iOS 26.2 fixes a long-standing Apple Music Radio flaw

In iOS 26.2, Apple has addressed an issue that Apple Music Radio users have been pointing out for about five years: Apple Podcasts now has features that allow you to fully work with music from your radio show while still maintaining the convenience of podcasts.

Five years ago, Apple Music Radio’s personalized radio show made it much better for users to find new music. However, tracking the release of new episodes of such programs was difficult. That changed in part three years later when Apple Music Radio shows were integrated into Apple Podcasts, but an important connection to the Apple Music ecosystem disappeared.

In iOS 26.2, Apple bridged that gap by combining key features of the two services.

Longstanding user requests and feature evolution

As far back as early 2021, users cited three features that would markedly improve the Apple Music Radio experience: notifications of new releases, offline episode listening, and a convenient way to subscribe to favorite shows.

One example of such programs is After School Radio, a show hosted by Mark Hoppus that airs on Apple Music Hits. Regular live listening and subsequent discovery of new artists and albums has made it an important part of the music experience for many listeners. During broadcasts, users often save tracks directly from the “Now Playing” screen and then navigate to full albums or other releases by the artist.

But listening to on-demand recordings has long been inconvenient, with episodes having to be manually searched for in the Music app, and users resorting to saving links via the “Share” menu to avoid losing track of releases.

Apple Podcasts integration compromises

In 2023, Apple added several expected features to Apple Podcasts at once: notifications, offline listening to episodes, the ability to subscribe to shows, and synchronizing playback with Apple Music Radio. But it came at a price, however, with two important limitations.

First, podcasts lacked information about the tracks being played, even though the shows include music. Second, users lost the ability to quickly add their favorite songs to their Apple Music library.

Second, podcasts lacked the ability to quickly add their favorite songs to their Apple Music library.

What’s changed in iOS 26.2

In iOS 26.2, Apple Podcasts got features that actually combined the benefits of both apps. Apple Music Radio episodes now display links to songs played during the episode. You can use them to go to the Music app, save a track, open an album, and explore the artist’s catalog.

The links appear on the Now Playing screen as the episode plays, as well as in an automatically generated podcast transcript, a development of a feature first introduced in iOS 17.4 that lets you listen to shows in podcast format without losing access to Apple Music’s music ecosystem.

The bottom line and the remaining question

The new Apple Podcasts features in iOS 26.2 were an unexpected but effective answer to a longstanding user request. The bundling of podcasts and Apple Music Radio now provides a full cycle from discovering a track to adding it to your media library.

The new podcasts and Apple Music Radio features are now available in iOS 26.2.

This leaves open the question of the activity of individual shows. For example, the last episode of After School Radio aired in October, and it’s unclear whether the program will continue. However, the current user experience allows you to comfortably listen to the 222-episode archive, as well as other Apple Music Radio shows.