After years of resisting I finally joined Spotify - I can’t believe how poorly designed it is

[TH55]

For starters it is visually very cluttered and not easy on the eyes. The black backdrop makes it very difficult to see, and the user interface is just not very smooth or clean whatsoever. When you play a song, it will stop after that song or play it again unless you manually configure it to start a station based on that song. Idiotic for the leading streaming service. I got a new debit card and can’t for the life of me figure out how to update my payment information. Yes I’ve searched it and no help.

All of this would be forgivable, however if not for this one major flaw - Whenever you search for a song or artist if you are one word or letter off it will come up no results. This is absolutely inexcusable in 2020 for a search based app to have an essentially useless search engine. Horrible. Almost every app that has a search function has some sort of “smart” feature that attempts to guess what you are looking for or give you the most likely results. I am considering switching back to Pandora, although I fear Spotify might unfortunately be the only option.

 

[0128672]

All of this would be forgivable, however if not for this one major flaw - Whenever you search for a song or artist if you are one word or letter off it will come up no results. This is absolutely inexcusable in 2020 for a search based app to have an essentially useless search engine. Horrible. Almost every app that has a search function has some sort of “smart” feature that attempts to guess what you are looking for or give you the most likely results. I am considering switching back to Pandora, although I fear Spotify might unfortunately be the only option.

I haven't found any search issues, so not sure what you mean. Maybe you could give a specific example. Here's a couple test examples: instead of typing Khruangbin correctly, I typed kurua and it brought up Khruangbin and other results. I tested searching for Beethoven by typing behthv, and it brought up Beethoven and other results. I look for some pretty obscure stuff at times by artist/album/song, and unless it's not on Spotify, it's pretty easy to find.

 

[TH55]

I haven't found any search issues, so not sure what you mean. Maybe you could give a specific example. Here's a couple test examples: instead of typing Khruangbin correctly, I typed kurua and it brought up Khruangbin and other results. I tested searching for Beethoven by typing behthv, and it brought up Beethoven and other results. I look for some pretty obscure stuff at times by artist/album/song, and unless it's not on Spotify, it's pretty easy to find.

Hmm not sure why it isn’t working for me

 

[maerz001]

I don’t have the search problem.

if u have a list of songs it will not stop playing.

 

[mjschabow]

I tend to agree but from a different perspective. I’m huge into managing a large library and I don’t like how Spotify manages the library, specifically if you have several albums by one artist. A lot of scrolling because there’s no way to condense the songs and scroll by album icons like you can in Apple Music.

Sorry if I didn’t explain that well. I’m really hungover right now.

 

[TH55]

I don’t have the search problem.

if u have a list of songs it will not stop playing.

You shouldn’t have to have a playlist, it should play similar songs automatically that’s the whole point of streaming music

 

[0128672]

You shouldn’t have to have a playlist, it should play similar songs automatically that’s the whole point of streaming music

Just enable the Autoplay setting and it will play similar songs. Works great.

 

[TH55]

Just enable the Autoplay setting and it will play similar songs. Works great.

Cool thanks. How about the search issue?

 

[0128672]

Cool thanks. How about the search issue?

What about the search issue you're having? A couple of us have already responded to you that it's not a problem for us. Without the specifics of what you tried searching for, it's a little hard to help you troubleshoot.

 

[bluecoast]

In my experience both AM and Spotify have flaws/quirks.

Spotify is designed around single songs and playlists - algorithmically generated & user generated mostly with a few editorial playlist.

Whereas Apple Music respects the traditional album format much more and emphasises editorial playlists.

And of course AM has proper radio stations (which leaves me cold) and Spotify is branching out into podcasts (which I don’t want to listen to via Spotify).

Both are terrible at letting downloaded music exist alongside their cloud services. They would rather you not have this.

Although Apple Music is better than Spotify - though when I last tried it iCloud music library replaced many of my much loved MP3 songs with wrong / different versions without giving me a choice.

Whether you like them or not is like choosing between Pepsi or Coke IMHO. I’d say that Spotify probably is closer to how millennials consume music whereas AM has a more traditional feel.

 

[levander]

What I’ve always heard about Spotify is the algorithms it uses to suggest songs for you is far superior to what you’ll find on any other service. Not just better than Apple Music, but also better than Pandora, Google Music, etc..

No one’s mentioned that in this thread. Do people here find that to be true?

it’s mostly millennials who work at local restaurants who have told me that.

 

[TH55]

What I’ve always heard about Spotify is the algorithms it uses to suggest songs for you is far superior to what you’ll find on any other service. Not just better than Apple Music, but also better than Pandora, Google Music, etc..

