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Apple previews revamped Music app with iOS 8.4 beta ahead of WWDC streaming service launch

Apple has just released the first iOS 8.4 beta, which includes Apple’s upcoming revamped Music app. The seed for developers is available via the Apple Developer Center website.

As we reported earlier this year, iOS 8.4 includes an all new Music application. The new software design is present in this beta, while Apple is expected to announce the streaming service component in June at WWDC.

Here are the release notes from Apple for the new app:

– All-New Design. Music app has a beautiful new design that makes exploring your music collection easier and more fun. Personalize playlists by adding your own image and description. Enjoy stunning pictures of your favorite artists in the Artists view. Start playing an album right from the album list. The music you love is never more than a tap away.

– Recently Added. Albums and playlists you’ve recently added are now at the top of your library, making it effortless to find something new to play. Simply tap play on the artwork to listen.

– Streamlined iTunes Radio. Discovering music with iTunes Radio is easier than ever. You can now quickly return to your favorite stations in Recently Played. Choose from a selection of hand-curated stations in Featured Stations, or start a new one from your favorite artist or song.

– New MiniPlayer. With the new MiniPlayer, you can see what’s playing and control playback while browsing your music collection. To open Now Playing, just tap on the MiniPlayer.

– Improved Now Playing. Now Playing has a stunning new design that showcases your album artwork the way it was meant to be. In addition, you can begin wirelessly streaming your music using AirPlay without leaving Now Playing.

– Up Next. It’s now simple to find out which songs from your library will play next — just tap the Up Next icon in Now Playing. You can even reorder, add, or skip songs whenever you like.

– Global Search. You can now search from anywhere in the Music app — just tap the magnifying glass. Search results are conveniently organized to help you quickly find that perfect song. You can even start an iTunes Radio station right from Search.

iOS 8.4’s Music application includes revamped search, the UpNext and MiniPlayer features from iTunes on the desktop, improved iTunes Radio functionality, a new Recently Added page, and more on top of the new design. On the iPad, there’s a new split-screen interface on the iPad, as seen in the screenshots below. On the iPhone, the landscape interface has been removed entirely. The icon for the app remains the same, however. We have a hands-on gallery of several more screenshots below:

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Comments

  1. hungarianhc - 9 years ago

    Is cover flow gone??? Is the app finally usable in landscape mode??

    • Mike Beasley - 9 years ago

      Cover Flow disappeared in iOS 7.

      • No, it didn’t

      • dr3459 - 9 years ago

        Believe he meant the awful iOS 7 through iOS 8.3 landscape quilted album art like cover flow. Which on my iPhone 5S is gone completely. The 5S just stays in the regular horizontal layout when sideways. I’m guessing they may have a horizontal mode on iPhone 6/6Plus though. Think the same will be on iPads which too I’ll find out soon once I can get it installed on my iPad Air, similar to how Spotify on iPads looks with the current song playing not in the Mini player.

    • amine Bajeddi - 9 years ago

      Are you sure you are using a real iPhone and not a rip-off?? because cover flow was gone ages ago…

      • Avenged110 - 9 years ago

        For the record, he could be on an older version of iOS (although I doubt it). I am.

    • hungarianhc - 9 years ago

      Okay not cover flow, i meant the terrible grid of album covers… my bad.

      • Gazoo Bee - 9 years ago

        Yeah, I hate that thing. It’s useless at best. It doesn’t even display all your music, whereas cover-flow was a rational, beautiful way to see all your albums.

      • Derrick Lambert - 9 years ago

        Yes it has been removed. The app is purely portrait only right now.. It doesnt respond to landscape mode.

      • bfredit - 9 years ago

        Uhm, no Derrick. I’m on an 5s with 8.3 and it’s still there. Are you sure that the rotation lock isn’t enabled?

      • Rauhul Varma - 9 years ago

        Yes it is gone

    • cjt3007 - 9 years ago

      I agree the grid system is crap. I have a handy pen holder in my Volvo S60 that works to hold my iPhone in landscape really well. it’s great for directions, but if I launch the music app then I just get the stupid album art screen. It would be nice if there was a way to make the iPhone display the carplay interface on the device itself so I don’t have to buy a new head-unit.

      • lkernan - 9 years ago

        “It would be nice if there was a way to make the iPhone display the carplay interface on the device itself so I don’t have to buy a new head-unit.”

