GoKawiilApple Music has a few new features with iOS 27, which Apple just announced today at its annual WWDC conference.
Perhaps the most immediately visible change is a newly-redesigned artist page featuring prominent shuffle play button, new artist name display, and other smaller layout changes.
While Apple did not have a dedicated section for Apple Music during its keynote event today, a word cloud slide mentioned new features for Apple Music several times.
As well as redesigned artist pages, the company said that album pages had also been updated. However, we could not see any visible difference on album pages in beta 1, at least.
The other big new feature for Apple Music is an update to the popular AutoMix feature. This feature uses artificial intelligence to create sophisticated transitions from one song to the next, matching details of the songs like key and tempo. In iOS 27, Apple has upgraded the algorithms to generate new AutoMix transitions, to make even more seamless transitions between different music tracks. (The basic Crossfade option is still available, if you prefer.)
Apple has also used iOS 27 as an opportunity to work on a variety of performance improvements for Apple Music. This includes faster loading of the Now Playing view, and faster streaming start times. This should make using the service feel more responsive, and let users enjoy their music more quickly from a fresh launch.
Apple also says iOS 27 includes change that improve the “reliability of Apple Music streaming”. It’s not clear what this is referring to, but it might mean users experience fewer hitches and pauses in playback when playing in adverse network conditions, like on mobile data.
Additionally, Apple Music integrates with the new Siri AI system. That means users can ask Siri information about an artist, and then use natural commands like ‘play one of her new singles’ mid-conversation to automatically kick off an Apple Music playback session.
Stay tuned to 9to5Mac as we bring you full coverage of everything new in iOS 27.