How to Play Ambient Music on iPhone

One of the more interesting features to arrive on iPhone lately is the Ambient Music player, which, as the name implies, plays ambient music. This neat audio feature was introduced with iOS 18.4, and the Ambient Music Player offers four different ambient music types to play; Sleep, Chill, Productivity, and Wellbeing.

While the Ambient Music Player is free to use, and it seems to be related to Apple Music, it’s unique in that it doesn’t play through the Music app, nor is there a dedicated Ambient Music app to play through either. Instead, the Ambient Music Player on iPhone is mysteriously hidden as an optional part of Control Center, so it’s very easy to overlook or not even notice. Nonetheless, if you like subtle beats and music playing while you work, focus, or rest, you might appreciate and enjoy this feature, and you’ll want to take a moment to see how it works.

Read along and we’ll show you how to add the Ambient Music players to your iPhone Control Center for quick and easy access.

How to Access the Ambient Music Player on iPhone to Play Ambient Music

You’ll need to update your iPhone to iOS 18.4 or later to have access to this feature.

1. From anywhere on iPhone, swipe down from the top right corner to access Control Center, then tap on the + plus button in the corner



2. Now tap on “Add a Control” at the bottom of Control Center



3. Scroll in the control options to the “Ambient Music” section and tap to add each one of the ambient music types separately (there’s four, currently)



4. Arrange the Ambient Music toggles in Control Center as you wish to use them



5. Return to Control Center and tap on any of the Ambient Music buttons to start playing that type of ambient music

Once the Ambient Music Player is playing, if you tap on the Control Center playing widget, or directly on the Dynamic Island widget (for compatible iPhones), you’ll launch directly into an Ambient Music player app that is otherwise inaccessible by any other means. If you know of another way to launch into the Ambient Music Player app directly, share with us in the comments. The app looks a lot like Apple Music, but to be clear the Ambient Music Player is not Apple Music, and listening to and using the ambient music does not require Apple Music or an Apple Music subscription.

Once you’re in the Ambient Music Player app not-app mystery interface, you can use AirPlay to send the audio out to other speakers, skip forward and back tracks, and perform other actions that are typical of music and media players.

Any time you want to use or listen to ambient music with the Ambient Music Player, you’ll have to start the music session through Control Center as described above.

For the unfamiliar, Ambient Music is a distinct genre of music that is made to be atmospheric, eliciting a mood or feeling, instead of having a typical beat or melody. It’s intended to be peaceful and contemplative, often layering different sounds, which makes it enjoyable as background music for working, relaxing, thinking, sleeping, or whatever else you might want to do without distracting music.

Some of the most popular videos and music streams online are ambient music playlists for studying, relaxing, and focus, often having hundreds of millions or billions of listens, so perhaps this feature is aimed at filling that niche directly on iPhone, without having to use a third party app or be subjected to annoying YouTube ads every other minute.

As of this moment, the Ambient Music Player is only available through Control Center on iPhone with iOS 18.4 or later, but it’s likely this feature will move to other devices in the near future, and maybe even get it’s own dedicated app (since it already has an app interface of sorts, it wouldn’t be a stretch). It’s worth pointing out however that the HomePod and HomePod mini is able to play background sounds like white noise, rain, ocean, etc, and the iPhone, iPad, and Mac do have a separate “Background Sounds” white noise feature that is part of Accessibility options as well. With the obvious similarities between Background Sounds and Ambient Music Player, it wouldn’t be far fetched for these features to merge and be available in the same location, perhaps as a unique app that is available across the Apple ecosystem.

Do you like the Ambient Music player that is included with the latest iOS versions for iPhone? Do you plan on using this feature? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.