to understand how the "play last" works if I have a 300 favorite songs list and I want to listen just the songs I choose.

 

[mcfly88]

I just want to be able to edit song metadata... been waiting for this feature since iOS 5 😑

 

[maticore78]

How do you even get the full size music player on the Lock Screen?

I haven't been able to figure it out either so maybe it's not enabled yet?

 

[syklee26]

So what happened to Classic?

 

[TVGenius]

Does this same lock screen player work for Spotify et al. seeing as how it's basically just a relocation of the existing functionality to the bottom of the screen?