        There is if you are willing to jailbreak.

      • cjt3007 - 9 years ago

        @Ikernan nope, I am not.

    • Aman Kapoor - 9 years ago

      beforeios 7 iw was called cover flow
      now the grid is called the ‘Album Wall’

      and its really useful..
      only problem wiht it is that it lags when you have lots of albums and swiping is buggy

  2. roger0798 - 9 years ago

    I… Need… PHOTOS!!!

  3. hungarianhc - 9 years ago

    Let me re-state… Is the unusable grid of landscape album covers gone? I mis-spoke earlier and referred to that as cover flow.

    • The *random* unusable grid. Wow, that’s a nightmare feature.

    • darrenoia - 9 years ago

      I second this sentiment. That album grid thing may be the most useless piece of UI Apple’s ever created.

    • jfloyddd - 9 years ago

      I knew what you meant bud. The grid/new cover flow was the one reason I used my orientation lock.

    • iAlborz - 9 years ago

      I actually only use the app in the grid view when I’m outside and walking.
      it’s hard to read while walking. everything is shaking… in the grid view I look at the cover photos and two taps away from any song i want!
      I hope that they improve it though. it can be a bit more intuitive to use.
      I’m not sure how a table view based app is going to be more useful in landscape mode though…

    • Cameron Scott - 9 years ago

      I have my phone locked in portrait mode so I never noticed this. Wow. This is pretty useless.

    • lkernan - 9 years ago

      I hope it’s gone. What a useless screen that grid of album covers is.

    • dr3459 - 9 years ago

      As I mentioned above it is gone. Only stays in horizontal/regular mode now. I kind of liked the horizontal grid/quilted album art, but when I had selected an album and could swipe through tracks on the album. Other than that the grid itself was pretty bad. At least cover flow had titles and was easier to view.

  4. Luis Angel - 9 years ago

    is iPod still supported and if you have ios 8.3 beta 4 can you update OTA?

    • dr3459 - 9 years ago

      iPod is still supported. I don’t see them killing support until we get a new iPod if one ever comes out. It should be at least iOS 10 before iPod support gets killed though. But no you can’t get it OTA. Once 8.3 went public beta 4 just became the public version automatically. For beta 1s you always have to install through iTunes though.

  5. Jaromír Miko - 9 years ago

    it reminds me of Google Play Music alot

    • same here, looks like the Google Play Music app ditched material design and was re-design with iOS styling

    • o0smoothies0o - 9 years ago

      It looks very little like that nightmare of an app. That app is so convoluted with numerous different gestures it’s insane.

    • dr3459 - 9 years ago

      It reminds me more of the Spotify iOS apps a lot too. Simply because of the Mini Player, and add to up next features alone.

  6. Zoheb Khoja - 9 years ago

    omfg,,,, excited…

    • cjt3007 - 9 years ago

      there is no such thing as a comma ellipsis

  7. mustafa1429 - 9 years ago

    More pictures please, or a video review. No one does those anymore. Back in iOS 6, a new beta would come out and everyone would have a brief review but not anymore. Looks nice to me so far

    • dr3459 - 9 years ago

      Check out adrianisen on youtube. I haven’t checked recently if he still does but I know he use to do a 3-5 minute video going through the changes in every new iOS 8 beta update usually out a day or two after they release. Then compares it to other iterations of iOS and on multiple devices in other devices sometimes too. He’s the only person I see doing those anymore.

  8. Jared (@GunningGunny) - 9 years ago

    When do we expect this to be released? Sometime closer to WWDC or in the mid summer?

    • Zoheb Khoja - 9 years ago

      June 1st week maybe !

      • Jared (@GunningGunny) - 9 years ago

        WWDC last year was from June 2-6 so I guess it would make sense. Maybe even earlier. I’m excited, the music app was good, now it’s gonna be even better.

      • Zoheb Khoja - 9 years ago

        excited… i think iPhone 4s,5,5c will not get iOS 9 so this might be the last big update for them !

      • Jared (@GunningGunny) - 9 years ago

        I would think the iPhone 5 at least will get iOS 9. Anything before will be cut.

