New Apple Music Swipe Gesture in iOS 26.1: How to Use It [2025 Update] (2025)

Apple Music is set to revolutionize how users interact with their music library in iOS 26.1. Users just got a ton of new features (https://9to5mac.com/2025/08/05/heres-everything-new-coming-to-apple-music-in-ios-26/) in iOS 26 last week, but it seems Apple has even more in the works for its next big iPhone update. iOS 26.1 arrived in beta today (https://9to5mac.com/2025/09/22/ios-26-1-beta-1-changes-everything-new/), and introduces a new swipe gesture for switching between tracks in Apple’s Music app.

iOS 26.1 beta lets you swipe on MiniPlayer to change tracks

Apple’s Music app in iOS 26 changed up the bottom of the screen where the MiniPlayer lives. Now, when the tab bar is collapsed, it gets merged into a single row with the MiniPlayer and search controls.

But despite the MiniPlayer now being smaller much of the time inside the Music app, it’s gaining a new feature in iOS 26.1. New in iOS 26.1 beta 1, you can now swipe left and right on the MiniPlayer to change tracks. This works whether the MiniPlayer is fully expanded above the tab bar, or shrunk down next to the tab bar.

The new swipe gesture feels great, aided by some nice Liquid Glass effects and a tap of haptic feedback when the track is changed. Swiping left advances to the next song in your queue, while swiping right goes back to the prior track. After very limited testing, the gesture became second nature to me. It’s a great alternative to using the standard seek controls in the Now Playing screen.

Do you think you’ll use the new swipe gesture in iOS 26.1 for Apple Music? What other gestures might be good additions? Let us know in the comments.

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