Apple Music's new Android look eliminates one easy excuse to stick with Spotify

Apple Music 7.0 is rolling out to beta testers on Android with a floating, iPhone-style nav bar, rebuilt artist pages and a new way to manage songs between your library and playlists. If you use Apple Music on a Pixel 11 Pro, a Galaxy S26 Ultra or any of the best Android phones, the app should finally look a lot like the iPhone version.

Apple Music 7.0 brings a touch of Liquid Glass to Android

Sumanta Das was the first to flag the update in a post on X on September 30, sharing screenshots of the new home and library screens from his Android phone. The new look has since been confirmed in a new report, which also found Apple's changelog for this release inside the app's code.



Here's what the update changes, based on that changelog and the hands-on look:

• A fresher look: a rounded, floating nav bar like the one on iPhone, with a light see-through Liquid Glass effect.
• Reimagined artist pages: full-page artwork, artist-picked highlights and an "i" button next to Play that opens the artist's bio right away.
• More playlist and library control: you can now remove a song from your library without it also disappearing from your playlists.

It should be noted that the screenshot above also shows a "Make Playlists Together" tip for collaborative playlists. Apple doesn't mention it in the changelog, so I can't say for sure whether it's new to Android or simply shows up again with the redesign.

Spotify and YouTube Music set the bar on Android

Spotify is the app this redesign is really up against. It tends to update its Android and iPhone apps together, as it did with its Your Library redesign, and its Premium plan now costs $12.99 a month in the US, a dollar more than Apple Music's $11.99. YouTube Music, meanwhile, has the home-field advantage, since Google started shipping it preinstalled on Android phones back with Android 10.

If you're happy with Spotify or YouTube Music, this update alone won't change much for you. However, it does take away one of the easier reasons to skip Apple Music on Android, which is that the app simply looked older than the competition.

What the Apple Music beta means for your library

If you already pay for Apple Music, the library change is the part you'll notice day to day, since clearing out your library no longer means rebuilding your playlists. For now, the new look is limited to beta testers, so most people will need to wait for the stable release to reach Google Play.

Android listeners have waited long enough for this

Android users pay the same $11.99 a month as iPhone owners, so it has always seemed odd to me that they got the less polished app for so long. Apple Music 7.0 doesn't fix that overnight, but it's the clearest sign yet that Apple sees its Android listeners as customers worth designing for.

I'm hoping the stable release arrives before the holidays, and I'd personally love to see Apple keep both apps on the same schedule from here on.

More on Apple Music and Android:

• How Apple Music's iOS 14 features reached Android
• Everything we know about the Pixel 11 Pro
• Google Pixel 11 Pro

• Follow me on X and Threads

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