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Apple Music update in iOS 26
Apple’s iOS 26 update turns album covers into full-screen animations that move while your music plays.
With iOS 26, Apple Music users can tap the album art on the Lock Screen to expand it. If the track includes animated artwork, the image starts moving in real time.
Controls stay visible, now floating on top of the artwork with a translucent effect. The change is part of Apple’s new Liquid Glass design, which adds layers, depth, and motion across the system.
The goal is to make the interface feel more responsive and less flat. Apple introduced the Liquid Glass look at WWDC 2025, and it shows up everywhere in iOS 26.
Liquid Glass isn’t trying to impress you. It’s meant to make the interface feel less like a grid of buttons and more like a surface that reacts.
It’s the kind of feature that won’t change your life, but might make you glance at your phone twice. You’ll see it in Control Center, widgets, and background panels.
The animated album art is just one example of how the system reacts to what you’re doing. Animated covers are available in the iOS 26 developer beta, released on June 10. A public beta is expected in July, with a full release later in 2025.
The feature requires an iPhone with an A13 Bionic chip or later, so iPhone 11 and newer models will be supported. Right now, only Apple Music uses animated artwork.
Other apps like Spotify and Tidal display static images, although Apple has released APIs that could allow broader support later. Whether that happens will depend on the developers.
The Lock Screen becomes a stage
Music controls have lived on the Lock Screen for years, but they’ve always looked and felt like temporary overlays. The iOS 26 update treats them as part of the experience.
The screen adapts to the music you’re playing, not just the app it came from.
That change updates how music feels on the iPhone. The Lock Screen stops being a pause between interactions and becomes something more ambient and intentional.
For most people, this won’t change how they use their phone. But it might change how the phone feels in the quiet moments when music is the only thing happening.
The Lock Screen becomes a stage
Some users may wonder about battery life. Apple hasn’t said whether the animation can be disabled, but based on similar features in the past, a toggle is probably on the way.
Animated album art doesn’t change the way you listen to music. It changes how it looks and feels while you’re listening. That may seem small, but it’s part of a larger shift.
Apple wants the interface to respond more like a living surface than a stack of menus. If the Lock Screen used to be the background, iOS 26 turns it into a canvas.
