Apple Music has added a show subscription feature to Apple Music Radio

This week, Apple delivered a long sought-after feature by enabling subscriptions to shows on Apple Music Radio. The way Apple has approached the creation of this feature is very clever. However, there are some drawbacks at this point. Subscribers have been wanting to subscribe to shows on Apple Music Radio for a long time, as soon as the service was available.

Subscribers have been wanting to subscribe to shows on Apple Music Radio for a long time.

Let’s say there’s a weekly show you want to listen to when it comes out. Getting a notification when a new episode comes out and putting it at the top of your library would make sense. However, Apple Music still doesn’t have such a feature. Instead, Apple has taken a different route. Starting with iOS 17 and macOS Sonoma, Apple lets you follow Apple Music Radio broadcasts in Apple Podcasts.

Apple Music Radio broadcasts are now available in Apple Podcasts.

I believe this is because the Podcasts app already has the infrastructure in place to deliver subscription content. Apple Podcasts can also deliver content to Apple News+. It’s a one-stop store for podcasts and podcast-like audio content. As for Apple Music Radio specifically, the overall impression is mixed.
The benefits of listening to radio shows on Apple Podcasts:

• Notifications about new episodes

• new episodes appear in the list without having to browse or search
• playback position is synchronized between devices
• episodes are available offline

If you want, you can still listen to on-demand radio programs in the «Music» app. You won’t have those benefits, however, and they do enhance the experience. But there are downsides to putting music shows on the podcast app. First, when you listen to a radio show in the «Podcasts» app, the «Playback» screen only shows the show itself. These broadcasts have music, but no track information.

Another drawback is the loss of the ability to quickly add a song to your library.
I love After School Radio for music discovery, and I’m thrilled to finally be able to subscribe to it properly. However, I will have to go back to Shazam if I want to tag a song to identify it and add it to my library. The advantages of the new system outweigh its disadvantages, but I hope proper integration will come in a future version of this feature.

The advantages of the new system outweigh its disadvantages, but I hope proper integration will come in a future version of this feature.