iOS 8.4 and Apple Music arrive early on Tuesday

By David Nield Published April 25, 2023

If you’re counting down the hours until iOS 8.4 hits and brings Apple Music with it, you can subtract two: The next version of Apple’s mobile operating system is getting pushed out at 8 a.m. PDT on Tuesday, June 30, rather than the usual 10 a.m. slot, according to a post from Apple’s Ian Rogers.

The shift seems to have been made to accommodate the launch of the accompanying Beats 1 radio station, which goes on air at 9 a.m. PDT. The 24/7 streaming music station is helmed by DJs including Zane Lowe, Julie Adenuga, and Ebro Darden. If you’re an iOS user on the West Coast, you might want to start tapping the update button as soon as you get up.

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Meanwhile 9to5Mac has spotted a tweet from Apple SVP Eddy Cue that clarifies some of the details of Apple Music and how it will work with the existing iTunes Match service — Cue says the same 25,000 song limit will apply at launch, with that hopefully rising to 100,000 by the time iOS 9 officially rolls out later in the year.

Essentially iTunes Match allows you to plug any gaps in Apple Music’s library with your own local tracks, uploaded to the cloud, for $24.99 a year. It sounds like both services will continue to work alongside each other for now.

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Cue also revealed that developers running at early iOS 9 version will also get an update giving them access to Apple Music. A public beta of iOS 9 is being made available at some point in July for those interested in previewing the software before its official launch.

Apple Music is the headline feature arriving with iOS 8.4 on Tuesday, but it also includes the usual collection of bug fixes and stability improvements. There’s also a revamped iTunes Radio app to make use of, while audiobooks have been shifted out of Music and into iBooks. iOS 8.4 can be run on any hardware already running iOS 8.x.

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Dave is a freelance journalist from Manchester in the north-west of England. He's been writing about technology since the…

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