Apple has just released the first iOS 8.4 beta, which includes Apple’s upcoming revamped Music app. The seed for developers is available via the Apple Developer Center website.
As we reported earlier this year, iOS 8.4 includes an all new Music application. The new software design is present in this beta, while Apple is expected to announce the streaming service component in June at WWDC.
Here are the release notes from Apple for the new app:
– All-New Design. Music app has a beautiful new design that makes exploring your music collection easier and more fun. Personalize playlists by adding your own image and description. Enjoy stunning pictures of your favorite artists in the Artists view. Start playing an album right from the album list. The music you love is never more than a tap away.
– Recently Added. Albums and playlists you’ve recently added are now at the top of your library, making it effortless to find something new to play. Simply tap play on the artwork to listen.
– Streamlined iTunes Radio. Discovering music with iTunes Radio is easier than ever. You can now quickly return to your favorite stations in Recently Played. Choose from a selection of hand-curated stations in Featured Stations, or start a new one from your favorite artist or song.
– New MiniPlayer. With the new MiniPlayer, you can see what’s playing and control playback while browsing your music collection. To open Now Playing, just tap on the MiniPlayer.
– Improved Now Playing. Now Playing has a stunning new design that showcases your album artwork the way it was meant to be. In addition, you can begin wirelessly streaming your music using AirPlay without leaving Now Playing.
– Up Next. It’s now simple to find out which songs from your library will play next — just tap the Up Next icon in Now Playing. You can even reorder, add, or skip songs whenever you like.
– Global Search. You can now search from anywhere in the Music app — just tap the magnifying glass. Search results are conveniently organized to help you quickly find that perfect song. You can even start an iTunes Radio station right from Search.
iOS 8.4’s Music application includes revamped search, the UpNext and MiniPlayer features from iTunes on the desktop, improved iTunes Radio functionality, a new Recently Added page, and more on top of the new design. On the iPad, there’s a new split-screen interface on the iPad, as seen in the screenshots below. On the iPhone, the landscape interface has been removed entirely. The icon for the app remains the same, however. We have a hands-on gallery of several more screenshots below:
Is cover flow gone??? Is the app finally usable in landscape mode??
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Cover Flow disappeared in iOS 7.
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Are you sure you are using a real iPhone and not a rip-off?? because cover flow was gone ages ago…
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For the record, he could be on an older version of iOS (although I doubt it). I am.
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Okay not cover flow, i meant the terrible grid of album covers… my bad.
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Yeah, I hate that thing. It’s useless at best. It doesn’t even display all your music, whereas cover-flow was a rational, beautiful way to see all your albums.
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Yes it has been removed. The app is purely portrait only right now.. It doesnt respond to landscape mode.
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Let me re-state… Is the unusable grid of landscape album covers gone? I mis-spoke earlier and referred to that as cover flow.
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The *random* unusable grid. Wow, that’s a nightmare feature.
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I second this sentiment. That album grid thing may be the most useless piece of UI Apple’s ever created.
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I actually only use the app in the grid view when I’m outside and walking.
it’s hard to read while walking. everything is shaking… in the grid view I look at the cover photos and two taps away from any song i want!
I hope that they improve it though. it can be a bit more intuitive to use.
I’m not sure how a table view based app is going to be more useful in landscape mode though…
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I have my phone locked in portrait mode so I never noticed this. Wow. This is pretty useless.
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I hope it’s gone. What a useless screen that grid of album covers is.
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it reminds me of Google Play Music alot
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same here, looks like the Google Play Music app ditched material design and was re-design with iOS styling
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omfg,,,, excited…
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More pictures please, or a video review. No one does those anymore. Back in iOS 6, a new beta would come out and everyone would have a brief review but not anymore. Looks nice to me so far
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When do we expect this to be released? Sometime closer to WWDC or in the mid summer?
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June 1st week maybe !
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WWDC last year was from June 2-6 so I guess it would make sense. Maybe even earlier. I’m excited, the music app was good, now it’s gonna be even better.
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excited… i think iPhone 4s,5,5c will not get iOS 9 so this might be the last big update for them !
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I would think the iPhone 5 at least will get iOS 9. Anything before will be cut.
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Not again! I hate the white and red music app! It’s horrible along with the rest of black and white IOS! I’m so glad I left Apple, done with their ugly restrictive os and expensive products (even though I am typing this on a 2010 macbook pro :)
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Is the app icon different? Are we finally going to get a red iTunes icon instead of purple? always been the biggest annoying inconsistency ever.
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The music player icon is already red. what else are they gonna do?
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I want it. Where is my email invite? HEHEHEHE
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This all sounds kinda bad to me. Sorting your music so the new stuff is at the top? Presumably there is no opting out of that either.
I wish they would being back cover-flow on iOS or at least allow it as an option. It had excellent utility for those of us that still buy albums, and the thing they replaced it with does literally nothing but display a random collection of covers. I understand that it’s “3D” and thus goes against the design dogma, but why get rid of something useful, when you aren’t going to replace it with anything similarly so?
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I understand all the hate the album cover view is getting. I’d wager that Cover Flow was probably a resource hog with the reflective floor and the fact that you only saw about 3 albums at a time (one in the center flanked by two others that, if memory serves, were cut off a little).
I don’t use it that often (then again I’m almost never in the Music app now that I have Spotify) but I think the view is great. The animation is minimal and fluid and has the same zoom effect as apps on the Home screen. If there’s one thing Apple could do to improve is show track progress in this view. The animated EQ bars letting me know what track is playing is nice but it’d be nice to have a little tangerine-colored line to denote track progress.
If nothing else all the white separates it from Spotify and Tidal that both feature black backdrops. Otherwise I like the upcoming changes.
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Any chance they will ever get around to cleaning up the bloatware that is iTunes? Usually Apple has a simplistic way of doing things which make it easy to jump into. Unfortunately, both the iOS software and iTunes have become cumbersome. Digging through settings on an iPhone and on iTunes is very confusing for many of the adults I have set products up for. Its not user friendly unless you are already familiar with the software and products. Much time is spent on google trying to find answers to simple things.
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Well that is if you can use iTunes Radio. Still living in a country where it is absent. It’s a pity that it takes years for a service to go global for a company like Apple. September 2013 and still no sign of it in Europe.
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It will be VERY difficult to beat Spotify, as a staunch Apple user I am eager for Apple to bring to the iPhone what Spotify has. To me, Apple in this specific aspect is quite behind.
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