Apple Music has gotten dramatically better since its initial release in 2015, but there’s still more that needs to be done. In 2023, there are two long overdue features that I hope Apple adds to Apple Music…both of which are already offered by Spotify.
Crossfade for Apple Music on iPhone and iPad
One of the glaring omissions from Apple Music on the iPhone and iPad is crossfade support. This is a feature that has been offered for years, even dating back to the days of the iPod. For some odd reason, however, crossfade hasn’t yet made its way to the Apple Music experience on the iPhone.
Crossfade, for those unfamiliar, is a feature that allows a song to fade in (gradually increase its volume) while the previous song is fading out. This prevents gaps of silence between songs. In general, apps allow you to adjust how long songs will crossfade for as well. For instance, on the Mac you can set crossfade to anywhere between one second and 12 seconds.
Making the omission even more bizarre is that crossfade for Apple Music is available on the Mac and Android devices. Why hasn’t Apple expanded this feature to the iPhone and iPad? Who knows. I just hope it’s something that finally gets addressed in 2023.
A Spotify Connect-style feature
Spotify Connect is a feature that Spotify has offered for years that lets you use one device to remotely control listening on another. For instance, you can be listening on your Mac and use your iPhone to control playback.
Apple Music offers similar features for HomePod playback, but there’s currently no support for a feature like this on other devices. In an ideal world, you’d be able to control Apple Music on all devices, regardless of where the playback is actually happening.
For instance, I’m imagining a world where you can have Apple Music playing on your Mac, and you could control that playback from your Apple Watch or iPhone. Currently, this isn’t possible. If you’re listening on your Mac, the only way to control that playback is from your Mac.
The groundwork for a feature like this seems to already exist with Apple’s Handoff and AirPlay technologies. Unfortunately, we just haven’t seen this expand to more of the Apple Music experience.
What’s on your Apple Music wishlist?
There are a number of other ways the Apple Music experience needs to improve. Most notably, this includes significant upgrades to the performance, reliability, and navigation of the Music app across all of Apple’s platforms.
We’re also still waiting on the release of the Apple Music Classical app, which Apple promised would launch before the end of 2022.
What’s on your Apple Music wishlist for 2023? Let us know down in the comments.
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