It's 2025 and Apple Music still doesn't have these core features!

While Apple Music is a popular music streaming service, it's frustrating that it lacks some basic features. Some of these features are available in other similar tools, making it even more frustrating that you can't access them.

 

6. Easy device switching for individual plans

One of the biggest weaknesses of Apple Music is the ease with which you can switch devices on the same individual plan. You can do this with the Family plan and have no problem, but the Individual plan is a pain.

As soon as you open Apple Music on another device, you'll often see a message saying you can't play music across multiple devices. Spotify , on the other hand, makes switching between devices seamless. This is one of the biggest differences between the two apps.

While Apple Music offers a better experience than Spotify overall, it could attract more users from other music streaming services with such a simple tweak.

5. Continuity of equipment

Apple Music's device continuity is pretty bad. People listen to music on their smartphones, tablets, computers, and on each device, a different song will appear based on the most recent song on that device. While some people may not find this a problem, for others it's pretty annoying.

 

Before switching from Spotify to Apple Music , users had no problem continuing to listen to the same music on multiple devices. This is especially useful when switching from your phone to your computer, for example.

Many also hope Apple Music makes it easier to control different aspects across multiple devices, like volume.

4. Integrate with Apple Podcasts

Apple Music and Podcasts are two different apps. It's nice to be able to open either one when you need to listen to something without getting distracted.

 

But while some podcast integrations can be clunky, they can work well with Apple Music. People want something simple, like a Podcasts tab in the sidebar. That way, users can easily access their podcast episodes in a way that's less distracting than Spotify's home page.

To avoid being too annoying, Apple Music should consider adding an option that allows users to turn this feature off if they don't want it.

3. Drag and drop is easier on desktop

Despite its many benefits, Apple Music's user experience still lags behind many other streaming services in some ways. For example, while YouTube Music is easy to organize and manage, the Apple Music desktop app still feels a bit dated and too much like iTunes .

In particular, some people really dislike the drag and drop option. Many times, they accidentally copy and paste one playlist to another when they just wanted to shuffle their positions. This is extremely annoying, especially when they accidentally copy and paste more than 100 songs.

There should be a simple option to shuffle your playlist, and it's not hard to do. It works similarly to how you move songs around in your playlist on the iPhone and iPad app.

2. Better playlist discovery

If there's one criticism of Apple Music, it's that it's much worse than Spotify at discovering other people's playlists. Sure, you can find what other people have posted through the search function, but your options aren't as extensive as Spotify's.

Apple Music is generally lacking in playlist discovery. You can search by genre, but it's not as good at finding anything without specific keywords. Even Spotify Discover Weekly needs improvement, but not to the extent that Apple Music does.

 

It will take Apple a few years at least to roll out this feature, but it's definitely worth it. In addition to making it easier to discover new songs, better playlist discovery could be another reason for those on the fence to switch to Apple Music.

1. Play Later feature

Apple Music used to have a Play Later feature, which let you queue up songs you wanted to listen to later, but not immediately. This made it a bit different from Play Next, which — as the name suggests — would queue up your song for later.

Unfortunately, Apple has removed this feature without warning. While you can still reorder songs in your queue, it requires more manual work than before. As a result, the in-app experience is much less enjoyable.

While I don't think it'll ever happen, many people want Apple Music to bring back this feature. Doing so would make it easier to queue up songs for later that you're not ready to listen to right now, but will want to listen to later.

Apple Music is still the best music streaming service, but it needs some changes in the app. Easier drag and drop on desktop would be nice, as would better device continuity. These tweaks would be easy to implement and would make a big difference.