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iOS 26: Eight New Features in Apple Music

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Apr 12, 2001
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Apple has made several updates to the Apple Music app in iOS 26, and it has AutoMix, which has become one of the most popular additions. Apple Music also features the Liquid Glass redesign like the rest of Apple's apps, along with new translation features and other quality of life improvements.

iOS-26-Music-Glass-Feature.jpg

AutoMix

AutoMix is an upgrade to the crossfade feature in Apple Music, and it is designed to provide more seamless song transitions. It transitions from one song to another as the song that's playing ends, using time stretching and beat matching for an undetectable shift.

apple-music-automix-ios-26.jpg

Apple says that AutoMix is meant to work like a DJ, with songs transitioning at the "perfect moment" based on an on-device analysis of the key and tempo of the music.

AutoMix can be enabled when opening up the Apple Music app for the first time after installing iOS 26.

The feature isn't perfect and it works better with some genres than others, but it is a work in progress that Apple is improving over time. AutoMix is not an Apple Intelligence feature, but it does require an Apple Music subscription.

Lyric Translation

If you're listening to a song in a different language, you can now open up the lyrics and get a real-time translation so you know what it's about. The translated lyrics are displayed alongside the original lyrics.

ios-26-lyrics-translation.jpg

Lyric Pronunciation

For songs in another language, you can also get a phonetic pronunciation guide for singing them aloud, which is useful when taking advantage of the Apple Music Sing karaoke feature.

ios-26-music-app-lyrics-pronunciation.jpg

Pinned Favorites

There's now an option to pin up to six playlists, albums, artists, or songs to the top of the Apple Music library.

pin-apple-music-app-ios.jpg

Playlist Folders

Playlists can be organized into folders in the iOS Apple Music app, a feature that has previously been limited to the Mac.

music-playlist-folders.jpg

Home Screen Widgets

There are new Home Screen widgets that show your pinned Apple Music content. There's a medium-sized widget and a larger widget for pins, along with a new large Live Radio widget.

ios-26-live-radio.jpg

Animated Lock Screen Artwork

The Lock Screen now features full-screen animated art for the Now Playing widget while music is playing.

liquid-glass-music-lock-screen.jpg

Karaoke Microphone

tvOS 26 and iOS 26 turn the iPhone into a wireless microphone for karaoke on the Apple TV. When using Apple Music Sing, each participant can sing through their iPhone, queue songs up, and send emoji reactions.

apple-music-sing-tvos26.jpg

Read More

More on the features that are available in iOS 26 can be found in our iOS 26 roundup. iOS 26 will launch in September.

Article Link: iOS 26: Eight New Features in Apple Music
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/guide/ios-26-music/
MacRumors said:
The Lock Screen now features full-screen animated art for the Now Playing widget while music is playing.

liquid-glass-music-lock-screen.jpg
Click to expand...
It would be nice if Apple allowed users the ability to customize the location of these music playback controls (on the lock screen)

In previous versions of iOS, the controls were higher up on this lock screen, and Apple has since put the location at the bottom of the screen

I regularly use these playback controls to skip to the next song (or pause music) and would like the ability to customize the location of it so that I could have it higher up on the lock screen - it’s easier to access them that way (when you are using the phone with one hand on a walk)
 
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Justin Cymbal said:
I regularly use these playback controls to skip to the next song (or pause music) and would like the ability to customize the location of it so that I could have it higher up on the lock screen - it’s easier to access them that way (when you are using the phone with one hand on a walk)
Click to expand...
I run into a similar problem - walking around with the iPhone in my hand and wanting to control music or podcasts. On the iPhone 16 Pro, I've set the action button to a shortcut that toggles play/pause, but what I really want is an additional action added that would let the action button work like the button on headphone cables - press once to play/pause, double-tap for skip forward, triple-tap for skip backwards (ideally with long-press used for the button's original silent-mode toggle, since we don't need long-press for Siri, as there's a different button for that). Yes, I could reach up to the stem of one of my AirPods to do this, but I've already got the phone in one hand, and am often carrying something else in the other.

In the meantime, occasionally I end up holding down the side button and asking Siri "rewind 30 seconds" or similar. I mean, it's neat that she can do that, but sometimes buttons are better.
 
It would be nice if Apple gave us an option to hide the Recently Added in the Music App on the iPhone. We have that option in the Mac Music App why not iOS? Also I want to be able to set the Music App home screen to Artist. And please give us a way to add album artwork to the many missing when in Artist view. I have alot of artist that shows that stupid pic of a microphone.
 
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ppdix said:
Auto Mix is the best thing that has ever happened to Apple Music!
It works incredibly well. Much better than any old fashioned crossfade.
Click to expand...
It's great that it's well received. I'm not a subscriber so don't have access to it, so 12 second crossfade it is for me, and I'm really happy with that. Comparing automix to crossfade may be unfair given they're designed to do things differently 🤔
 
Boeingfan said:
It's great that it's well received. I'm not a subscriber so don't have access to it, so 12 second crossfade it is for me, and I'm really happy with that. Comparing automix to crossfade may be unfair given they're designed to do things differently 🤔
Click to expand...
I really don't understand the appeal of either. I tried crossfade, and it annoyed the crap out of me.
 
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Meanwhile I just migrated from an older OS to Sonoma and Apple "Music" just completely reset dozens of my playlists to default view of a just a few columns per playlist. Now I have to go in and add all the columns I need to reference for dozens of playlists and then resize each one. Bad form.
 
HVDynamo said:
I really don't understand the appeal of either. I tried crossfade, and it annoyed the crap out of me.
Click to expand...
HAHA Crossfade is nothing more than a transition from one track to the next without a break. It's a simple method to avoid gaps in music. When you're out gardening or cooking or planning to blow something up, it's always good to have endless music to sing along to 😄
 
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Apple Music needs to add a function (or button) to go back to my song in the playlist. I search for other songs while playing and I get lost, and I have to search inside playlist to locate where I am playing. That sucks.
 
AutoMix is much worse then crossfade.
Beatmatching doesn’t work for 95 % of the transitions, even if all tracks of the playlist are exactly the same speed (150 BPM) it‘s offbeat most of the time.
The basic buildup of the tracks is the same too, I don’t know how one could screw this up like that.

Back in the days, WinAMP and Media Player did a better job …
 
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ppdix said:
Auto Mix is the best thing that has ever happened to Apple Music!
It works incredibly well. Much better than any old fashioned crossfade.
Click to expand...
It worked great in the first few betas, but I find it really bad now and not much different to crossfade. Shame because it was one of my favourite new features.
 
ATmahe said:
AutoMix is much worse then crossfade.
Beatmatching doesn’t work for 95 % of the transitions, even if all tracks of the playlist are exactly the same speed (150 BPM) it‘s offbeat most of the time.
The basic buildup of the tracks is the same too, I don’t know how one could screw this up like that.

Back in the days, WinAMP and Media Player did a better job …
Click to expand...
It as great in B1/2, and since then it's got worse.
 
Like the crossfade feature very much. Will definitely try out AutoMix one I update. Lyric translation can also be useful.
 
One feature removed: rearranging songs from Playing Next and Cue.
If you now have a great playlist but want to add another song to cue, but after one or two songs, you can’t.

If you ever used that feature, feel free to report it missing to Apple.
My feedback isn’t enough apparently.
If you wanna argue about why it matters, do so.
 
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