      • dr3459 - 9 years ago

        I only think they are discontinuing the 4S from updates. They’ve never discontinued multiple iPhones from getting updates at the same time. Maybe the iPad 2 finally will get dropped though. The only big shock ever was dropping the 5 completely for the 5C in 2013. iPhone 5 will be discontinued from software updates in Fall 2017, 5s/5c Fall 2018 though. They very easily could discontinue iPhone 5s/5c sales though. People are really curious what they will do since they released two devices the past two years. There is rumors of a 6C but that could mean they discontinue the 6/6 Plus sales too already. So maybe the 6C starts free, 6 is at $99, 6 Plus at $199, 6S $199, and 6S Plus $299. Or maybe as I said they drop the 6/6 Plus. Sell the 6C for $99, 6S for $199, and 6S Plus for $299.

    • dr3459 - 9 years ago

      I wouldn’t be surprised if we see it released at WWDC 2015. Before talking iOS 9 the go up say they have this new streaming service show off iOS 8.4. Show it off, let people know about it. Conclude by saying this service will be available Today to sign up for with the release of iOS 8.4. May easily also change or be incorporated into iTunes Match in some way or another.

  9. Jon Podner - 9 years ago

    How about the public beta when is coming?

  10. patstar5 - 9 years ago

    Not again! I hate the white and red music app! It’s horrible along with the rest of black and white IOS! I’m so glad I left Apple, done with their ugly restrictive os and expensive products (even though I am typing this on a 2010 macbook pro :)

  11. Andrew Lazarus (@yratof) - 9 years ago

    I don’t think their music app can compete with streaming apps in the basis that they have such a small flash drive in the iPhones. I can stream far more songs than my iphone can hold. They should start upping the least amount of flash space. 32gb at the 16gb price and stretch it to 256gb

    • o0smoothies0o - 9 years ago

      Anyone that holds more than 4,000 songs will never listen to it all, it just doesn’t happen. You may think you want all of your music on it, but it does you no good considering you won’t listen to more than a small percentage of the total songs. 256GB iPhone sounds completely insane at present.

    • dr3459 - 9 years ago

      I could never see them going to 256 on an iPhone, 128 will be the absolute max. 16 is simply because not everyone needs a lot of space, I know a lot of people who have very few apps, little music, and overall a lot of free space. with 4-8GB free out of the 10-11 a 16GB device has. Also Apple’s answer to that is iTunes match, they won’t bring something else out that would make iTunes match irrelevant. You can already have all of your iTunes music on iCloud for free and play it online or download it for offline play instantly. But iTunes match which for $25 a year matches songs of your own personal downloads from other places and ripped CDs on iCloud in the iTunes quality format and gives access to them everywhere on iCloud to play online or download to a device. Anymore most people are going to online streaming rather than putting all their music on their devices, which adds up fast. I only have 200 songs on my iPhone and that alone takes 1.6GB.

  12. T (@tbaptist85) - 9 years ago

    Still doesn’t fix the bug where some songs artist aren’t tagged properly…

  13. Is the app icon different? Are we finally going to get a red iTunes icon instead of purple? always been the biggest annoying inconsistency ever.

  14. James Alexander - 9 years ago

    I want it. Where is my email invite? HEHEHEHE

  15. Gazoo Bee - 9 years ago

    This all sounds kinda bad to me. Sorting your music so the new stuff is at the top? Presumably there is no opting out of that either.

    I wish they would being back cover-flow on iOS or at least allow it as an option. It had excellent utility for those of us that still buy albums, and the thing they replaced it with does literally nothing but display a random collection of covers. I understand that it’s “3D” and thus goes against the design dogma, but why get rid of something useful, when you aren’t going to replace it with anything similarly so?

    • incredibilistic - 9 years ago

      I understand all the hate the album cover view is getting. I’d wager that Cover Flow was probably a resource hog with the reflective floor and the fact that you only saw about 3 albums at a time (one in the center flanked by two others that, if memory serves, were cut off a little).

      I don’t use it that often (then again I’m almost never in the Music app now that I have Spotify) but I think the view is great. The animation is minimal and fluid and has the same zoom effect as apps on the Home screen. If there’s one thing Apple could do to improve is show track progress in this view. The animated EQ bars letting me know what track is playing is nice but it’d be nice to have a little tangerine-colored line to denote track progress.

      If nothing else all the white separates it from Spotify and Tidal that both feature black backdrops. Otherwise I like the upcoming changes.

    • o0smoothies0o - 9 years ago

      Few people used the feature, that’s why they got rid of it. Well one of the reasons anyway.

