- Getting Started
- Touring Other Cool iPhone Apps
- Listening to Music with the Music App
- Finding Your Way with Maps
- Managing Your Health Information with the Health App
- Using Bluetooth to Connect to Other Devices
- Connecting Your iPhone to Other iPhones, iPod touches, or iPads
- Working with the Wallet App and Apple Pay
- Working Seamlessly Across Your Devices
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Listening to Music with the Music App
The Music app enables you to quickly move to and play any music in your personal music library, or you can access Apple’s enormous music library through Apple Music and iTunes Radio. The Music app is quite powerful and offers lots of useful features for working with and listening to all types of music. The following tasks provide you with a good start toward making the most of this amazing app.
There are different sources of music to which you can listen, including the following:
Music you own—You can purchase music using the iTunes Store app; this music immediately becomes available in the Music app. You can buy individual songs or collections of songs. Once purchased, you can download this music onto any of your devices using the same Apple ID as was used for the purchase.
You can also add music you own on audio CDs or in a digital format by first adding that music to the iTunes app and then syncing that music onto your iPhone. If you already own music like this, there is no additional cost to add it to your iPhone, but it does require some time and effort along with the use of the iTunes app on a computer.
Apple Music—This subscription service from Apple enables you to access its huge music library. You use Apple Music to stream music onto your phone. You can also download the music to the phone so that you can listen to it when your phone isn’t connected to the Internet or if you want to avoid using cellular data to stream music.
The benefit of Apple Music is that the amount of music available to you is both enormous and extremely diverse. Unless you have very niche musical tastes, you are likely to find any music you want to listen to in Apple Music. You can also access Apple Music on any of your compatible devices, such as an iPad or a Mac, at no additional charge.
The downside of Apple Music is that it requires a monthly subscription fee. And you are only “renting” the music. If you let your Apple Music membership expire, you lose access to all of its music.
iTunes Radio—This source, which is free to use, consists of streamed music organized in “stations.” You can listen to existing stations or you can create your own stations based on songs or playlists that you like. You must have your phone connected to the Internet to be able to listen to iTunes Radio.
Of course, you can mix and match these sources. For example, you may already own music and also use Apple Music and iTunes Radio to expand the music available to you. Understanding which type of music you are working with is important because the source can change what you can do with that music. For example, you have to download Apple Music onto your phone to be able to listen to it when you aren’t connected to the Internet.
There are lots of ways to use the Music app; the following tasks show you how to find and listen to music in your library and Apple Music. Working with iTunes Radio is similar.
Finding Music in Your Library
The Library source contains music you own and music from Apple Music that you’ve added to it. There are a number of ways music in your library is organized and you can use these categories to find music to which you want to listen. Following are a couple of examples to get you started.
Finding Music by Artist
Finding music by a specific artist is a quick way to get to music you want to hear.
Open the Music app.
Tap Library. (Like other apps, Music remembers where you left off. If you don’t move directly to the main Library page, tap the Back icon located in the upper-left corner of the screen until you move to that page.)
Tap Artists.
Swipe up or down the list of artists to find the one you are interested in or tap the first letter of the artist’s name on the index (tap # for artists whose name starts with a number).
Tap the artist whose music you want to explore.
Swipe up or down the screen to browse the artist’s music.
Tap an album to see its contents.
Review and play the music you see (see “Playing Music” later in this chapter for details).
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Finding Songs
Finding specific songs to which you want to listen is also simple.
Open the Music app.
Tap Library. (Like other apps, Music remembers where you left off. If you don’t move directly to the main Library page, tap the Back icon located in the upper-left corner of the screen until you move to that page.)
Tap Songs. On the Songs screen, you see a list of all the songs in your library organized by artist and song title.
Tap Sort.
Tap Title to have the songs sorted by title or Artist to have them sorted by the artist’s name. If you know a specific song you want to hear, choose Title, or if you are looking for music from a specific artist, choose Artist instead.
Swipe up or down the screen to browse songs.
If you selected the Title option in step 5, to find a song by its title, tap the index on the first letter of the song’s or artist’s name and then swipe up or down the screen to find the song you want to hear. If you selected Artist in step 5, the process is similar except you are looking at songs listed by artist instead of by song title.
Tap the song you want to hear (see “Playing Music” later in this chapter for details).
