Apple released iOS 18 in September, and the update brought a lot of new features to your iPhone, like RCS messaging and the ability to customize your home screen. The update also gave you the ability to shoot videos and play music at the same time. This should make it easier to post videos to social media, but I was disappointed with the feature on older iPhones.
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.
Read more: An Expert’s Guide to iOS 18
Here’s what you need to know about this new camera feature and how to disable it if you don’t like it.
Do I need to enable this feature for it to work?
This setting should be enabled automatically, but you can find it in Settings too. After I downloaded the OS, this feature was already enabled. So once 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.
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 with all iPhones is pretty good. The audio is fairly clear without much — if any — distortion. If you are shooting a video and recording music at the same time, your audio quality could take a dive depending on which iPhone you have.
I tested the feature on an iPhone 16 Pro and an iPhone 14 Pro and results were mixed. The audio on the 16 Pro was a little distorted at higher volumes, but using the feature at lower volumes was bearable if you don’t mind your audio being a little flat. On the other hand, the audio on the 14 Pro was abysmal. The music sounded distant and hollow, and depending on how loud I played music through my iPhone it could sound garbled or unintelligible.
Apple writes in the Allow Audio Playback 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 audio quality suffers.
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 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.
Luckily, 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 what you need to know about iOS 18.3.1 and iOS 18.3. You can also check out our iOS 18 cheat sheet.
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