iOS 8.4 released

[AnemicOak]

Here's the release notes including some changes to iBooks...

Apple Music

• Become an Apple Music member to play from millions of songs in the Apple Music catalog, or keep them offline for playback later
• For You: Members can see playlist and album recommendations, handpicked by music experts
• New: Members can find the latest, greatest new music available – direct from our editors
• Radio: Tune in to music, interviews, and exclusive radio shows on Beats 1, play radio stations created by our editors or create your own from any artist or song
• Connect: See shared thoughts, photos, music, and videos from artists you follow, then join the conversation
• My Music: Play from all of your iTunes purchases, songs from Apple Music, and playlists in one place
• Completely redesigned music player that includes new features such as Recently Added, MiniPlayer, Up Next, and more
• iTunes Store: Still the best place to buy your favorite music—one song or album at a time.
• Availability and features may vary by country

iBooks improvements and fixes

• Browse, listen and download audiobooks from inside iBooks
• Enjoy the all-new Now Playing feature, designed specifically for audiobooks
• Books that are Made for iBooks now work on iPhone in addition to iPad
• Find and pre-order books in a series right from your library
• Improves accessibility of widgets, glossary and navigation in books made with iBooks Author
• New default Chinese font
• New setting to turn off Auto-Night theme in your library
• Resolves an issue that may have prevented Hide Purchases from working
• Resolves an issue that may have prevented downloading books from iCloud

Other improvements and bug fixes

• Fixes an issue where receiving a specific series of Unicode characters causes device to reboot
  
• Fixes an issue that prevented GPS accessories from providing location data
  
• Fixes an issue where deleted Apple Watch apps could re-install

[kyteflyer]

I don't suppose they added the capacity to alter margins in iBooks? I know... no...

[Jessica Lares]

The most important feature (IMO):

Settings > Music > Show Apple Music

I applaud Apple for putting that in.

The new music app is very overwhelming. Lots and lots of little things here and there are gone, and even if you've turned off the Apple Music stuff and are not signed in, it still presents your stuff as if you are and shows you icons that are unnecessary.

The new audiobook integration in iBooks is interesting though. It broke my playlist organization and you can't take advantage of the new "loved" button, but then now I actually have a reason to use the "Genre" field and can make the Categories tab work to my liking.

The controls are much nicer than those in the music app too. You can customize both forward/back skips separately, and by 10, 15, 30, 45, and 60 second intervals.

[kyteflyer]

Sounds awful.

[HarryT]

Nothing "Awful" about it. If you're not interested in the Apple Music service (which I'm not, personally), just do as Jessica says above: go to "Settings / Music" and set the "Show Apple Music" toggle to "Off". You then get an interface in the music app which is pretty much as before, except that the list of categories (Artist, Album, etc) is now a drop-down rather than a row of buttons, and there's a "Recently Added" carousel at the top of the page.

Even if you don't turn Apple Music off, all you have to do is tap the button saying "Goto My Music" to achieve the same result.

May I ask what specifically you think is awful?

[zhzubair5]

Good news to fix this issue in new update iPhone IOS 8.4
( Fixes an issue that prevented GPS accessories from providing location data )

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by zhzubair5

Good news to fix this issue in new update iPhone IOS 8.4
( Fixes an issue that prevented GPS accessories from providing location data )

Yes, I really missed that feature on my recent vacation to France.

Dale

[kyteflyer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

May I ask what specifically you think is awful?

Audiobook integration. Its a personal opinion and preference.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kyteflyer

Audiobook integration. Its a personal opinion and preference.

You think it's awful that Apple have integrated audiobooks into iBooks, or you don't like the sound (no pun intended) of how the integration has been done?

[Dylrob]

I'm going to avoid this update due to the fact that the new music app currently lacks support for Homesharing.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Dylrob

I'm going to avoid this update due to the fact that the new music app currently lacks support for Homesharing.

What is "Homesharing"?

[Dylrob]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What is "Homesharing"?

A feature that lets you stream music and videos from any computer on the same WiFi network running iTunes. It's been part of iOS and iTunes for years.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Dylrob

I'm going to avoid this update due to the fact that the new music app currently lacks support for Homesharing.

Then I think you'll never be updating iOS ever again.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You think it's awful that Apple have integrated audiobooks into iBooks, or you don't like the sound (no pun intended) of how the integration has been done?

It's just adding bloat to iBooks that we don't need. The thing is, the companies we do get audiobooks for already have an app. So this useless bloat Apple has added to iBooks is just worthless. All it does is waste storage with things we don't need and don't want. Now if Apple was to offer me a free storage update to my iPhone, I would happily take these new features and ignore them. It's hard to ignore them when you need to figure out what you need to delete because Apple has bloated iOS yet again.

[Dylrob]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Then I think you'll never be updating iOS ever again.

Well we don't know exactly why the feature has gone missing. It could be that they didn't have time to implement it in the new app, and it will return in 8.5 or 9, or it could be that this was done to "encourage" subscriptions. And even if it turns out to be the latter, Apple has been known to backpedal if there is enough backlash.