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Setting Up and Finding Music with Apple Music
Apple Music is Apple’s subscription music service. Apple gives you the first three months for free to try it out, and after that you pay a monthly fee (currently $9.99 per month for an individual membership, $14.99 per month for a family membership of up to six people, or $4.99 for a student membership in the United States). The Apple Music library is huge and you are likely to be able to find and listen to any music of interest to you. You can stream music to listen to it via the Internet or you can download it to your phone so that you don’t have to be connected to the Internet to hear it.
Apple Music provides suggestions to you for music you might enjoy based on the music you listen to, or search for, and based on music you indicate that you like by tapping the Heart icon while you view or listen to it. Over time, these suggestions get more specific to your musical tastes so that Apple Music’s recommendations should help you discover and enjoy new music.
Apple Music is accessible on your iPhone, other iOS devices (such as an iPad), and any computer with the iTunes software on it. (Note that with a single membership, you can play Apple Music on only one device at a time.)
To access Apple Music, you must subscribe to the service.
Subscribing to Apple Music
You can subscribe to Apple Music as follows:
Open the Music app.
Tap For You.
Tap Try It Now.
Tap the type of account you want to create (Individual, Family, or College Student).
Tap Start Trial.
Follow the onscreen instructions to complete the process by first selecting an existing Apple ID to use or creating a new one. After you’ve completed the process, Apple Music is enabled in the Music app and you see its options on the Dock at the bottom of the screen. (These steps are not shown in figures.)
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Browsing Apple Music for You
For You music is music that Apple Music has selected for you (hence the name) based on what you have listened to, what is already in your music library, and what you indicate that you like (you learn how to do this later). To browse the music Apple Music has selected, perform the following steps:
Open the Music app and tap For You. On the For You screen, you see a collection of playlists, albums, and songs that Apple Music recommends based on music you’ve listened to or that you indicated you like.
Swipe up and down the screen to browse the selected music. It is organized in different categories, and the content of each category changes over time.
Explore the contents of a playlist or album by tapping its artwork. You see the list of songs in the collection you tapped.
Review and play the music you see (see “Playing Music” later in this chapter for details).
Tap Back to return to the For You screen to browse for other music.
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Browsing Apple Music
You can browse Apple Music to find music you want to hear.
Tap Browse.
Tap a category of music you want to browse, such as Genres.
Swipe up and down to browse all the genres.
Tap a genre to explore its contents.
Swipe up and down and left and right to browse all the content available.
Tap a playlist, album, or other grouping to see the music it contains.
Review and play the music you see (see “Playing Music” later in this chapter for details).
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Adding Apple Music to Your Library
You can add Apple Music to your Library to make it easier to listen to again and so that it is downloaded to your iPhone so you can play it without an Internet connection. Here’s how:
Using the information in the previous tasks, find Apple Music you want to add to your Library.
To add all the songs you see to your Library, tap + ADD or to add an individual song to your library, tap its Add (+) icon. You see the Added confirmation pop up briefly and then all of the songs in the current collection or the individual songs download to your iPhone. When the process is complete, you see DOWNLOADED at the top of the screen.
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Searching for Music
Searching for music enables you to quickly find music you want to hear. You can search music in your library or music available via Apple Music. To search for music, do the following steps:
Open the Music app.
Tap Search.
Tap a recent search to repeat that same search, and move to step 6.
Tap a trending search (one that other people are performing) to perform that search, and move to step 6.
Tap in the Search bar to perform a new search.
Search the music in your library by tapping Your Library, or search Apple Music by tapping Apple Music.
Type the term for which you want to search; this can be an artist’s name, song title, album title, and so on. As you type, the results that meet your search term appear in sections, such as Artists, Albums, and so on.
Swipe up and down the screen to review the results of your search.
When you find something of interest, tap it. You move to that content’s page. What this contains depends on what you tapped on. For example, if you tap an album, you move to the album’s page. If you tap an artist, you move to a screen showing sections for top results, albums, songs, videos, and so on.
Browse the content of what you tapped in step 9.
Tap See All to see all the items in a group, such as all albums (not shown in the figure).
Tap an album, song, or other item to view it.
If you tapped an album, browse the songs it contains.
Tap a song to play it.
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Playing Music
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In the prior tasks, you learned how to find music to which you want to listen. No matter what you choose to listen to, such as a song, album, playlist, or other content, you use the same set of controls to listen to that music. When you find what you want to play, tap it to start it. The following sections describe several ways you can control music that is playing.
