iOS 26.4 has arrived and Apple Music gets one of the most striking tweaks of the update. New design, integrated concerts, improvements that users have been asking for for a long time… All very good. The problem is that the most interesting function of all, the one that uses artificial intelligence to build playlists for you instantly, is still on the other side of a border that, this time, has nothing to do with the European Union.

The redesign that you do have

Let’s start with the good, which is a lot. The most visual change in this version is that album and playlist covers It is no longer confined to the top of the screen. Its colors spill all over the interface and they color the background, the buttons and every corner of what you see. If the disk has a dominant blue, the entire environment is dressed in blue. If it is dark and contrasty, the screen accompanies. The effect recovers something that Apple Music already did in iOS 8, but this time powered by Liquid Glass and with a much more refined result.

Improvements that have been necessary for some time

Along with the redesign three changes arrive that, no matter how small they may seem, those who use Apple Music thoroughly will notice a lot.

The first is multiple selection for playlists. Until now, add a song to multiple lists different ones forced the operation to be repeated repeatedly. With iOS 26.4, pressing “add to playlist” displays a multi-select button that allows you to mark multiple lists at once. It took a while, but it arrived.

The second is the background music widget for the home screen. The feature arrived last year in the Control Center and was already useful there, but having it in small or medium size on the main screen eliminates one more step for those of us who use it frequently to work, study or sleep.

The third are the concerts integrated directly into the artist profiles. When events are available, a “Upcoming Concerts” section appears on the artist’s page with venue, schedule and link to buy tickets. In the home tab you will also find a section called “Concerts for you” with the artists you listen to the most and their shows closest to your city. A clean integration that makes a lot of sense within the app.

Playlist Playground: the function we have to wait for

And we arrived at what we were most excited about. Playlist Playground is a feature powered by Apple Intelligence that allows you to create playlists simply by describing them. You write “music for coffee in the morning” or “90s songs for a road trip” and the AI ​​returns a playlist of 25 songs ready to listen to, with title included.

The app also suggests prompts if you don’t know where to startand you can continue refining the result with further prompts or adjust songs by hand. Sounds good, right? The problem is that at the moment it only works with accounts from the United States.

AND We are not talking about a restriction that is skipped by changing the region of the systemSiri language or by signing in with an American App Store account. Apple has access blocked at the server level. There is no trick.

The interesting thing is that this time we cannot blame European regulations. There is no regulation preventing Apple from deploying this feature here. The most reasonable hypothesis is that Apple wants to see how it works in its core market first before opening it up more broadly, and that what they learn from this rollout ends up informing something bigger, possibly in iOS 27. An understandable strategy from within Cupertino, although from here it feels exactly the same: like we’re late to the party, again.

Apple Music knows very well where it is going

Viewed as a whole, iOS 26.4 makes it clear that Apple Music has a very defined direction. Concerts, exclusive sessions, radio stations, and now AI-generated playlists… The app has been moving away from being a simple player for years to become something that tries to know you. Each update adds another layer.

The cover redesign, built-in concerts, and multiple selection are more than enough reasons to upgrade. But it’s hard not to look askance at that AI function that, at the moment, is not for us.

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