Apple iOS 8.4 Beta Revamps Music App Ahead Of Streaming Launch

Apple has made the first beta version of iOS 8.4 available to developers, including a revamped Music app that is likely to form the basis for the company’s upcoming streaming service.

Precious few other details about the update have been included in the release notes, but with a number of betas set to be released before iOS 8.4 is made available commercially, it is likely Apple has included a few other tweaks and fixes.

iOS 8.4

As detailed by 9to5mac, the new music application lets users add custom images and descriptions for playlists, edit song order in shuffle, makes recently added items more visible, updates iTunes radio, adds a new mini player, and showcases album artwork more prominently while playing songs.

A split screen interface for iPad has been added but landscape support for iPhone has been removed entirely. Apple’s Spotify rival is expected to be announced at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June and will be built from the technology gained in the acquisition of Beats.

iOS 8.3 – the first version of iOS to be made available as a public beta – has just been made available to all iOS users, fixing a number of security bugs and adding support for EE’s Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWi-Fi) service as well as 300 new multi-racial Emojis.

Apple has so far released a number of incremental updates to iOS 8, which has been afflicted by a number of problems since launch. The next major iteration, iOS 9, is expected to accompany the launch of the iPhone 6 and could also be granted a public beta.

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