Apple Music is getting two upgrades that Spotify has had for ages — and thankfully, you don’t even need Apple Intelligence

• Apple Music lists various updates in iOS 24.6, but the stand-out is a new AI playlist-making tool, Playlist Playground
• It’s currently in beta testing, and is expected to arrive some time in spring
• Unlike other perks, Playlist Playground will be available on non-Apple Intelligence supported devices

Apple has rolled out the first beta for iOS 26.4, and with that comes an exciting slew of new upgrades for Apple Music — but it’s this new Spotify-like AI playlist tool that’s caught everyone’s attention.

The new ‘Playlist Playground’ tool, which borrows its name from Apple’s photo-creation function ‘Image Playground’, allows you to create playlists by entering text prompts, or by using Apple’s pre-set ideas. Using AI (likely Apple Intelligence) it will generate a fresh playlist of 25 songs with a custom title.

Similarly to Spotify’s flagship AI playlist tool, and also its Prompted Playlist feature, Playlist Playground survives on descriptive text prompts which you can enter to create specific-sounding playlists. You can ask it to create genre-specific playlists, ones based on a particular vibe (for example ‘morning coffee music’), or ask it to gather songs from a certain time period.

MacRumors has provided an image of the new tool (see above), and according to MacWorld, Playlist Playground can also generate playlists based on a selection of ‘at least 10 different songs’. It also gives you the freedom to chop and change your prompt, edit the title, and manually add or remove songs before finalizing it — but that’s not the only feature that Apple Music is borrowing from Spotify.

One of the most valuable Spotify features is the Live Events hub, a one-stop overview of all the upcoming gigs in your area, and it seems that Apple Music is developing its own version.

In MacWorld’s report, the outlet highlights that when you open Apple Music after installing the iOS 24.6 update, you’ll be met with a pop-up stating that you’ll be able to view upcoming live events from the app. We don’t know how this will work or look in Apple Music yet, but MacWorld predicts it will be similar to Shazam’s own tool (which is owned by Apple).