iOS 17 gives Apple Music a feature the Android app already has

Prior to the launch of iOS 17, pre-WWDC speculation spoke of a modest update with some key improvements to the Apple Music app.

Well, iOS 17 proved to be a little more exciting than envisioned, and Apple Music barely got any play during the keynote address.

However, thanks to the launch of the iOS 17 developer beta released shortly after the keynote gives us a better idea of the Apple Music revamp. First up, the app reintroduces a feature that had been removed from the iOS app, but lived on within the Android version of the app.

As noted by MacRumors, the new Apple Music app will include a Crossfade feature to “smoothly transition between tracks so the music never stops.”

Beyond this, Apple has also mentioned that collaborative playlists are heading to the app, with a Game Night playlist one example. Elsewhere, Apple Music SharePlay is getting a big boost too, enabling all passengers in the car to have a say in controlling the music through CarPlay.

As explained during WWDC, if Apple Music is running on a phone through the CarPlay interface, then other passengers will be able to join the session through a push notification.

It’s not quite clear how this will work, but it may be due to the passengers being contacts in each other’s phonebook or to with all of those phones travelling in close proximity to each other at exactly the same velocity. Either way it’ll be a more democratic means of choosing the tunes on the road trip.

Elsewhere there are somer user interface changes that include a full-screen animated artwork, akin to what we see from Spotify. The animations also fade neatly into the playback controls.