Can You Change Playback Speed On Apple Music?

Apple’s streaming service Apple Music is the continuation of iTunes and a major competitor to Spotify.

It’s a standard offering for iPhone users as the Music app is the default audio playback application on iPads and iPhones.

That means Apple users are destined to spend a lot of time using the Music app. 

Given enough time, you may find yourself with a massive music library and an audiobook or podcast collection. 

Can You Change Playback Speed On Apple Music?

There are ways to change the playback speed on the Music app. Unfortunately, they are only available for audiobooks. If you want to play your music at different speeds, you will need to download purchased content and use an alternative music player from the App Store such as Flacbox.

As there are a few different reasons to want to control the playback speed of your audio, third-party developers are filling the demand. 

Whether you are looping audio for track creation, speeding up a podcast or audiobook to save time, or investigating recordings, you’ll need to do a bit of digging on which alternative is the best fit.

The good news is that most of these apps have free trials or free versions.

As for Apple, the Music app only supports the standard options which are play/pause, forward, and reverse. 

If you double-tap either the reverse/rewind or forward symbols, the Music app will skip either back or forward one song on the playlist.

The reason Apple has chosen to exclude playback speed options for music is that music was recorded and finished the way it was meant to be heard. 

For most audio listeners, this is a perfectly acceptable position.

However, there are people who need the ability to speed up, slow down, and loop sections of audio for study, investigatory purposes, and audio remixing.

How To Adjust Playback Speed in Apple Music?

You can only change the playback speed of audiobooks or podcasts in Apple’s Music app. 

For audiobooks, all you need to do is locate the “1x Speed” on the bottom right corner. 

If you tap this option, it will cycle through playback speeds. 

The first tap will change it to twice the regular speed. 

The second time will change it to half regular speed.

The third tap will change it back to the default setting.Podcasts will play through the Podcast app. 

This apps player also has an option labeled “1x”. Tapping this setting will cycle from 1x(regular speed) to 1.5x (50% faster than regular speed) to 2x (twice regular speed) and back 1x.

For other audio files than audiobooks, you can try out one of these Apps from the App store:

• Audipo
• Musicbox
• VLC Player
• Nu Music
• YaPlayer
• Repeat&Speed Player

There are still plenty of others to choose from if you just do a little bit of digging. 

How Do You Slow Down Music on Apple Music?

Slowing down music is not possible through the Music app. 

You can only adjust the playback speed settings of audiobooks through the Apple Music. 

If you want to listen to songs slower, I would recommend trying one of the music player alternatives listed in the previous section. 

Every one of them has the ability to control playback speed from 0.5x, 1x, 1.5x, 2x, and even up to 5x.

If you want your audio files to play slower, you will be looking for a music player with a 0.5x speed. 

Anything under 1x is slower than regular. 

If you are using a desktop, there are countless audio programs to help get the job done. 

You can opt for a beefier media player like VLC or an audio editor like Audacity.

How Do You Speed Up Playback on Apple Music?

Speeding up the speed of audio is still a playback speed option that is not available on the Music app except for audiobooks.

If you want to speed up your audio playback, I will once again have to refer you to use one of the apps or programs listed in the previous sections.

A fully Apple-supported app that can achieve this is Garage Band. 

If you want to be able to browse through your media library, I would recommend a VLC player.

VLC player is a long-running media player that sports all the extra bells and whistles you could ask for. 

The only category it falls short in is the user interface.

The placement of playback controls and options are great, but the graphic skins are incredibly basic and a little boring.

There are other alternatives that may be more visually appealing to you. 

The best way to search through the app store selection is by using the keywords “media player” or “music player”. 

The features you are asking for will be labeled as playback speed control.

If you want to save some time, start with the list I’ve already made in the second section of this article.

How Do You Change the Speed of Music on iPhone?

iPhone’s default music player, Apple Music, does not support playback speed controls for any audio file other than audiobooks. However, other apps do. 

I’ve made a list of apps and programs in the article above. 

Some of Apple’s other applications that support playback speed control are the Podcasts app and Garage Band. 

It is very common for podcast listeners to increase the playback speed to 1.5x or 2x. 

As the content is mostly personal conversations, speeding up the audio can help to get a lot of information more efficiently.

FAQ

Why doesn’t the Music app allow me to control the playback speed?

Apple has a long history with audio. 

From the early days of iTune and the iPod to the current streaming services available, Apple has made a commitment to quality. 

This means that the software is designed to maintain audio quality and integrity for the purpose that it was intended. 

For music, that means consistent quality and a 1x speed playback.

While it may seem like a trivial thing to add playback speed controls and other features, there are more elements to consider for app design and use than specific actions. 

The Music app was intended to be the main player for music and streaming on Apple products like the iPhone and macOS.

Design decisions were made to keep the design simple, familiar, and straight to the point. 

Playback speed was considered to be an extra detail for listening to music. 

However, audiobooks have the playback speed control options.

It is far more common for audiobook listeners to increase the speed of an audiobook. 

Some readers articulate slowly and the core content is not lost when the audio speed is increased. 

On the other end, some speakers have a habit of quickly sliding words together. 

In this case, the half speed playback option can help to dissect what you may have misheard.

What’s the best app to control audio playback speed for iPhone?

If you are not attempting to be an audio engineer, the best app overall in terms of functionality for playback speed of your digital media library is VLC Player. 

It has a wide range of audio codecs that make it able to play any audio file and works for video files as well.

It includes playback speed controls, playlists creation, and more.

VLC Player is first and foremost a utility application. 

If you want your media player app to look flashy, VLC isn’t the option for you. 

I would recommend Flacbox as an alternative.