One of the most basic features available in many music playback apps–the ability to crossfade between songs–has been among the biggest missing features in Apple’s Music app, but that’s set to change later this year.
According to MacRumors, the just-released developer beta of iOS 17 finally adds crossfade functionality to the Music app for iOS.
Crossfade, which allows for fading out of one song while smoothly fading into the next track, is a common feature among music playback apps.
Both Spotify and Tidal offer crossfade functionality, among other streaming music competitors, and even the desktop version of Apple’s Music app for Mac has a crossfade setting. Its absence from the mobile version of Apple Music has long been a head-scratcher.
Apple didn’t specifically mention the arrival of crossplay for the iOS Music app during its WWDC keynote on Monday, but the feature was discovered in the newly released developer beta of iOS 17.
MacRumors has a warning for those who try to enable crossfade in the iOS 17 beta: doing so will crash the Music app (or more specifically, it will crash the app if you try tapping the Music tab). Presumably the bug will be squashed in a subsequent beta.
Besides crossfade functionality, other changes are coming to the Apple Music app.
One Music feature that was briefly mentioned by Apple in a press release is Collaborative Playlists.
According to Apple, Collaborative Playlists will “make listening to music with friends easier than ever before,” without serving up additional details.
A screenshot of the feature on MacRumors shows a playlist that’s shared between four friends, complete with user icons on each song indicating (presumably) who shared each track.
Overall, Collaborative Playlists on the Apple Music app sounds like a similar feature on Spotify, which allows you to set a playlist to be “Collaborative” between friends.
Apple says that Collaborative Playlists for the Music app are coming “later this year,” and thus not necessarily at the same time as iOS 17’s initial release, MacRumors notes.
Finally, a few subtle interface changes are coming to the Apple Music app with iOS 17, with MacRumors reporting that animated album covers will soon appear on the full-screen music player.
In another change, the minimized Music player will boast a shadow to make it look like it’s hovering over the screen.
iOS 17 is expected to arrive this fall.
Author: Ben Patterson, Senior Writer
Ben has been writing about technology and consumer electronics for more than 20 years. A PCWorld contributor since 2014, Ben joined TechHive in 2019, where he covers smart speakers, soundbars, and other smart and home-theater devices. You can follow Ben on Twitter.