iOS 16: three essential Apple Music upgrades
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The official arrival of iOS 16 has made a handful of audio upgrades available to iPhone users, the most important being personalized spatial audio, a feature that taps the iPhone’s TrueDepth camera to create a profile tailored to the ears of the listener when using AirPods Pro (1st or 2nd generation), AirPods Max, AirPods 3, or Beats Fit Pro headphones. Apple Music subscribers should be well versed in the benefits of Spatial Audio by now, but other Apple Music-specific features are coming with iOS 16 that make the service easier and more enjoyable to use.
Full screen music player
When playing songs in Apple Music, the widget on the app’s lock screen now shows which Apple devices (e.g. AirPods Pro, AirPods Max) are connected via Bluetooth. But that’s just a minor change. You can now press the widget and it will expand, giving you a full screen view of the album art, along with controls such as a button to jump to the Play Next screen and the “3 dots” that bring up options to add. add to Library or playlist, view album, create station and love (or dislike) songs.
This change is certainly not huge, but it does improve the speed at which you can perform multiple Apple Music functions on your phone. More importantly, it works the same for some of the other best music streaming apps like Tidal and Spotify, along with internet radio and podcasting apps.
Extended Volume HUD
Another Apple Music tweak — and one you’ll see when you tap to access that player in full screen — is an expanded volume HUD. The volume slider now corresponds to the full width of the song’s playback bar, which is not only an aesthetic improvement, but one that makes adjusting the volume easier and allows for more detailed loudness changes. The bar also swells and lights up as you make adjustments, further enhancing usability.
Is this a consequential change? Not necessarily, but I often find myself frustrated with the lack of on-screen controls to adjust volume in apps, a situation that makes me gasp! – press the hardware volume up/down buttons on the side panel of the iPhone. Specifically, since the Tidal music service I also use regularly doesn’t have a volume slider in the full-screen iOS app, I have to press the screen multiple times to access that control. So the new comprehensive and easily accessible volume control slider is a great example of why Apple Music rocks.
Sort playlist
Another useful feature added to Apple Music with iOS 16 is playlist sorting. Previously, playlists created in the app reflected the order in which songs were added to them: first song first, last song last. Now pressing the three-dot button at the top of the Apple Music screen in the playlist view will bring up a sorting control with options for title, artist, album, and release date. Oh yeah, and there’s also an option to go back to your original playlist order.
Why is sorting playlists important? I have a huge playlist that I made in the early days of the pandemic when suddenly there was time to do such things. In fact, it is the soundtrack to my life and reflects the music that was most important to me at different stages from childhood to the present. After upgrading to iOS 16, I immediately thought of a use for the new sorting feature, which would allow me to listen to those songs in chronological order. That was something I wanted to do earlier, but then I found I didn’t have the time (or want) to rearrange the songs in a new playlist.
Another iOS 16 audio change
While there are several other updates to Apple Music, they are almost too insignificant to list. But there’s one overlooked iOS 16 audio update that I think is worth pointing out, especially since I’ll definitely be taking advantage of it. When you ask Siri voice control to tell you the name of a song that’s playing, that information will now sync with the Shazam music recognition app. Not only that, but it also syncs with Music Recognition in the iOS Control Center, so you can quickly access a list of songs you’ve searched either way by tapping that icon.
Again, not a game-changing update, but a thoughtful and meaningful update from Apple.
If you want to learn more about your options for listening to music, check out our list of the best streaming music services.