No one’s mentioned that in this thread. Do people here find that to be true?

it’s mostly millennials who work at local restaurants who have told me that.

It seems to do a good job of this, but the search function and sloppy GUI sort of kill the experience for me

 

[0128672]

It seems to do a good job of this, but the search function and sloppy GUI sort of kill the experience for me

If Spotify isn't your preference, what will you be using instead?

 

[levander]

It seems to do a good job of this, but the search function and sloppy GUI sort of kill the experience for me

if you think Spotify’s is bad, you should try Google’s with their Google Play app and their YouTube Music app. I watch YouTube more than I watch regular television. So I pay the $10/month to get rid of ads. With that $10/month, you also get access to Google’s music service. So I’m too cheap to pay for another music service because I already have one through Google.

But their apps are horrendous. So much clicking around to find what you want. And even though I’ve been using the app for over a year, I still have to look at it to figure things out. I could get into specifics about why I don’t like the app. But don’t want to hiajck this thread complaining about Google.

I don’t blame you for being a perfectionist and wanting things that make sense to you. Why Spotify doesn’t release a second app that appeals to people who are more interested in albums like yourself is beyond me. They very well could just have two apps. The second app would probably share 85% of the code base with their existing app. Just realize that you’re being picky. The Spotify app works well. It just doesn’t work the way you want it to. And when you’re bring that picky, it’s hard to find the perfect app. Just try a few services, and settle for the one that’s annoys you the least. The reason the Google one annoys me the least is because it’s basically free to me. It’s included with my YouTube subscription which I would be paying for with or without the music service.

 

[TH55]

If Spotify isn't your preference, what will you be using instead?

I’m stuck w Spotify I have no better option, as sad as that is

 

[TH55]

if you think Spotify’s is bad, you should try Google’s with their Google Play app and their YouTube Music app. I watch YouTube more than I watch regular television. So I pay the $10/month to get rid of ads. With that $10/month, you also get access to Google’s music service. So I’m too cheap to pay for another music service because I already have one through Google.

But their apps are horrendous. So much clicking around to find what you want. And even though I’ve been using the app for over a year, I still have to look at it to figure things out. I could get into specifics about why I don’t like the app. But don’t want to hiajck this thread complaining about Google.

I don’t blame you for being a perfectionist and wanting things that make sense to you. Why Spotify doesn’t release a second app that appeals to people who are more interested in albums like yourself is beyond me. They very well could just have two apps. The second app would probably share 85% of the code base with their existing app. Just realize that you’re being picky. The Spotify app works well. It just doesn’t work the way you want it to. And when you’re bring that picky, it’s hard to find the perfect app. Just try a few services, and settle for the one that’s annoys you the least. The reason the Google one annoys me the least is because it’s basically free to me. It’s included with my YouTube subscription which I would be paying for with or without the music service.

What are you talking about? You obviously didn’t read my OP, I specifically said I DON’T want the album, I want it to automatically play songs similar to each one I play. How on earth did you get that I want an album oriented app from that?

And I’m not being picky or a perfectionist at all to expect basic functionality and user friendliness from the world’s leading music app, they have all of the resources and money in the world to perfect it, there’s no excuse. It’s really pathetic how bad most software is from all of these industry giants. Like I said I’m not sure what these other people are talking about the search function is absolute garbage.

 

[ian87w]

For starters it is visually very cluttered and not easy on the eyes. The black backdrop makes it very difficult to see, and the user interface is just not very smooth or clean whatsoever. When you play a song, it will stop after that song or play it again unless you manually configure it to start a station based on that song. Idiotic for the leading streaming service. I got a new debit card and can’t for the life of me figure out how to update my payment information. Yes I’ve searched it and no help.

All of this would be forgivable, however if not for this one major flaw - Whenever you search for a song or artist if you are one word or letter off it will come up no results. This is absolutely inexcusable in 2020 for a search based app to have an essentially useless search engine. Horrible. Almost every app that has a search function has some sort of “smart” feature that attempts to guess what you are looking for or give you the most likely results. I am considering switching back to Pandora, although I fear Spotify might unfortunately be the only option.

I agree that the UI needs work. Whenever I'm on a song, it's not intuitive wanting to go to the Album or Artist of the song, at least for me. I feel that Spotify intentionally design their UI that way to encourage people to just use their curated playlists/station like you said. Ie. they want user to not individually search for specific artist/album/songs, but instead simply use their curated playlist and use the rating system for their algorithm.