    • dr3459 - 9 years ago

      It was a cool feature but until it was gone very few people were actually complaining about it. Meaning few people used it. Only confusing aspect is they still use cover flow in Finder on Mac. You think if they remove it on music it would be gone in OS X too.

  16. Cameron Scott - 9 years ago

    Any chance they will ever get around to cleaning up the bloatware that is iTunes? Usually Apple has a simplistic way of doing things which make it easy to jump into. Unfortunately, both the iOS software and iTunes have become cumbersome. Digging through settings on an iPhone and on iTunes is very confusing for many of the adults I have set products up for. Its not user friendly unless you are already familiar with the software and products. Much time is spent on google trying to find answers to simple things.

    • iTunes has always been designed for people to purchase stuff. I’ve never been in that mode since I own a fairly large library of my own. But in order to transfer music to my other Apple products I’m having to put up with the crappy iTunes format. I’m with you. I would prefer something that I can use and that is minimalist without the iTunes Store, in my desire, or at lease be able to toggle it off.

      • border1ine - 9 years ago

        iTunes has been around longer than the store. iTunes was developed in 1999 outside of Apple as SoundJam and in 2000 Apple bought it and renamed it iTunes. The music store opened in 2003, several years after the initial release of iTunes. Later designs have been influenced by the store, but there was no store for the first few years of its life.

      • Andrew Messenger - 9 years ago

        “But in order to transfer music to my other Apple products I’m having to put up with the crappy iTunes format.”

        I hope what you mean is that your library is in FLAC or some lossless format, because anything else you could possibly mean would be incorrect.

  17. Well that is if you can use iTunes Radio. Still living in a country where it is absent. It’s a pity that it takes years for a service to go global for a company like Apple. September 2013 and still no sign of it in Europe.

    • dr3459 - 9 years ago

      I’m curious if they are waiting for their music streaming service to be released, as they could get rid of iTunes radio, or add iTunes Radio to the streaming service. iTunes Radio is kind of cool but the music selection is very hit and miss on it. I still prefer Pandora radio over iTunes radio usually. Simply because the music selection even with very little input on what you do and don’t like (clicking the star on iTunes radio to favorite it and the thumbs up or down on Pandora) is still very accurate and balanced for each station.

  18. lincolnsills - 9 years ago

    It will be VERY difficult to beat Spotify, as a staunch Apple user I am eager for Apple to bring to the iPhone what Spotify has. To me, Apple in this specific aspect is quite behind.

    • dr3459 - 9 years ago

      This update visually and in use is a lot like the Spotify app on iPad and iPhone. I’ve used both services I’ve just never wanted to pay for Spotify at all so I always Just used the Music app for ease of use. But the add to up next, the new Mini Player, and all around it’s better but seems quite similar to Spotify apps.

  19. anthonyharris7 - 9 years ago

    Not sure if i’m missing this in the photos but did they bring back the collapsed album view? I cant tell you how annoying it is to have to scroll through EVERY song of EVERY album just to find the song you want. Especially if you have multiple albums from the same artist.

    • Mr. Garneau - 9 years ago

      I hope someone can answer this! I also would like the collapsed album view back. This expanded view they have in the current iOS 8.3 is crap!

  20. atimoda - 9 years ago

    1 – for god sake, where is dark mode for this app? it absolutely hurts my eyes :(

    2 – for god sake 2, where is the option to add currently playing song to some play list?

    3 – I pray for god to let me disable this wasted space “recently added” thing

    4 – bottom-bar just for “My Music” and “Playlists” is another wasted space… put back Albums, Artis, Genres, Playlists, and a “Plus” button for personalizing these views (adding Composers, for example. or a very used playlist…)… would be much more easy to navigate this way, I think :)

    • o0smoothies0o - 9 years ago

      I agree there needs to be a dark mode, but it needs to be system wide. It needs to be a toggle in control center, and it needs to be in iOS 9. Please Apple!!!

      As for removing recently added, it is very possible it will be able to be turned off considering there is Music in the settings where you can adjust some things. In Yosemite I was furious in the betas when they added that feature and didn’t yet have a setting to turn it off, luckily they added it in a later beta, I turned recently added off for everything.