Playing Music on the Miniplayer
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When you play music, the Miniplayer appears at the bottom of the screen. On this bar, you see the song currently playing and the art associated with the song playing. You also see the Pause/Play icon that you can tap to stop or start the music.
While the Miniplayer appears, you can use the upper part of the Music app’s screen to find other music to listen to, to download more music, and so on. The Miniplayer remains on the screen as long as music plays so you can control what is playing while you are doing other things with the app.
To have more control over the music and to see other options, tap the Miniplayer. The Now Playing screen opens.
Playing Music on the Now Playing Screen
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The Now Playing screen has many features, including the following:
Timeline—Just below the art, you see the timeline. The elapsed time is on the left side, and the remaining time is on the right. The Playhead shows you where you are in the song. You can drag this to the left to move back in the song or to the right to move ahead.
Song information—Below the timeline is the song’s name (in larger, bold font). Under that is the artist and album title. If any of this information is too large to fit on the screen, it scrolls across the screen to display it all.
Previous/Rewind—If the current song has been playing for more than a second or two, tap this icon once to move to the beginning of the current song. If you are at the beginning of the current song, tap it to move to the previous song in the current source (album, artist, and so on). Tap and hold to rewind in the current song.
Pause/Play—Tap Pause to pause the song. Tap Play to play it again.
Next/Fast-Forward—Tap once to move to the next song on the list (or the next randomly selected song, if you are shuffling). Tap and hold to fast-forward in the current song.
Volume—Drag the slider to the left to lower the volume or to the right to increase it.
Output device—Tap this icon to change where music is playing. When you tap this, a menu showing all the options appears. For example, if you have Bluetooth speakers paired with your iPhone, you can tap them to play the music there. If you have devices connected via AirPlay, such as an Apple TV, you can tap them to use them to listen to music. If you have EarPods connected to your iPhone, you can choose to play music over them. To return playback to the iPhone’s speakers, tap iPhone.
Ellipsis—Whenever you see the Ellipsis icon (…), you can tap it to open a menu of commands as described in the following text and figure.
When you open an item’s menu by tapping the Ellipsis (…) icon, you see a menu of commands for that item. The commands you see depend on the item you are viewing at the time. For example, you see a different set of commands for an album than you do for an iTunes radio station. Also, the status of the item affects the commands you see. If you are viewing Apple Music that has been added to your library, you see the Remove command, which enables you to remove the music; if you are viewing music that hasn’t been added, you see the Add to Library command instead.
Following is an example of this menu for an album that is part of my library.
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To collapse the Now Playing screen, swipe down from the top of the Now Playing screen. You return to the Miniplayer.
Playing Music from the Lock Screen
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When audio is playing and your iPhone is locked, you can control music playback right from the Lock screen.
Press the Side or Touch ID/Home button or lift the phone (with Raise to Wake enabled). Your iPhone wakes up and you see the Lock screen, which displays information about and controls for the music currently playing. Use the controls you see; these work like they do in the Music app.
When you’re done controlling the tunes, press the Side button again to prevent the controls from being on the screen (so that they don’t accidentally get activated if you put your iPhone back in your pocket, for example).
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If your phone is unlocked, you can open the same tool by swiping down from the top of the screen. You see the same music controls as on the Lock screen. The Notification Center is under those controls; you can swipe up and down the list of notifications to review them. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to return to the previous screen.
Playing Music from the Control Center
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To get to some of the music controls quickly, swipe up from the bottom of the Home screen (all models except the iPhone X) or swipe down from the upper-right corner of the screen (iPhone X) to open the Control Center. In the upper-right corner of the Control Center, you see Audio tools. Press and hold on this area to open the same set of music controls as you see on the Lock screen. When you’re done, tap outside the music controls to return to the Control Center. Use the controls you see; then, close the Control Center by tapping the downward-facing arrow at the top and continue what you were doing.
Using 3D Touch with the Music App (iPhone 6s/6s Plus and Later)
Like other default iPhone apps, the Music app supports 3D Touch, which you can use in a couple of ways.
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When you press on the Music app’s icon, you see the Quick Actions menu. At the bottom of this menu, you see the Music widget displaying music you have played recently; tap an album cover or playlist art to play its music. You can tap Play Beats 1 to play that music or tap Search to jump to the search screen.
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When you are browsing music, press on music in which you are interested to perform a Peek on it. In the Peek window, you view the music on which you pressed and you see a menu of commands. Tap a command to perform it. For example, tap the Play icon to play the music you are viewing.
