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Create AI-Powered Playlists with iOS 26.4’s Playlist Playground

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Apple Music subscribers running iOS 26.4 can use the new Playlist Playground feature to create AI-generated playlists tailored to any mood, genre, activity, or era. To try it on your iPhone, open the Music app, tap the Library tab, tap the + button, then tap Create New Playlist. Instead of manually adding songs, tap the search field and enter a natural language description like “songs from a high school dance in the early 1980s” or “positive workout music from after 2010.” Playlist Playground will generate a playlist of songs based on your prompt. You can refine it by giving additional prompts, rearranging songs by dragging the hamburger buttons, or tapping Add Songs at the bottom. When you’re satisfied, tap the checkmark button at the top right to keep the playlist. Playlist Playground requires Sync Library to be enabled in Settings > Apps > Music, and the feature is currently available only in the U.S. and in English.

(Featured image by iStock.com/demaerre)

Social Media: Apple Music’s new Playlist Playground in iOS 26.4 uses AI to create custom playlists based on any mood, genre, or activity you describe. Just type what you’re in the mood for and let the app do the rest.

New Features in iOS 26.1

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The first feature update to iOS 26 is now available—go to Settings > General > Software Update to install iOS 26.1. It doesn’t introduce any game-changers, but there are a few new options and tweaks worth knowing about.

Tinted Option for Liquid Glass

For many people, Liquid Glass’s aggressive transparency can make some interface elements, especially notifications, difficult to read. Until now, your best bet for improving readability was to turn on Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Reduce Transparency. In iOS 26.1, Apple bowed to user feedback and added a new Tinted view in Settings > Display & Brightness > Liquid Glass, which adds a subtle tint and increases the opacity of many Liquid Glass interface elements. In the screenshot below, the left image uses the default Liquid Glass Clear view, the middle one uses the Tinted view, and the right one uses Clear with Reduce Transparency. You can decide which you like best.

Disable Lock Screen Camera Swipe

For many years, a fast way to get to the Camera app has been to swipe left on the Lock Screen. With new iPhones featuring the Camera Control button for quick access to the Camera app, Apple has given us the option to disable the Lock Screen left swipe. If you find yourself accidentally opening the Camera app from the Lock Screen, you can now prevent that from happening by turning off Settings > Camera > Lock Screen Swipe to Open Camera.

Background Security Improvements

Several years ago, Apple introduced Rapid Security Responses, focused security updates that aimed to reduce update hesitancy with small downloads, automatic installation, and easy reversal. For unknown reasons, Apple used them only a couple of times before reverting to traditional operating system updates. Now, Rapid Security Responses seem to have returned under a new name: Background Security Improvements. They’re enabled by default in Settings > Privacy & Security > Background Security Improvements > Automatically Install. If you prefer to approve these updates in advance, you can turn that off. (A similar setting is available for macOS 26.1.)

Slide to Stop Alarms and Timers

In iOS 26, Apple increased the size of the buttons that appear when alarms or timers go off, but the large Stop button was easy to hit when you meant to tap Snooze (for alarms) or Repeat (for timers). Apple made that mistake much less likely in iOS 26.1 by requiring you to slide the on‑screen control to stop the alarm or timer.

Swipe Between Songs in Music

Sure, you could just tap a song in the album or playlist you’re viewing, but iOS 26.1 adds a subtle way to move to the next or previous track: swipe left (next) or right (previous) on the MiniPlayer at the bottom of the screen.

More Languages for Live Translation

iOS 26 introduced Live Translation with the AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation, AirPods Pro 2, and AirPods Pro 3. Initially, it supported English (US and UK), French, German, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish (Spain). In iOS 26.1, Apple added Chinese (Mandarin, simplified and traditional), Italian, Japanese, and Korean. To avoid delays in getting new languages when you are out and about, download the languages you expect to need ahead of time, when you have a fast Internet connection. Go to Settings > Bluetooth and tap the ⓘ next to your AirPods. Scroll to and tap Languages, then select the desired language. For actual use, open the Translate app, tap Live, and select the two languages you want to translate between.

There are a few other tweaks that most people won’t notice, such as support for the new AutoMix transitions between songs in Music when playing over AirPlay, better FaceTime audio quality in low-bandwidth conditions, manual logging of workouts in the Fitness app, and improvements when recording audio with external USB mics.

If you’re already running iOS 26, we recommend updating to iOS 26.1—the changes (and numerous security fixes) are worthwhile. If you haven’t upgraded from iOS 18 yet, now’s a fine time to make the jump.

(Featured image based on an original by Apple)

Social Media: Struggling with Liquid Glass transparency or accidental camera launches? iOS 26.1 addresses both and adds a safer slide‑to‑stop alarm control, swiping to switch songs in Music, Background Security Improvements, and more Live Translation languages.

Where to Find Lyrics in Apple’s Music Apps

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It’s often tough to figure out exactly what a singer is saying (which can lead to some amusing mistakes), but for many songs in Apple Music, you can bring up full lyrics in the Music app, regardless of which device you’re using. On the Mac, click the speech balloon button in the upper-right corner to display the lyrics pane on the right side of the window. On an iPhone, tap the playback controls at the bottom of the screen to bring up the Now Playing view, then tap the speech balloon button in the lower-left corner to show lyrics. Music on the iPad is similar to the iPhone, but the speech balloon button is on the right side. With many songs, the lyrics will scroll as the song plays, but with others, you’ll just get a static display. Either way, you’ll know that the ants, my friends, are not blowin’ in the wind.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Chattrawutt)

Did You Know That Your iPhone Can “Name That Tune”?

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Several years ago, Apple bought a company called Shazam, which made an app that identified songs by listening to the music playing nearby. Since then, Apple has built Shazam into Siri in iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS. Most recently, Apple added it to Control Center in iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 as well, so you can invoke it without speaking. To use Shazam, whenever you want to identify a song that’s playing nearby, just ask Siri, “What’s playing?” or tell it “Name that tune” or have some fun and say “Shazam!” To add Shazam to Control Center, navigate to Settings > Control Center, and tap the green + button next to Music Recognition. Then, from Control Center, tap the button to start it listening—you can return to whatever you were doing. When the song is identified, a notification appears with its name. Tap the notification to open the song in the Music app.

(Featured image by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels)

Apple Music Can Be Your Personal DJ

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If you’re an Apple Music subscriber, you probably know that it can play music that’s related to a particular artist or track—just tell Siri, “Play a radio station based on the Beatles” to get a bunch of songs from the likes of the Rolling Stones, Simon & Garfunkel, and Elton John. That radio station will show up in the Radio screen in the iOS Music app and in iTunes on the Mac. But you may not have realized that Apple Music can create a special radio station just for you, based on tracks you’ve played before, added to your library, or “loved.” To create it, just tell Siri, “Play my radio station.” Once made, it shows up with all the other radio stations, with your name underneath—it may not appear immediately. This can be a great way to get a selection of songs you’re almost certain to like, and the more you use Apple Music, the more it should adjust to your listening habits.

 

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