    • dr3459 - 9 years ago

      I agree we need a dark mode on it. I can see than coming on iOS 9. Currently the only options are invert colors which makes it black but other colors get really bright and neon like and two grayscale which doesn’t remove much brightness. To add a song to a playlist you go into a playlist and add it if you mean add a song to up next click the … next to songs on the right and the option should appear. The recently added could be beneficial though. For me I’m always adding new music. Instead of having to scroll through or search it’d be right there to listen to. Personal preference though. Also I kind of agree with the bottom bar. It just got extremely cluttered though, and Apple is trying to be simple, which definitely they do with this update. And in music switching between all those options are right there below the recently added so it’s easier than having to go to another whole page to access the option. I think it’ll grow on people over time though.

  21. The vast majority of my catalogue is music of my own, CD’s I’ve purchased over the last 30 years, yes 30 years, ever since the beginning of digital music. I don’t ever see iTune’s becoming anything that I can use.

    • border1ine - 9 years ago

      I have been collecting music for over 25 years. I have been using iTunes since 1.0, and I have about 27000 songs from all different sources. Some ripped from CDs, some from the iTunes store, and some from other stores.
      Even though iTunes has its rough edges it is pretty much the best way to handle music. I am not sure what issues you think iTunes has that make it so you can’t use it to manage your ’30 year music collection’

      • o0smoothies0o - 9 years ago

        You’ll never listen to all 27,000 of those songs in your life. If you already have, you certainly won’t do it again.

      • cjt3007 - 9 years ago

        @o0smoothies0o that’s like 1000 per year… not difficult at all to listen to. Also, some songs probably aren’t very long. I know I have a lot of sound fx in my iTunes…

    • dr3459 - 9 years ago

      iTunes can actually make it easier to use all those CD’s to be honest. Really easy to search through, even through 30 years of CD’s purchased. It’ll take awhile to rip them to iTunes but once you do you’ll probably have the easiest and simplest way to listen to all that music.

  22. AirDJ31 - 9 years ago

    Knowing my luck, my music app problem (incorrect song tagging and missing albums covers) somehow WON’T be fix with this, and it isn’t coming until at least June, I assume.

    • cjt3007 - 9 years ago

      album art and song tagging would be something corrected via iTunes, not the Music app on your iPhone.

      • AirDJ31 - 9 years ago

        No, it’s correct in iTunes because I make sure all of it is before I sync, but, for whatever reason, since the 8.2 update, it’s been doing this.

  23. xprmntr - 9 years ago

    http://youtu.be/TkGem8NjX8o Video walkthrough

  24. Chris Sanders - 9 years ago

    I dont know I feel like this app is still terrible both the design and functionality.

  25. prius3 - 9 years ago

    Is iTunes Radio ever going to make it in Europe?

  26. MAX (@der_01001101) - 9 years ago

    Is there something new in the beta besides the music app?
    And is there still a public beta?

  27. Musicofourheart - 9 years ago

    Is this an open or closed platform? Is there an Open API for Apple Music (iTunes Streaming)?

  28. Ultramet (@ultramet) - 9 years ago

    Yeah.this update almost bricked my phone…I have never experienced as much of an issue doing a restore with a legit ipsw file..I’ll wait so more before working with it….

  29. AAR - 9 years ago

    Can’t believe you still have to go through about a million steps just to add the song you’re listening to, or any song for that matter to a playlist. Disappointing.

  30. Will this revision make the app more classical music friendly? For example, can you go to the classical genre and have a list of albums sorted either by composer or by album title? Sorting by album artist is not particularly useful to classical music listeners.

  31. Matamata - 9 years ago

    awsome check this maviashare.blogspot.com

  32. Porkish Chop - 9 years ago

    I hope this is real

  33. gerkin14 - 9 years ago

    Once again the iSheeps copped android… “up next” instead of calling it “play queue”,like it’s called in android. Will they ever go off and be original?

  34. Matt DeWater - 9 years ago

    Couple questions for anyone that may know…

    Does the new update still support Playlist *Folders* and if so can you add artwork to the folder itself?

    Are playlists still limited to alphabetical display order, or can you rearrange them manually? For example can you move “Top 25 Most Played” above “Recently Added”?

  35. bangcikfadzil - 9 years ago

    ⓣⓗⓐⓝⓚ ⓨⓞⓤ ²

  36. Jian Beckford - 9 years ago

    Does the new music app handle multiple artists? For example, if a song has two artists (and can be listed as such), will you be able to look under each artist individually to find a song or does it keep the two artists linked together and consider the joining of those two as a unique artist?