Apple Music, Apple Books, Apple Podcasts, and iTunes Gain New 'Best of 2018' Sections

This week, Apple shared a new press release that highlighted the best music, movies, television shows, podcasts, and books of 2018. With the announcement, Apple has now rolled out new sections in each service that highlight these pieces of media under an all-new "Best of 2018" category.

Throughout 2018 we’ve been celebrating the creativity of app developers, musicians, writers and storytellers across the Apple community. As the year draws to a close, we’re thrilled to highlight some of our favorites — and yours. https://t.co/7PWIMiEOdg

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) December 4, 2018

You can check out all of the new Best of 2018 collections in the Browse tabs of Apple Music and Apple Podcasts, and the Book Store tab of Apple Books. On iTunes, the section can be found by scrolling down a bit, underneath the New and Noteworthy category.


Starting with Apple Music, the central Browse tab has a few new cards today that celebrate the Artist of the Year (Drake), Album of the Year (Kacey Musgraves' "Golden Hour"), Song of the Year (Cardi B's "I Like It"), and Breakthrough Artist of the Year (Juice WRLD). Apple also accumulates all of this into a centralized Best of 2018 hub that breaks down each artist and album with text by Apple Music's editors.


This area also includes the new Best of 2018 Playlist, which Apple explains was created by dozens of Apple Music editors from all over the world and includes 100 of the best tracks of the year, across genres. There are also Top 100 playlists for the United States and Global, a full list of the top 100 most-streamed albums of the year, a look back at 2018's Up Next artists, and a Beats 1 Radio year-in-review special.

On iTunes, Apple has a Best of 2018 list with all of the movies and TV shows that dominated the year. Films include Black Panther (Movie of the Year), Annihilation, Crazy Rich Asians, Eighth Grade, Green Book, Hereditary, Incredibles 2, A Star is Born, and Won't You Be My Neighbor?


TV shows include Killing Eve, The Americans, Atlanta, Barry, The Expanse, The Good Fight, The Good Place, The Handmaid's Tale, Pose, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Over in Apple Books, Apple highlights An American Marriage, The Library Book, Educated, The Witch Elm, Light It Up, Too Wilde to Wed, When Life Gives You Lululemons, Spinning Silver, There There, and Harbor Me as the best reads of 2018.


The Audiobooks tab also has a Best of 2018 section, including An American Marriage, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Something in the Water, Long Road to Mercy, Becoming, Dare to Lead, Girl, Wash Your Face, Rebound, Calypso, and The Great Alone.

On the Browse tab of Apple Podcasts, a similar Best of 2018 collection can be found. For the best Podcasts of the year, Apple's Podcasts editors chose In the Dark, Caliphate, The Dream, Slow Burn, Dr. Death, Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, Bubble, Wolverine: The Long Night, 99% Invisible, Serial, Bundyville, This American Life, Revisionist History, and A Very Fatal Murder.

Apple also highlighted the Most Downloaded Shows of 2018 and Most Downloaded New Shows of 2018 in this section, including Podcasts like The Daily, Pod Save America, and Conspiracy Theories.

You can also check out the best iOS and macOS apps of the year, which we shared in a post last night. Some of the notable apps picked by Apple include Procreate Pocket, Gorogoa, Pixelmator Pro, and Alto's Odyssey.