The ability to collaborate on Apple Music playlists with other people who share your musical tastes was removed from iOS 17.2 but is back in the iOS 17.3 beta.
Firing up the Music app after installing iOS 17.3 reveals a new mugshot icon when editing an existing playlist or creating a new playlist. Touching this icon will allow you to invite friends to collaborate on this playlist. A unique link is created for people where they can add, remove and reorder songs in the playlist.
Apple’s PDF document listing all of the new features in iOS 17 promises that collaborative Apple Music playlists will be “coming in an update in 2024,” meaning iOS 17.2 will be released to the public early next year.
iOS 17.3 brings collaborative Apple Music playlists
Collaborating on playlists is currently supported across the iPhone, iPad and Mac with iOS 17.3, iPadOS 17.3 and macOS Sonoma 14.3 updated installed.
Folks you’ve invited to collaborate on a playlist can use emoji reactions to display their opinion about the song choices right in the Now Playing interface.
The playlist owner has complete control over who has the power to add or remove songs from the playlist. They can also remove collaborators or turn off collaboration.
This was one of the features Apple previewed at the WWDC this summer but didn’t include in the initial public release of iOS 17.0 that arrived in the fall. It briefly appeared in iOS 17.2 betas only to be yanked from the shipping version of iOS 17.2.
Apple yesterday restarted the beta cycle by releasing the first betas of what would become the iOS 17.3, iPadOS 17.3, watchOS 10.3, tvOS 17.3 and macOS Sonoma 14.3 software updates. As these OS updates are currently being tested, expect a few more betas before iOS 17.3 is ready for prime time.
Other music changes in iOS 17
iOS 17.1 brought an expanded favoriting system in the Music app that supports songs, albums and playlists (in addition to artists, like before). The update also added new filtering options to only display your favorites in the library.
iOS 17.2 improved upon this with a new Favorite Songs playlist. By default, any songs you’ve marked as favorites are automatically added to this playlist and your library, which prompts your device to download them for offline access.
To override this behavior and conserve storage, go to Settings > Music and switch off the Add Favorite Songs toggle under the Library heading.