From Comebacks to Discovery: Apple Music Replay 2025 Breaks Down Your Year
Apple has officially rolled out the comprehensive 2025 edition of its year-in-review experience, Apple Music Replay, giving subscribers a detailed look at their listening habits over the last 12 months.
The update brings the full Replay experience directly into the Apple Music app, leveraging the new capabilities of iOS 26 to compete directly with rival campaigns like Spotify Wrapped.
What’s New in 2025?
While Apple Music has provided monthly Replay playlists throughout the year, the year-end edition unlocks a deeper layer of analytics. This year, Apple has introduced three distinct metrics to help users understand their relationship with their favourite artists:
- Discovery: Highlights new artists that users found and engaged with for the first time in 2025.
- Loyalty: Showcases the artists that users have consistently listened to year after year.
- Comebacks: Identifies artists who had dropped out of a user’s rotation but made a significant return to their listening habits this year.
Key Features
The 2025 Replay experience continues to offer the staple features users have come to expect:
- Highlight Reel: A social-media-ready video presentation designed for sharing on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, summarising top artists, songs, and genres.
- The Year-End Playlist: A definitive ranking of the user’s most-played songs of 2025.
- Replay All Time: A multi-year playlist that aggregates a user’s most-loved tracks since they first subscribed to the service.
- Detailed Stats: Users can view their total minutes of listening time, the total number of artists played, and their top genres.
Availability and Integration
Starting with iOS 26, Apple has made Replay a fully native experience within the Apple Music app. It is currently featured prominently in the Home and New tabs. Users who prefer a desktop experience or are on older devices can still access their stats via the web portal at replay.music.apple.com.
To mark the launch, Apple is also hosting a special exhibit celebrating the music of 2025 during Miami Art Week.
Industry Context
The release comes amid the annual “year-in-music” season, where streaming giants vie for social media dominance. Apple’s updates to Replay 2025, specifically the “social-first” Highlight Reel and deeper loyalty metrics, aim to close the viral gap with Spotify Wrapped and the recently updated YouTube Recap.
For further context on the competition, refer to our earlier report on YouTube Recap 2025, which details their launch of “viewer personality” cards and expanded video analytics.
In tandem with the consumer release, Apple also updated the Apple Music for Artists app, providing musicians with their own set of Replay metrics, including data on listenership growth and year-over-year performance summaries.
