Apple Music in iOS 12 adds song search by lyrics, new artist pages

Posted:
in iOS
With this fall's release of iOS 12, one Apple Music upgrade will include the ability to search for songs by their lyrics, rather than just artist, album, or title.




Where a song contains the right lyrics, that fact will be highlighted in search results, AppleInsider found in testing the iOS 12 developer beta. The app still appears to prefer song titles when filtering search results.

The tweak should nevertheless make Apple Music friendlier to use, since people often mistake lyrics for titles, or may only be able to remember one line when trying to locate something.

Lyrics were added to Apple Music with 2016's iOS 10, but only for display while listening to tracks. The feature requires an internet connection, since it might be problematic to fetch lyrics for every song stored on a person's iPhone or iPad.

Also new in the iOS 12 beta is bigger artwork for artist pages, and a "Play" button on them. The latter will play every track in an artist's discography.

Artist pages in iOS 11...
Artist pages in iOS 11...

...and artist pages in iOS 12.
...and artist pages in iOS 12.


iOS 12 will make a number of improvements, for instance ramping up performance, and introducing preliminary support for ported iOS apps. Other unannounced features have been discovered in the beta, such as the option to add a second face to Face ID.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 19
    CheeseFreezeCheeseFreeze Posts: 1,247member
    It's hard to find a way to transfer Spotify playlists to Apple Music. The solutions I found hardly work. Any suggestions? Thanks :)

    ps: Limp Bizkit sucks.
    edited June 2018 lostkiwi
  • Reply 2 of 19
    How it taking so long for Apple to create a karaoke app for the Apple TV??? They should've done this even before Apple Music was a thing. This would be a slam dunk success that no competitor would be able to match.

    But of course Apple's services division never seems to do the obvious things it should be doing to be way more successful than it is, rather than just being perpetually propped up by app sales.
    claire1
  • Reply 3 of 19
    DAalsethDAalseth Posts: 2,783member
    This will be great. Now I can find songs without knowing the title. Like that one by the Eurythmics that goes “Sweet beans are made of teas...” Or that song by Queen that has the line “Dynamite and its laced with beans...” Not to mention the classic by Hendrix “‘Scuse me, while I kiss this guy...” I mean I know the lyrics perfectly, just not the titles. /lol

    EDIT: Yes my younger relatives love it when I sing in the car.
    edited June 2018 patchythepirateracerhomie3lostkiwiartdent
  • Reply 4 of 19
    Lyrics were added to Apple Music with 2016's iOS 10, but only for display while listening to tracks. The feature requires an internet connection, since it might be problematic to fetch lyrics for every song stored on a person's iPhone or iPad.
    Why would that be problematic? For years I used to use PearLyrics, it would fetch the lyrics of the song currently playing in iTunes and add them to the Lyrics tab under Song Info in iTunes.  After that I could view the lyrics on the screen of my 3rd gen iPod.  I don't see why downloading the lyrics would be an issue today.
    claire1
  • Reply 5 of 19
    ivanhivanh Posts: 597member
    the ability to search for songs by their lyrics“, English only?
  • Reply 6 of 19
    lostkiwilostkiwi Posts: 639member
    Excellent!  I currently use DDG or StartPage to search for song names using some parts of the lyrics that had stuck in my head. 

    If this works well it will mean I can skip a step. 

    On a related note I was tinkering with my Mum’s iPhone over the weekend. She is not an Apple Music person but I noticed Apple really pushing AM hard when using her default iOS music apps (iTunes & AM just to listen to purchased music). I think I can see why the AM subscriber numbers are rising so fast. 

    That being said I love AM and am a huge user of it, so the more the merrier!
    edited June 2018
  • Reply 7 of 19
    It's hard to find a way to transfer Spotify playlists to Apple Music. The solutions I found hardly work. Any suggestions? Thanks :)

    ps: Limp Bizkit sucks.
    https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/songshift/id1097974566?mt=8
    Use SongShift! It worked perfectly for a playlist I had on Spotify. It works great! 
  • Reply 8 of 19
    Is there a dark mode yet for Apple Music? No? I’m staying with Spotify. I simply can’t have Apple Music open when I drive at night.
    patchythepirate
  • Reply 9 of 19
    CheeseFreezeCheeseFreeze Posts: 1,247member
    It's hard to find a way to transfer Spotify playlists to Apple Music. The solutions I found hardly work. Any suggestions? Thanks :)

