Chill out with ambient tunes

Use Apple's new Ambient Music option on iPad and iPhone

- CARRIE MARSHALL

REQUIRES 

iPadOS 18.4 or later

YOU WILL LEARN

How to use Ambient Music on iPad

IT WILL TAKE

10 minutes

GENIUS TIP

You can play Ambient Music at the same time as Background Sounds to make your soundtrack even more soothing. Both are in Control Center.

IF YOU'VE RECENTLY upgraded your iPad to iPadOS 18.4, you’ll be pleased to discover new music features tucked away in Control Center. Those features give you multiple ambient music playlists that you can use to relax or to provide a soundtrack for whatever you’re doing — and while they’re Apple Music playlists, you don’t need an Apple Music subscription to listen. Ambient music is all about creating an atmosphere; its job is to help you relax or concentrate, or to set a mood, rather than grab your attention. That means you’ll rarely hear vocals or surprising musical shifts.

CONTROL THE CHILL

The four playlists are Sleep, Chill, Productivity, and Wellbeing, and the music they play reflects their purpose — so, for example, you don’t get the beats and guitars of Productivity in the Sleep playlist. Each of those playlists can be customized, so if the default piano—based Chill playlist isn’t quite chilled enough for you, you can select from Ambient Chill, Lo-Fi Jazz, or Pure Chill instead.

That’s not all. You can also choose from your own Apple Music playlists if you want the controls to deliver your own musical choices rather than Apple’s.