Why the hell does the best company in the world have the worst music streaming service in the universe? Why does a company that is famous for its good user interface have this element completely screwed up in Apple Music? I don't get it.
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Apple Music Apple Music – by far the worst music streaming service
- Thread starter Xenobius
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My honest opinion, and this is not sarcasm or anything else, is that you either get it or you don't. I don't get it, personally. Going all the way back to my first use of iTunes and my iPod around 2004, it make no sense at all. My friend, an Apple guy going back to the Apple ][, sat with me and spent an hour or so explaining how it worked. While I eventually learned how to do it, it was still just insane. He couldn't understand why I couldn't grasp something so simple because, to him, it was the most intuitive thing he'd ever used.
I believe that if you think like Apple does, then it's wonderfully intuitive and the system almost reads your mind. If you don't think that way, then all the software does is just get in your way and stops you from doing what should be the most basic of things.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective), your brain processes similar to mine, and find it horribly frustrating. My children (14 & 16) flow through it like they were born to it. I'm learning how to use Music by rote, but any slight interface change, and I'm back to utter and complete frustration.
The main reason I have this opinion, is I'll start to complain about something like playlists and libraries, and they'll finish my rant for me, knowing exactly what happened and tell me that's how it should work, not the silly way I want to use the software.
I believe that if you think like Apple does, then it's wonderfully intuitive and the system almost reads your mind. If you don't think that way, then all the software does is just get in your way and stops you from doing what should be the most basic of things.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective), your brain processes similar to mine, and find it horribly frustrating. My children (14 & 16) flow through it like they were born to it. I'm learning how to use Music by rote, but any slight interface change, and I'm back to utter and complete frustration.
The main reason I have this opinion, is I'll start to complain about something like playlists and libraries, and they'll finish my rant for me, knowing exactly what happened and tell me that's how it should work, not the silly way I want to use the software.
Everything in Apple Music sucks except the quality of the music. Just look at Spotify or Tidal. These services have beautiful, intuitive, thoughtful interfaces. Plus great algorithms that suggest the music of your choice.
I have family plan and nobody in my family uses Apple Music, even though they have it for free. They all pay extra for Spotify. After more than a year of using Apple Music I still miss Tidal, which I used before. I have never, I repeat - NEVER - heard from any friend that Apple Music is cool.
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Maybe I don't get it because I'm not a coder. Probably Apple Music prototype interface was 'designed' by a drunk coder and by some miracle or by accident this first draft stayed in the final product. At the moment I can find no other explanation.
I don't know. I write code for a living, but it's mostly front end database linkage to what's effectively a Pick system, so it's all pretty ancient. It's Windows, but migrated from green screens. Last week I found comments going back to 1988. Yes, the year nineteen hundred and eighty eight. To be fair, I don't get most modern interfaces anyway. It's never clear if an icon means "this feature on", or "click to turn feature on". My kids tell me it's because I'm old, but I'm only 56 and a quarter.
Either way, I still stand by my Apple world view opinion. What they do either suits your workflow perfectly or is a giant steaming pile. There doesn't seem to be middle ground. We appear to be in the sizable minority.
For me the problem is that over the decades I painfully copied my vinyl, my CDs, SACDs and purchases from Bandcamp and the likes and often manually fixed the tags or changed them to suit my preferences. Back when the Music app was still called iTunes, the UI started being gradually worsened to the point where right now I couldn't say whether the "artists" selection sorts by album artist or not, and I cannot find the setting anywhere. It's apparently gone now. There is one artist I have correctly tagged, yet their in the artists overview with a separate entry for each album, three entries in total, for no particular reason. For some cases removing the artist from the library and following the "have you tried turning it off and on again" approach works to fix it.
Once you start using the streaming functionality, the music client mixes together local music and streaming - I had to restore an AFPS snapshot to undo how Apple started messing up the tags of the local library. And forget the feature where your library will automatically be available on all other devices - the tags are destroyed and the music itself is in some cases replaced with a different version. So you'll listen to a specific version of a song, perhaps an iconic live recording, and suddenly a recording of a completely different live show will play. Of course album art will also be shuffled around.