    ps: Limp Bizkit sucks.
    https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/songshift/id1097974566?mt=8
    Use SongShift! It worked perfectly for a playlist I had on Spotify. It works great! 
    Thank you!!
  • Reply 10 of 19
    matrix077matrix077 Posts: 868member
    Is there a dark mode yet for Apple Music? No? I’m staying with Spotify. I simply can’t have Apple Music open when I drive at night.
    Will come when iOS has dark mode me think. Next year perhaps. 
  • Reply 11 of 19
    AF_HittAF_Hitt Posts: 143member
    Is there a dark mode yet for Apple Music? No? I’m staying with Spotify. I simply can’t have Apple Music open when I drive at night.
    Your screen shouldn’t be on then anyway. You’re driving, right? 
  • Reply 12 of 19
    Is there a dark mode yet for Apple Music? No? I’m staying with Spotify. I simply can’t have Apple Music open when I drive at night.
    You simply don’t need to have your iPhone on at night while driving. I use Apple Music while driving all the time and never have to touch my phone.
  • Reply 13 of 19
    claire1claire1 Posts: 510unconfirmed, member
    How it taking so long for Apple to create a karaoke app for the Apple TV??? They should've done this even before Apple Music was a thing. This would be a slam dunk success that no competitor would be able to match.

    But of course Apple's services division never seems to do the obvious things it should be doing to be way more successful than it is, rather than just being perpetually propped up by app sales.
    I was thinking an Animoji App that mirrors with Apple TV would be cool. Apple TV updates always look like a second thought.
    patchythepirate
  • Reply 14 of 19
    sanssans Posts: 58member
    Lyrics were added to Apple Music with 2016's iOS 10, but only for display while listening to tracks. The feature requires an internet connection, since it might be problematic to fetch lyrics for every song stored on a person's iPhone or iPad.
    Why would that be problematic? For years I used to use PearLyrics, it would fetch the lyrics of the song currently playing in iTunes and add them to the Lyrics tab under Song Info in iTunes.  After that I could view the lyrics on the screen of my 3rd gen iPod.  I don't see why downloading the lyrics would be an issue today.
    I wondered the same thing, the only thing i can think of is if its done over cellular and using data.
  • Reply 15 of 19
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,178member
    sans said:
    Lyrics were added to Apple Music with 2016's iOS 10, but only for display while listening to tracks. The feature requires an internet connection, since it might be problematic to fetch lyrics for every song stored on a person's iPhone or iPad.
    Why would that be problematic? For years I used to use PearLyrics, it would fetch the lyrics of the song currently playing in iTunes and add them to the Lyrics tab under Song Info in iTunes.  After that I could view the lyrics on the screen of my 3rd gen iPod.  I don't see why downloading the lyrics would be an issue today.
    I wondered the same thing, the only thing i can think of is if its done over cellular and using data.
    A lyric file would be so tiny as to be pretty much a non-issue anyway IMO. Besides, isn't there a user setting for restricting downloads over cellular?
  • Reply 16 of 19
    gatorguy said:
    sans said:
    Lyrics were added to Apple Music with 2016's iOS 10, but only for display while listening to tracks. The feature requires an internet connection, since it might be problematic to fetch lyrics for every song stored on a person's iPhone or iPad.
    Why would that be problematic? For years I used to use PearLyrics, it would fetch the lyrics of the song currently playing in iTunes and add them to the Lyrics tab under Song Info in iTunes.  After that I could view the lyrics on the screen of my 3rd gen iPod.  I don't see why downloading the lyrics would be an issue today.
    I wondered the same thing, the only thing i can think of is if its done over cellular and using data.
    A lyric file would be so tiny as to be pretty much a non-issue anyway IMO. Besides, isn't there a user setting for restricting downloads over cellular?
    Not to mention that the lyrics will currently download over cellular if I’m away from Wi-Fi.  I feel like I should at least have the option to save the lyrics the first time they’re downloaded.  There have been a few times when I wanted to check lyrics but my signal was poor enough that it seemed to take much longer than I would expect, but not so poor that the song would stop streaming. A little odd.
  • Reply 17 of 19
    cajuncoolcajuncool Posts: 2unconfirmed, member
    "search by lyrics"? Wow. The SmartPlaylist app has offered this for years.
  • Reply 18 of 19
    cajuncool said:
    "search by lyrics"? Wow. The SmartPlaylist app has offered this for years.
    How does that help me as an Apple Music user?
  • Reply 19 of 19
    gatorguy said:
    sans said:
    Lyrics were added to Apple Music with 2016's iOS 10, but only for display while listening to tracks. The feature requires an internet connection, since it might be problematic to fetch lyrics for every song stored on a person's iPhone or iPad.
    Why would that be problematic? For years I used to use PearLyrics, it would fetch the lyrics of the song currently playing in iTunes and add them to the Lyrics tab under Song Info in iTunes.  After that I could view the lyrics on the screen of my 3rd gen iPod.  I don't see why downloading the lyrics would be an issue today.
    I wondered the same thing, the only thing i can think of is if its done over cellular and using data.
    A lyric file would be so tiny as to be pretty much a non-issue anyway IMO. Besides, isn't there a user setting for restricting downloads over cellular?
    Actually the lyrics are part of the MP4 file... well at least they can be. It’s part of the meta data.
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