[UPDATE: Collaborative Playlists on Apple Music have been delayed to early 2024, but now come with tapback-like emoji reactions to songs added to a collaborative playlist when listening to the song.]
Since 2020, Apple Music’s largest competitor, Spotify has had Collaborative Playlists as a feature for creating playlists together with another Spotify user. With iOS 17, Apple finally implements Collaborative Playlists as a native feature to Apple Music. I have been waiting for a while for this to happen. You know when someone suggests a song for you to add to one of your playlists, and of course, they can’t just do it themselves? Our problems are solved in iOS 17.
How Apple makes this an impactful feature is letting people leave emoji reactions to the songs that others have added. You can manage and add many friends and family to your playlist. Here’s what Apple has to say about it:
“Invite friends to join your playlist and everyone can add, reorder, and remove songs. Use emoji to react to the song choices in Now Playing.”
Now, this playlist acts like all the people with access created it. You have the abilities, just like you did create it. Everyone can now interact with songs and reactions, directly with Apple Music. I have had many experiences where my family wants to create playlists together, that we are all a part of. But, the only real way to do it (before iOS 17), is to create a list of songs, and let one person in the family create, and share it with everyone else, so we can all still view it and play it.
I would like to know though, why didn’t Apple introduce this feature earlier to stay ahead of Spotify? They already have over 100 million songs over Spotify’s 80 million songs. This would just make another selling point that Apple Music would be better than Spotify.
Before this, you could have friends in Apple Music, but until collaborative playlists weren’t supported until this update. With friends, you can see what playlists they are listening to and created, as well as the people that are following them, and the people they are following. This feature feels like and almost expanded version of the “Friends Mix” playlist Apple has had for a while. It shows some songs that your friends are listening to, updated each week.
But, as it turns out, we will have to wait a bit longer than early this fall when iOS 17 is released. Apple has said that the Collaborative Playlists will be available later this year. If you aren’t familiar with Apple saying this, well, last year, Apple announced their new Freeform app at WWDC22, and they also said it would be released later in the year. It eventually was released in December of last year, which means it could be released that late as well.
Some other updates for Apple Music with iOS 17 is native ability to Crossfade between songs. This makes a smooth transition between each song. There are some UI changes as well, with Apple focusing on Animated album artwork throughout the app, in Now Playing, and in the album itself. Also, remember when SharePlay was announced? Now with iOS 17, SharePlay with Apple Music in the car now is available where others can control the music controls of the car from their phone.
Here’s some more information about it from MacRumors: Apple Music on iOS 17
The Apple Enthusiast 