iOS 27.2 beta 4 swaps Apple Music's red icon for black-and-white

Apple is pushing Apple Music further from its red branding. In the fourth developer beta of iOS 27.2, the Music app icon turns black and white, and more of the in-app chrome follows suit. MacRumors, 9to5Mac, and AppleInsider all spotted the change after Apple seeded the build on October 13.

This is a separate step from the lowercase Apple Music wordmark that landed in iOS 27.2 beta 3. That update refreshed the logo lettering; beta 4 changes the Home Screen icon itself and strips more red from the app.

What changed in beta 4

• App icon: in light mode, a black music note sits on a white background; in dark mode, a white note sits on black. The familiar red tile is gone in this build.
• Tab bar: the selected navigation tab uses a blue accent instead of the previous red or pink highlight.
• Widgets: Music widgets move to a black background rather than the iconic red or pink one.
• Library: section rows such as Playlists, Albums, Artists, and Songs lose their color and go monochrome, according to 9to5Mac.

Taken together, the beta looks less like a one-off icon swap and more like Apple phasing red out of Apple Music's visual system.

How it fits the wider rebrand

The monochrome icon arrives after Apple introduced a heavier, lowercase "music" wordmark on the Apple Music Hall site and later in beta 3. Marketing materials and Instagram Reels have already used the new mark. The Home Screen icon was the last major red holdout inside the app's everyday UI.

Anything in a developer beta can still change before release. Separately, AppleInsider and MacRumors note that the redesigned Health app that showed up in earlier 27.2 betas is pulled from beta 4, with Apple saying that redesign will arrive later in 2026.

MacRumors has previously expected iOS 27.2 to ship not long after iPhone Duo goes on sale on October 23, since Apple promised more Siri AI languages in October. If the monochrome Music treatment sticks, most people will see it in that public release rather than through an announcement.

Apple Music costs $11.99 a month on its own in the U.S. and remains part of Apple One. For more, see our Apple Music coverage.

Sources

• MacRumors, Juli Clover, "iOS 27.2 Adds New Apple Music Icon," October 13, 2026
• 9to5Mac, Ryan Christoffel, "iOS 27.2 adds new app icon for Apple Music, more design updates," October 13, 2026
• AppleInsider, Marko Zivkovic, "New in iOS 27.2 beta 4: Apple Health, Apple Music changes," October 13, 2026