Facebook Debuts 'Music Stories' on iOS for Better Album & Song Discovery

Facebook today announced a new feature for its iOS app called "Music Stories" that will allow users to sample 30-second clips of songs that their friends and family post to the social network from services like Apple Music, iTunes, and Spotify. Users will be able to stream the clip directly from their feed and even follow a link to purchase or add the music directly into their Apple Music or Spotify playlists.

There are few things people love more than music. People find out about it from artists and friends alike, and they love to share their discoveries. Today we are enabling better music discovery and sharing on Facebook.

We hope by making this experience better, artists will share more, friends will share and engage more, and music will become a better part of the Facebook experience overall.

The company promises that support for other streaming music services will be coming soon, and that it sees Music Stories as a way to further mold Facebook into a one-stop experience where users can get updates on friends, family, entertainment and political news, and now new song and album recommendations. Facebook didn't give any word on when the new music-centric feature would be making its way to other platforms like Android or the web.

Recently, the social network company faced a widespread issue of users reporting dramatic battery drain while the Facebook iOS ran in the background, even with background app refresh switched off. It has since repaired the issue, but left some Facebook users unsure of the company's intentions, like MacStories' Federico Vittici, who said the company had "a deep lack of respect for iOS users" when his hypothesis of silent background audio running to produce a snappier experience was proved to be correct.