iOS 26.2 fulfills a five-year-old Apple Music request with new Apple Podcasts features

Five years ago, an Apple Music Radio show tailored to my taste amplified music discovery for me. Discovering new episodes of that show, however, proved difficult.

That changed three years later when Apple Podcasts integrated Apple Music Radio shows. While keeping up with new episodes was much easier, listening through the Podcasts app lacked key Apple Music integration.

Now in iOS 26.2, Apple has closed the feature gap in an unexpected but effective way.

In early 2021, I named “notifications for shows, offline playback for episodes, and an easy way to follow favorite shows” as key features that would improve the experience with Apple Music Radio shows.

I grew up in the TRL era of MTV and love everything from the greater blink-182 universe (Boxcar Racer/+44/Angels & Airwaves/Simple Creatures), so the Mark Hoppus hosted show called After School Radio on Apple Music Hits was made for me. Listening to the show live at 7 p.m. ET on Tuesdays has since become a highlight of my week, and the songs from it regularly lead me to discover artists, albums, and entire discographies. […]

I regularly find myself saving songs to my library directly from the Now Playing screen during the show. If I like the artist or song enough, I’ll go back and play through the full album or add more music from the artist to my library. […]

Now that I’m routinely interacting with Apple Music Radio, I’m also reminded of all the feature requests we had when it was Beats 1 all those years ago. Push notifications for shows, offline playback for episodes, and an easy way to follow favorite shows would be great features for members.

Listening live is easy once you learn the schedule, but listening on-demand requires digging through the Music app. I used the share sheet to grab the URL that redirects to the section of the Music app for my convenience and sanity.

In 2023, Apple added all three features plus playback sync with Apple Music Radio shows in Apple Podcasts. However, there were two trade-offs when gaining those four features.

These shows include music, and you miss out on the track information.

The other drawback is that you lose the ability to quickly add the song to your library.

As of iOS 26.2, Apple has Podcasts app features that finally deliver the best of both worlds.

Apple Podcasts now includes Apple Music links to songs played during the episode. This lets you easily jump to the track in the Music app where you can save it, see the album, and explore more of the artist’s catalog.

These links appear on the Now Playing screen as they play during the episode. Links also appear in the auto-generated transcript of the podcast episode, adding to a feature introduced in iOS 17.4.

I didn’t immediately realize that the new Podcasts app features in iOS 26.2 would solve this five-year-old feature request. For that reason, it was a pretty delightful surprise when I saw it all work together while listening to an Apple Music Radio show episode.

I’m left with one final concern in this five-year journey. That is, I’m not sure that After School Radio, the one show I follow regularly, is still active. The last episode arrived in October. Still, the listening experience is generally great now for the 222-episode back catalog (and for every other Apple Music Radio show).