The reason for this is that Apple doesn't actually use your library, in order to sync it to other devices it just takes your tags, tries to match them to whatever Apple's got and I found the recording quality of the 2022 streaming is worse than the CD from the 80s, because it was a rare SACD version or something. Some of my albums I literally have in a dozen different versions, for example Pink Floyd, for many of their albums I have the initial vinyl release, then some anniversary editions, remasters, high resolution remasters... Apple Music takes all the carefully sorted albums apart and puts them back together in Frankenstein fashion.
I didn't get much time to try out the actual streaming - since I had to revert everything so that my local library isn't destroyed. It mostly seemed to do what Spotify does, play something and they'll suggest similar music and generate you playlists. It works, but the UI is cumbersome, I couldn't figure out a way of finding music that wasn't annoying. But I admit that's probably a me-problem, since I have the same issues with Spotify and they're supposedly much better at this. Finally, Apple Music in the past asked artists to give their music away for free during the user's trial periods, which is shameful.
If there was a separate streaming client I'd give it another try, but it's incompatible with local libraries and switching profiles in the Music client just doesn't work properly (it will set a wrong library folder, it will try to "reorganize" the folde upon correcting it, it will often not let me switch libraries at all saying it is being used with my iPhone, requiring a MacOS reboot and so on).
In any case, their marketing ""Play your entire music library on all your devices" initially got me interested and it simply doesn't work. It can't work, since I got quite a chunk of my music from CDs that local artists were handing out, never to be found in a store. For Apple that music doesn't exist. If they have an album at all, they'll have exactly one version of it and if it's the bad quality remaster instead of the original? Tough luck.
Once you start using the streaming functionality, the music client mixes together local music and streaming - I had to restore an AFPS snapshot to undo how Apple started messing up the tags of the local library. And forget the feature where your library will automatically be available on all other devices - the tags are destroyed and the music itself is in some cases replaced with a different version. So you'll listen to a specific version of a song, perhaps an iconic live recording, and suddenly a recording of a completely different live show will play. Of course album art will also be shuffled around.
The reason for this is that Apple doesn't actually use your library, in order to sync it to other devices it just takes your tags, tries to match them to whatever Apple's got and I found the recording quality of the 2022 streaming is worse than the CD from the 80s, because it was a rare SACD version or something. Some of my albums I literally have in a dozen different versions, for example Pink Floyd, for many of their albums I have the initial vinyl release, then some anniversary editions, remasters, high resolution remasters... Apple Music takes all the carefully sorted albums apart and puts them back together in Frankenstein fashion.
I didn't get much time to try out the actual streaming - since I had to revert everything so that my local library isn't destroyed. It mostly seemed to do what Spotify does, play something and they'll suggest similar music and generate you playlists. It works, but the UI is cumbersome, I couldn't figure out a way of finding music that wasn't annoying. But I admit that's probably a me-problem, since I have the same issues with Spotify and they're supposedly much better at this. Finally, Apple Music in the past asked artists to give their music away for free during the user's trial periods, which is shameful.
If there was a separate streaming client I'd give it another try, but it's incompatible with local libraries and switching profiles in the Music client just doesn't work properly (it will set a wrong library folder, it will try to "reorganize" the folde upon correcting it, it will often not let me switch libraries at all saying it is being used with my iPhone, requiring a MacOS reboot and so on).
In any case, their marketing ""Play your entire music library on all your devices" initially got me interested and it simply doesn't work. It can't work, since I got quite a chunk of my music from CDs that local artists were handing out, never to be found in a store. For Apple that music doesn't exist. If they have an album at all, they'll have exactly one version of it and if it's the bad quality remaster instead of the original? Tough luck.
I see. 🤔
So EVERYTHING sucks. But you are wrong. Everthing at Spotify sucks, even the music.
Maybe I’m one of those people who gets it. I’ve sincerely never understood what people have to complain about. The only issue I have is the furnishing of new music. I find Apple’s recommendations to be garbage. But other than that, I don’t have any real problem with it. I don’t see how there could be a problem. If I can make my own playlists, download my own playlists, download other peoples playlists, search for music, I just don’t understand what the problem would be, besides telling me that it’s garbage, could someone specifically with actual words explain to me how people find it to be so terrible? I honestly would like to know. Maybe I would not like to know because then I won’t be able to unsee it.
