Now Playing for Apple Music app gets complete redesign for iOS 14

By Joe Wituschek
published

Apple Music on iPhone
Apple Music on iPhone (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

  • Apple has updated the Now Playing UI in iOS 14.
  • The user interface now takes up the entire display.
  • It also incorporates the dynamic background found from the Live Lyrics interface.

Apple has announced a number of new features (opens in new tab) for the Apple Music app in iOS 14, but one change that was not mentioned might be the one that people notice the most.

Now Playing has been completely redesigned for iOS 14. Developer Guilherme Rambo tweeted out a screenshot of the new user interface which shows off a number of changes from the current user experience.

Whereas the current Now Playing view sits partially on top of whatever part of the app you are currently on, the new user interface will take up the entire screen. It looks like Apple is also incorporating the dynamic background found in the Live Lyrics feature, which creates an ambient background that is based on the colors from the album you are currently listening to.

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It appears that you are still shown a small pill towards the top of the screen that indicates you can swipe down to minimize the Now Playing view and return to navigate around the app while you are listening.

The change makes the Now Playing experience in Apple Music closer to that of Spotify, who also has a full-screen experience. Regardless, it is definitely an upgrade in design that appears to be much more immersive than the current experience.

The new update will also introduce a new Listen Now section for discovering new music, autoplay more songs when you reach the end of an album or playlist, and better organize your library.

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Joe Wituschek
Joe Wituschek
Contributor

Joe Wituschek is a Contributor at iMore. With over ten years in the technology industry, one of them being at Apple, Joe now covers the company for the website. In addition to covering breaking news, Joe also writes editorials and reviews for a range of products. He fell in love with Apple products when he got an iPod nano for Christmas almost twenty years ago. Despite being considered a "heavy" user, he has always preferred the consumer-focused products like the MacBook Air, iPad mini, and iPhone 13 mini. He will fight to the death to keep a mini iPhone in the lineup. In his free time, Joe enjoys video games, movies, photography, running, and basically everything outdoors.