Apple Music is following Spotify’s lead by testing an AI playlist creation feature in the first iOS 26.4 beta developer beta, revealed on Tuesday.
The feature enables users to fashion a new playlist based on a text prompt expressing the required vibe. There are also preset ideas you can select. Users can refine their playlist with further prompts, or manually add/delete/reorder songs.
The feature might be useful for people who find the human-curated Apple Music playlists aren’t quite fulfilling their needs in certain scenarios. It will enable listeners to get much more specific about what they want to hear, for example, by requesting something like “1987 pop music from bands with a female lead singer except Transvision Vamp”. Or, in the unfortunate example showcased by 9to5Mac “stunning tracks echoing Coldplay’s Yellow”.
Elsewhere in this first look at iOS 26.4, there’s new full screen artwork for albums and playlists within the Apple Music app. Apple Podcasts also makes it easier to switch between the audio and video versions. There’s a new Home Screen widget offering ambient music, a redesigned Wallpaper Gallery, and improvements to Reminders marked as Urgent.
The beta software doesn’t include any of the Google Gemini powered Siri features at this stage. That may happen a little later in the beta process. Although recent reports have suggested those features have returned to the back burner after underperforming in testing.
iOS 26.4 will launch in public beta next before the public release expected sometime next month. Apple may choose to debut some of the more advanced Siri features at the March 4 ‘special experience’ announced yesterday.
