Music & Audio


How To: Use Pandora with Siri Without Saying 'Pandora' All the Time When You Want to Play Music
If Pandora is your primary music app on your iPhone, you know it can be frustrating to use with Siri. The digital assistant always wants to use Apple Music instead, so you need to specify that you want to play through Pandora with almost every request. That's now a thing of the past because Apple now allows you to set Pandora as your iPhone's default music player.

How To: Easily View & Delete Music That's Taking Up Storage Space on Your iPhone
Apple's two iCloud storage plans have made it easier than ever to free up space on your iPhone to take more pictures, play more mobile games, and download more music. The plan prices range from $0.99 to $9.99, which isn't bad, but not everyone wants to pay for storage. So deleting items becomes a great option to free up storage — especially music and music videos.

How To: Make Siri Use YouTube Music as the Default Player Instead of Apple Music
If you're a YouTube Music fan, you know that it can be frustrating to use on an iPhone since it's not as integrated with Siri as Apple Music is. You need to ask Siri to play songs specifically on YouTube Music every time you want to listen to something new. Well, that's how it used to be since Apple now lets you set YouTube Music as the default music app for Siri.

How To: Set Spotify as Siri's Default Music Player on Your iPhone
It's no secret that Apple and Spotify haven't exactly gotten along in the past. For years, Spotify's platform felt very disconnected from the iPhone, mostly because of Siri incompatibility. Spotify even favored its own Voice assistant until iOS 13 when Siri could finally play Spotify music for Spotify users. Now, in iOS 14.5, Spotify's integration with Siri has reached a new height: Siri's default music player.

How To: Download All the Songs from Your Google Play Music Library Before Google Deletes Them on Feb. 24
After a slow phase-out, Google Play Music was shut down in December 2020. The songs you uploaded or purchased are still on Google's servers, but even those will be deleted on Feb. 24, 2021.

How To: Stop Your iPhone from Automatically Sharing Audio to Your HomePod or HomePod Mini
Pushing music from your iPhone to your HomePod or HomePod mini by just moving the devices close to each other is certainly a great party trick. But if Handoff is too easily triggered, you might not think it's worth the wow factor. Thankfully, there's an easy way to stop your iPhone from sharing audio to your HomePod or HomePod mini (and vice versa) if you're finding it happens way too often.

How To: Remove Vocals from Any Song to Make a Karaoke or Instrumental Track
Finding an instrumental or karaoke version of a song can be pretty easy unless you're dealing with a song that isn't popular. That leaves you with just the full version of the song, complete with vocals. So how do you convert it into an instrumental or karaoke track?

How To: Can't Find Episode Notes in Apple Podcasts? Here's How to Unlock Them on Your iPhone
Many podcasts you come across will tell you to check out the episode notes for information and links about whatever that show's topic is. Easy enough, unless you're using Apple Podcasts, where these episode notes don't appear to be anywhere at all. Luckily, they're just hiding in plain sight.

How To: The Not-So-Obvious Way to Use AirPods with Your Nintendo Switch or Switch Lite
The Nintendo Switch and Switch Lite are console gaming on the go — with zero regards for modern audio features. Headphone jack? Check. Bluetooth connectivity? Not so much. While Nintendo seems to think we're all happy to live like it's 2015, there's a way to use your AirPods with your Switch or Switch Lite for wireless and convenient entertainment.

How To: Use a Different Apple ID for Apple Music Without Using Family Sharing
Your Apple Music subscription is tied to the Apple ID that subscribed, so you can stream content from any iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, or watchOS device that your Apple ID is signed in to. However, things get slightly more complicated when you want to listen to Apple Music on another device you use with a different Apple ID, such as a work iPhone. Complicated, but not impossible.

How To: Share Part of a Song's Lyrics from Apple Music — Complete with Audio Clips
Sometimes, you don't want to be the only one enjoying killer lyrics from your favorite songs. Sure, you can text your friends and let them know how great these tracks are, but you could also take advantage of one of Apple Music's coolest new features — lyrics sharing!

How To: Rename Your Original Sound to Make Your TikTok Video More Shareable
TikTok is a video-platform first, and while visual content is critical to its popularity, what has carried many of these videos to millions upon millions of views isn't only what you see but what you hear.

How To: Do This to Make Siri Use Deezer Instead of Apple Music for All Your Music Requests
With its emphasis on well-rounded audible entertainment, Deezer gives all music and podcast fans the best of both worlds. As great as the app is, it's inconvenient to constantly tell Siri to play your music and podcasts through Deezer so that it doesn't default to Apple Music instead. Luckily, that's changing so that you can set Deezer as your iPhone's default music player for Siri.

How To: Automatically Mute All Spotify Ads on Android
There are modded Spofity APKs floating around that essentially give you a Spotify Premium account for free, but the music streaming giant has been aggressively banning users who go this route. So if you're tired of listening to ads, but you don't want to do anything illegal, you'll want to know about this new app.

How To: Use Apple Music Wrapped to View Your Most Played Songs in 2020 from Apple Music or Your iPhone's Library
At the end of every year, Spotify analyzes your listening habits for the last 12 months and creates a colorful graphic showcasing your favorite artists, albums, artists, and more. Apple Music does have its own version called Replay, but it's just not very good.

How To: See Which Audio Codecs Your Bluetooth Headphones Support with One UI 3.0
Codecs are like ZIP archives for media files. Rather than storing an entire analog sound file, the digital version is compressed to save space. The algorithm used to reduce file size is called a codec, as it encodes to digitize and decodes when it's time to play the file back. So as you can imagine, a better codec can lead to drastically improved sound quality.

How To: Separate Vocals & Instrument Tracks from Your Favorite Songs to Make Karaoke Music or Play Along with the Band
Adobe Audition, Audacity, and other audio editing software have tools to isolate vocals and instruments in regular songs so that you can get an instrumental track for karaoke, vocals for an a capella version, or solo drums, bass, keys, etc. that you can use to learn the song yourself. The software is mostly for desktop computers, and it doesn't always do a good job, but that's where Moises comes in.

How To: Make Apple Music Play Similiar Tracks Automatically After an Album or Playlist Ends
No matter how expertly crafted a playlist is or how long your favorite album runs, they all come to an end eventually. And nothing quite kills the vibe like your DJ suddenly running out of steam. But a feature in Apple Music for iOS and Android will continue playing songs after an album or playlist is over, choosing tracks that fit perfectly with what you were just listening to.

How To: Check This Setting if You Don't Want Your Friends to See What You're Listening to on Apple Music
You shouldn't care what other people think, but sometimes, it's unavoidable. Take your music tastes, for instance. Sure, you might want your friends to think you only listen to the coolest songs, but we all have our guilty pleasures. If you're uncomfortable with your peers seeing your listening history in Apple Music, know there's something you can do about it — on iOS or Android.

How To: Use Any Music Playlist to Set Your Favorite Album Covers as the Lock Screen Wallpaper on Your iPhone
The music you listen to is often a reflection of your personality, which is why people tend to use the artwork from their favorite albums as device wallpapers. But one lonely album cover may not look right on your iPhone's lock screen, and it's not indicative of your broader music interests. To combine cover art into one lock screen background, there's a shortcut that makes it easy to do for any playlist.