The Music app will get a major makeover with iOS 8.4. The beta for the new build in development is now available for developers to take a close look at. When the final build of the operating system is completed, the Music app will look and feel different.
For one, the Artists, Songs and More buttons are now merged in one section called My Music, which also has a Recently Added sub-section that puts newly-added songs on top of the list. Right below this is an alphabetical roll of the songs that can be sorted by Artist, Album, Song, Genre and others.
The same layout is set up for the Playlist section of the Music App, while the Radio will now display a Recently Played section next to the unchanged Featured Stations and My Station.
Apple iOS 8.4 seems to be music-centric as it is also expected to pave way to the support of Apple's new Beats Music streaming service, set to launch during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference on June 8. Developers can now help out in enriching this and the whole of iOS 8.4.
With iOS 8.4 onboard, the Music app no longer supports audio books but Apple moved this feature to the iBook app, which, in turn, gets a new audio player of its own that lets users fast forward, rewind, view a chapter list and many others by swiping. The iBook app now has a distinct menu for audio books, separating them from the other e-books. To move to any point of the book, users can open up a chapter list by tapping the button at the upper right hand corner.
In addition, book lovers will find the iOS 8.4 version of the iBook app convenient with its speed setting and sleep timer as well as a share button. The skip-ahead and skip-back options are still intact and users simply have to swipe left or right on the album cover at the top of the screen to jump 15 seconds. Dragging the artwork left or right will fast forward the audio book to more than a minute at a time.
