Apple released iOS 18 to the general public on Sept. 16, a week after the company announced its new iPhone 16 lineup, Apple Watch Series 10 and more at its Glowtime event. The update brings new features to the iPhone, 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, but I found a few issues with the feature.
Read more: iOS 18 Brings These New Features to Your iPhone
Here's what you need to know about this new camera 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 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?
Yes. I played audio from the above listed apps and tried to screen record, and music was also recorded while I recorded the screen. When iOS 18 was in beta, you couldn't do a screen recording while playing music, but now you can.
How's the audio quality on the videos?
The audio quality for screen recordings is pretty good. The audio is fairly clear without much -- if any -- distortion. However, if you are shooting a video and recording music at the same time, your audio quality will take a dive.
In my time using the feature, the music sounded distant and hollow, and depending on how loud I played music through my iPhone it could sound very distorted. 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 so 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 recording 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.
For more on iOS 18, here's my iOS 18 review, all the ways you can customize your home screen in iOS 18 and our iOS 18 cheat sheet. You can also check out everything Apple announced at its September event.
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