iOS 17.3 Beta Adds Collaborative Apple Music Playlists Again

The iOS 17.3 beta that Apple released today once again includes support for collaborative Apple Music playlists, allowing ‌Apple Music‌ subscribers to build playlists with friends, family members, and others who share their musical tastes.

apple music collaborative playlists
Apple initially announced collaborative playlist features when iOS 17 was released, but the option did not come out at launch. Apple then tested it in iOS 17.2, but ended up pulling the collaborative functionality in the fourth beta.

In ‌Apple Music‌, when you create a new playlist or select an existing playlist, there's a little person-shaped icon that can be tapped to enable collaboration. Choosing this option provides a link where anyone can contribute a song.

Those who want to try it out in iOS 17.3 can click on the MacRumors playlist link to try adding a song.

The person who started the collaboration can opt to approve those who ask to add songs, but this is not enabled by default. Anyone with the link to a playlist can add music, though the owner can turn off collaboration at any time or remove people.

Apple said earlier this week that collaborative ‌Apple Music‌ playlists would launch in 2024, which is the right timing for when we expect iOS 17.3 to launch.

Related Roundups: iOS 17, iPadOS 17
Related Forums: iOS 17, iPadOS 17

Top Rated Comments

georgeperez Avatar
2 weeks ago
Hopefully it stays this time. A couple of friends of mine are waiting for this so we can have shared playlists.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Bornee35 Avatar
2 weeks ago

I'm sure I'm not the intended target audience for this feature, but anyhow, I don't see the great appeal in this feature. Maybe if you were a DJ? Music tracks don't have a unique identifier like DOIs, do they? Many journal articles have DOIs (Digital Object Identifier) which enables them to be tracked across platform, time, and space. Assuming music tracks and music albums don't have DOIs outside of the Apple Music universe, this thing seems rather limited.
There has been a long standing Spotify feature where you can share a link to a playlist and everyone can add songs to listen in a group environment. Intended target audience are people who socialize.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
lazyrighteye Avatar
2 weeks ago
I am looking forward to this capability arriving in Apple Music.
I constantly send friends and family new music I discover - and vice versa - via Messages. This will make that a much more collaborative experience, furthering our muscial discovery. Bring it.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
McKodiak Avatar
2 weeks ago

Can Apple just make a solid software update for once instead of putting out constant fixes to fix the mistakes from the most recent release?
Wow. What you have is a very solid OS. The vast majority of expected features work flawlessly. Issues you are experiencing or read about are a very small percentage of all expected features.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
delsoul Avatar
2 weeks ago
Can Apple just make a solid software update for once instead of putting out constant fixes to fix the mistakes from the most recent release?
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
gomichaelgo Avatar
2 weeks ago
My friends and I used to love this older iTunes feature where we'd have a playlist playing, and if connected to the wifi network others could see the playlist and vote up or down on songs to have them moved up or down on the playlist. It was fun in large groups. I thought it would take off and be used in bars or restaurants and stuff.

I like the idea of the collaborative playlists and tried to use the CarPlay version of this, but it was clunky and didn't work very well. It'd kick them off and disrupt the CarPlay navigation. It wasn't very intuitive like many Apple things are.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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