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Apple Music will reportedly add lyrics and switch to black-and-white design

Apple Music will reportedly add lyrics and switch to black-and-white design

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Changes are coming at WWDC in June

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Following closely behind a Bloomberg News report of upcoming changes to Apple Music, 9to5Mac is detailing some of what we can expect when the next iteration of Apple's subscription music service is unveiled at WWDC in June. The most obvious and immediate difference will be the look and feel of the app; 9to5Mac claims Apple Music (and by extension the iPhone's Music app) will ditch the colorful user interface that exists right now, which changes the colors of buttons and translucent toolbars based on an album's cover art.

Instead, Apple Music will feature a design that's largely black and white, but with "huge" cover art that makes the artwork feel like a bigger part of the app than it does today. Album art is already pretty huge, though, so I'm not quite sure how to picture this in my head. 9to5Mac's source said the end result is a look that's "bolder, yet simpler." (Is the source Jony Ive? That sounds like something he'd say.)

Apple music app

The next version of Apple Music will reportedly be less colorful and replace the "New" tab with "Browse."

Song lyrics are also said to be coming in the next big update. Apple is reportedly working with music labels so that the words will be in sync with songs as they play, karaoke-style. That's something that Amazon Prime Music already offers within its mobile app. Spotify, Apple's most prominent rival, doesn't yet display song lyrics in its smartphone app, but they're available (and synchronized) on desktop.

Other changes include simplifying the "For You" section while also placing a bigger emphasis on curated and personalized content. This is Apple's best answer for hugely popular Spotify features like Discover Weekly, so it makes sense that the company is working to increase usage and make everything feel more intuitive. Apple will also replace the confusing "New" tab with "Browse" and improve organization for everything under that tab.

Two things unlikely to see much change are Beats 1 and the much-maligned Connect social feature of Apple Music. The lack of changes or improvements to Connect is a little surprising — hopefully this thing isn't turning into Ping 2.0. We'll hear the full story on these changes at WWDC in June as part of iOS 10, and you'll likely be able to test them right away as part of the public beta program. The Apple Music updates will also be reflected on iTunes for OS X, which will get its own "revamp" by sometime in 2017, according to 9to5Mac.


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