Apple released the fourth public beta of iOS 18 on Aug. 12, more than two months after the company announced the iPhone software at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June. The beta brings new features to the iPhones of developers and beta testers, like RCS messaging and T9 dialing. It also lets you use your iPhone to shoot video and play music at the same time, making it easier to shoot video for social media.
Before iOS 18, if you were playing music on your iPhone and started shooting a video, your music would stop playing. With iOS 18, you can queue up the right song and start rolling without issue, but I found a few issues with the feature.
Read more: Everything You Need to Know About the New Features in the iOS 18 Betas
Remember, iOS 18 is still in beta, and I recommend downloading a beta on something other than your primary device. Betas can be buggy and cause short battery life, and it's best to keep those problems on a secondary device. I download and test betas on an old iPhone XR in order to keep those issues away from my primary phone, an iPhone 14 Pro.
However, the beta isn't the final version of iOS 18. More features could be available on your iPhone when the software is released in the fall.
If you're testing the iOS 18 betas, here's what you should know about this new feature.
Do I need to enable a setting for this feature to work?
There is a setting, but you don't have to do anything once you update to iOS 18. After I downloaded the beta OS, this feature was enabled automatically. So as soon as you update you should be able to shoot a video without stopping your music.
What apps does this feature work with?
I tested this feature using the Music, Spotify and Podcast apps and was able to play music or audio from all three apps while recording a video. Those likely aren't all the apps the feature works with, though.
Will audio play when shooting screen recordings?
Unfortunately no. I played audio from the above apps and tried to screen record, but as soon as I started the recording the audio stopped.
How's the music quality on the videos?
Honestly, not great. In my time using the feature, the music sounded distant and hollow. Apple writes in the setting's description that the audio is played through your iPhone's speaker and then recorded in mono using your iPhone's on-device microphone, which is probably why the quality isn't good.
On-device microphones can work in environments with few external sounds -- like an interview in a quiet room -- but they usually result in subpar quality with more complex sounds or in noisy environments. According to the captioning company Ava, on-device microphones generally don't offer the same sound capture capabilities as external microphones, which can result in poorer audio quality.
Additionally, recording something in mono compresses the audio elements and can cause things to sound flat and less dynamic, according to audio equipment manufacturer Sonos.
But if the music quality in your videos bugs you, there's a way to turn this feature off.
How to stop music in the background of videos on iPhone
1. Go to Settings.
2. Tap Camera.
3. Tap Record Sound.
4. Toggle off Allow Audio Playback.
Now when you record a video, your iPhone will pause any music or audio from playing until you're finished recording.
Again, iOS 18 is still beta so Apple could improve this feature before it's released to the general public this fall. There will likely be more betas before the OS is released, so there's plenty of time for Apple to address any issues. As of now, there's no word on an exact date when Apple will release iOS 18 to the general public.
For more on iOS 18, here's my hands-on experience with the public betas, all the ways you can customize your home screen in iOS 18 and our iOS 18 cheat sheet.
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