iOS 18.4: Access Hidden Ambient Music Playlists

[skot-drud]

Anyone else seeing different playlist than MacRumors' screenshots?
I was looking forward to try the "Binaural Frequencies" in Productivity but I don't see it at all..

This is the lists for me on a 16 Pro Max without Apple Music subscription in the US:
- Sleep: Ambient Bedtime, Restful Notes, Lo-Fi Snooze, Dream Journey
- Chill: Laidback Lo-Fi, Ambient Unwind, Easy Electronic, Mellow Piano
- Productivity: Momentum Beats, Ambient Focus, Lo-Fi Study, Piano Flow
- Wellbeing: Calm Piano, Ambient Meditation, Rhythm & Breath, Serenity Sounds

Edit: My partner's 15 Plus has the exact same playlist as what's in the article. So perhaps it's with/without Apple Music subscription issue?

 

[svish]

Good to see this Will try it out after I update my phone. Happy to see that it does not require any kind of subscription.

 

[frou]

I wonder if the artists get compensated for plays, or what.

 

[nt5672]

Why is it hidden at all?

Why not in an App of its own?

Because Apple cannot charge a subscription for it yet. Wait till next year.

 

[dubiousgif]

Can confirm: when I open Apple Music none of my recently played tracks are what was just streamed via these control center ambient music micro services.

Odd. They show up in my History.

Edit: Didn’t realize Recently Played is a different section from History. They’re not showing there for me either.

Edit 2: Setting a Stop Playing timer doesn’t work for this. So if you don’t have your phone charging overnight, beware.

 

[MacFarmer]

Apple music ios app us utter garbage! It is such a poor UI design, and if you are like me who has hundreds of personal music albums, I feel like I'm some kind of second class citizen. heck even third class. Everything here is done only for streaming music. People who previously bought itunes music are now left in the dust. Oh, and I have used apple streaming music subscription, tried it for half a year. It is also pain to use, hard to make playlists, wants to add me another subscription and all this crap. And don't get me started on music app on macos, and ibooks. I don't support the constant suing in US, but man, they should be sued for such poor software and constant removal of features.

 

[LDec]

In Apple's iOS 18.4 software update, there's a new Ambient Music feature available in the Control Center options on iPhone. It's free to use, and does not require an Apple Music subscription. It's also more customizable than most users probably realize. Keep reading to learn how.

There are four different sound categories to Ambient Music, including Sleep, Chill, Productivity, and Wellbeing. You can add each category individually to your Control Center, and then tap on one to start a playlist of songs in the chosen category.

Add Ambient Music Buttons to Control Center

1. Open Control Center by swiping down from the top-right corner of your screen.
   
2. Tap the + button in the top-left corner, or long press on a blank space.
   
3. Tap Add a Control at the bottom of the screen.
   
4. Scroll down to the new "Ambient Music" controls section and choose from Sleep, Chill, Productivity, and Wellbeing.
5. Tap any blank space to exit out of edit mode.

When you turn on one of the Ambient Music options in Control Center, playback controls will appear on the screen. You can also tap or long press the Dynamic Island on newer iPhones to access playback controls or bring up a fullscreen music player with album art.

Changing Ambient Music Category Playlists

It's not obvious, but you can actually choose different playlists for each Ambient Music category. In fact, this option is so hidden in the interface that some might even call it an "easter egg" – or perhaps a non-intuitive UI design choice. Apple describes the playlists as follows:

• Sleep: Sleep Sounds, Bedtime Beats, Sound Bath, and Piano Sleep.
• Chill: Piano Chill, Ambient Chill, Lo-Fi Jazz, and Pure Chill.
• Productivity: BEATstrumentals, Binaural Frequencies, Pure Focus, and Classical Concentration.
• Wellbeing: Pure Meditation, Spa, Beats & Breath, and Pure Calm.

Here's what you need to do to choose a different playlist – or even one of your own:

1. Open Control Center, then tap the + icon in the top-left corner of the screen.
   
2. Tap one of the Ambient Music buttons that you added to your Control Center (try to avoid tapping the minus symbol or the button will disappear).
   
3. Tap the playlist name in blue next to "Playlist," then select one of the playlists from the dropdown. If you select From Library, tap Choose to pick a playlist from your Music library.
   
4. Tap any blank space, then tap again to exit out of edit mode.

So now you know how to switch up the playlists when listening to Ambient Music, whether that's for restful sleep, relaxation, focusing on tasks, or for meditation and self-care.

Article Link: iOS 18.4: Access Hidden Ambient Music Playlists

It stopped working after update to newest beta. Pushing any button with that feature doesn’t play anything.

 

[kopesetic]

Is there a way to play these playlists on MacOS without subscribing to Apple Music. Seems to work fine on my phone, but not on my Mac book.
I tried looking at my history in the music app but no luck there.

 

[timeislove]

Is it just me or is anyone else also trying to add a "control" by clicking on the empty circle space instead of the tiny "+ Add a control" on the bottom? This is so not intuitive - arrrrgh.
Also, wow, this playlist feature could not be more hidden and secretive. I miss 3D Touch - would have been THE perfect use case.

It is so hidden.

If the control had been added, why type + and tap again the control button to pop up the playlists?

Instead, shouldn’t long pressing be a more intuitive way to pop up playlists of the music category?

 

[Cormac]

It stopped working after update to newest beta. Pushing any button with that feature doesn’t play anything.

It started working for me again on Apr 13th!

 

[timeislove]

It started working for me again on Apr 13th!

Music for wellbeing did not work for me sometime.

The tricks to pop up ambient music playlists look to me a bug than Easter eggs.

Could not imagine the UI designers are so stupid to come up with such non intuitive design.

 

[ignatius345]

This feature, the Classical Music app that I love, and the Journal app… all things that I would love to use from my laptops if Apple would release the apps across the board.

Add to that the entire Health app. I've got a large and growing collection of all my health data and medical records -- but can only view and interact with it on the smallest screens I own (iPhone and to some extent Apple Watch). The is very much the reason I haven't touched the iPhone-only Journal app.

Now that Apple Silicon is used across the board, I just fail to understand why Apple has silo'ed so much stuff on the iPhone only. A cynical part of me thinks it's a market-driven decision to make it that much harder to switch from iPhone. If I switched to an Android phone tomorrow I'd lose access to all of my data from Health.

 

[timeislove]

The mobile phone is the most convenient device one would carry everywhere, hence the entry point Apple build up the users ‘ dependency on them.

Trust porting to the apps from iOS to iPadOS is a piece of cake for Apple.

 

[x86dude]

Recommended.

3 music radio. Poetry of the Unspeakable.

Calm instrumental compositions for relaxation and meditation.Gentle flute, warm guitar, quiet piano surrounded by the sounds of nature and panoramic electronic.

3musicradio.com

 

[un_homme]

Mac? Apple TV? Apple Watch? iPad? Can you access this on any other device?

Yes on iPad.

 

[un_homme]

MacRumors: is the audio lossless or lossy? Nerd details matter.

These are real recordings found in the Apple Music catalog. So quality varies. Some are “Hi-Res”, some are not. (My DAC shows colors for when a song is better that Compact Disc (CD) quality.) Presumably some of the non-Hi-Res may be lossy. But all the songs sound lovely in my several hours of “Piano Chill”.