iOS 17.2 Beta 4 was released last week. The collaborative playlist was removed for unknown reasons, but now it appears that it was a deliberate move, not a bug.

Apple has released iOS 17.2 RC to developer beta and public beta users, suggesting that the final version of the update may be available fairly soon. Unfortunately, the Apple Music collaboration list feature is still missing. This means that it will not debut in iOS 17.2 as originally promised.

According to code seen by 9to5MacApple appears to have dropped the feature due to spam and abuse concerns. Apparently the feature is still under development, but special precautions will be taken to reduce this type of issue. This includes a limit on the number of "pending requests" a playlist owner can have.

It is not clear what kind of abuse Apple is trying to curb. The collaborative playlist setup required switching on the ability for users to approve who can and cannot be responsible for one part; as in the 2020 zoom bombing trend, not turning this on means that anyone with a link can access your playlist and potentially ruin it.

That could include non-stop spamming of songs to your playlist or selecting specific titles designed to upset or offend. There is no reason why these horrible people would not be inventive in their attempts to push your buttons. Obviously, though, Apple could prevent much of this from happening by locking playlists by default or providing additional features to block certain users. [This is disappointing news, especially considering that the collaborative playlist was announced at WWDC in June. It was never intended to be released at launch as part of iOS 17, but it was supposed to arrive by the end of the year.

That doesn't appear to be happening, at least for the general public. iOS 17.2 will likely be the last major update this year. If anything else is released before January 1, it will likely be bug fixes or security-centric issues, not brand new features.

Therefore, the collaboration list may return as part of iOS 17.3.