iOS 18: What’s new for Apple Music

With the newest iOS update, you can now use the Voice Memos app to record your vocals and layer them over your instrumentals on iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max — all without headphones. Explore more about all of the latest features and enhancements to Apple Music in the latest iOS.

Voice Memos update brings Layered Recording to iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max

With the latest iOS, users can play their instrumental tracks through the iPhone speaker while simultaneously recording vocals using Voice Memos and the new studio-quality microphones on iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max. Voice Memos creates two individual tracks so users can apply additional mixing and production in professional apps like Logic Pro. With Voice Memos on Mac, Layered Recordings are synced across devices and available to drag-and-drop into a Logic session.

Users can bring in different background instrumentals as the first layer, such as piano or guitar, to record vocals over in Voice Memos. In Logic Pro, users can also send a compressed file with an instrumental mix directly to Voice Memos, so vocal layers can be easily recorded from anywhere on the go. Learn more about how to use the new Voice Memos.

Browse becomes New

We’ve reimagined the Browse tab on Apple Music so that it’s fully personalized—putting more of the right music in front of the right listeners. We’ve also given the tab a fresh name—New—to better convey what the page is all about: new music and new artist discovery. New highlights the latest releases from your favorite artists, along with those you may like. It also showcases content shaping the current music culture, regardless of release date.

All items on New are selected by our editorial teams around the world, maintaining our music curation process and editorial voice. New personalizes what each customer sees based on their preferences.

New artist discovery

New builds on the Apple Music commitment to help artists find new fans. Releases that previously may not have made it to Browse have a chance of being surfaced to new listeners. New makes it easier for listeners to discover music we think they’ll love, creating new opportunities for up-and-coming artists.

Editorial curation lives on

The Home tab on Apple Music is personalized with custom stations and mixes, and five new Personalized Mixes were introduced in the latest iOS: Feel Good, Energy, Relax, Focus, and Feeling Blue. These stations are designed to help fans discover—and rediscover—music that they love.

Natural language search

Search now supports natural language understanding in the U.S. for English-language searches, allowing listeners to use everyday language, such as phrases or sentences to find specific music. Listeners can describe content by genre, mood, activity, or decade, and Apple Music Search will seamlessly sift through our extensive catalog of over 100 million songs to deliver the best results. Natural language search helps listeners find their favorite songs, discover similar tracks, and more. For example, search by “songs with epic guitar solos” or “party starters from the 2020s,” to find the perfect match and mood. Listeners can also ask Siri to play something like, “pop songs with a catchy chorus.”

Uniquely iPad

The latest iOS update also completes the Apple Music integration on iPad, bringing the floating tab bar to portrait and landscape modes. This new design allows listeners to easily switch between their music and other iPad content without reopening the sidebar. Additionally, listeners can add new items to the tab bar for easy, personalized navigation.

And a few more things...

• Apple Music haptics is an all-new accessibility feature that lets fans from the deaf and hard-of-hearing community experience music through taps, textures, and vibrations. Learn more about haptics.
• TikTok sharing. Listeners can now share their favorite songs, albums, and playlists to TikTok.