Edit: I guess I’m reading some comments about their own music library……. Ok. But if I had an extensive music library, I don’t know that I would be worried about a streaming service, or I could just use those streaming services to access those other albums or songs…
Maybe I just treat music as music instead of a hobby. I listen to stuff for mood and background and occasionally really listen to a song or two closely. I don’t do music theory or care too much about the artists development etc. maybe that’s where the problems lie?
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I was on a free trial of Apple Music last year and still had two months to go when I discovered this issue. That very night I cancelled the free trial and began looking for a less awful Spotify alternative.
I've been using Apple products my whole life, but with greater frequency after 2004. Apple Music was by far the least satisfying Apple product experience I've ever had. But to be fair, I did not have an iPad 3 or use Ping.
Apple advertises that you can use your own library on all devices with Apple Music, so their streaming service specifically caters to people that already have a library. Also, I don't necessarily want to mix the two, I'd like a separate streaming service to discover new music, which isn't possible here since I can't prevent the streaming and my local library being mixed together.
I would be interested in that too, don't get me wrong I think the UI is trash, but I feel the same way about Spotify, and that is supposedly much better. I do wonder what Apple does even worse in that regard.
I love Apple Music.
It badly needs a customisable equaliser though or a dynamic equaliser. The factory presets are terrible.
It badly needs a customisable equaliser though or a dynamic equaliser. The factory presets are terrible.
I abandoned Apple Music a long time ago, but revisited it recently to try lossless. I was surprised how the interface is slow compared to Spotify. Then I couldn't find a song because I mistyped one letter, so I uninstalled the app. Just those two things are enough to switch right away. Slow? Uninstall. No song found? Same thing.
I don't know why Apple sucks so much with its new apps, features and even OSs. I doubt their engineers got worse. It's rather poor decision-making on a higher level.
I don't know why Apple sucks so much with its new apps, features and even OSs. I doubt their engineers got worse. It's rather poor decision-making on a higher level.
I guess I'm weird because I dumped Spotify for the reason that Spotify's UI had just turned to unintuitive garbage as they tried to make it a one stop shop for everything (with an overbearing emphasis on podcasts). Well that and they paid big money to some high profile very problematic podcasters but that's another story.
I find Apple Music to be clean, simple, and to the point. The only exception is that the queuing system felt broken to me until I realized I needed to turn off the autoplay feature to create a queue that didn't get interrupted by tons of suggested tracks clogging it up. Minor quibble.
I find Apple Music to be clean, simple, and to the point. The only exception is that the queuing system felt broken to me until I realized I needed to turn off the autoplay feature to create a queue that didn't get interrupted by tons of suggested tracks clogging it up. Minor quibble.
Yea the one thing that baffles me is stuff I ripped into iTunes eventually just disappeared. Is that because it's no longer in their database?
Yes, but that is only for other devices that didn't already have the local library. Apple will try to match your local music to what's in their library and make that available on your other devices. But those are not the same files, they come from Apple's servers, they have DRM (they will be deactivated once your subscription expires) and there is no guarantee that there is the same music on there at all. And of course you can't get music synced that Apple doesn't have in the first place.
Crucially, your ripped music files will still remain on your device, but only on the single one that originally had your local library stored. You'll find your local files there, Apple never deletes those as they were always yours and have nothing to do with your streaming subscription. They will not have DRM added or anything. But if you delete those local files, you will lose them permanently unless you have a backup - as again, the only files you can still have are from Apple's servers and come with DRM that works only until expiration of the subscription.
What sadly happens is that the tags get changed/destroyed and your local files will end up with garbled tags. There is no undoing that except to restore them from backup like I did.
Exactly this.
Apple made various attempts over the years to merge in private libraries to their nascent streaming service. They all were fatally flawed in one way or another.
In the end, I think they’ve simply given up. iTunes Match/iCloud Music Library basically destroyed my own personally ripped and curated library with all the problems you mention: mismatched versions sometimes
even from different artists, mangled meta data, stripped artwork, etc etc. they did this obviously to save on required storage space.
But this gets me to a deeper point related to the OP. It’s not just Apple Music that sucks. Streaming services have killed the relationship that one used to develop with music in exchange for a throw away experience.
You can’t “browse” your library in an easy, non linear way. Artist and album notes are inconsistent at best, and never from the ACTUAL album.
I don’t really want or need access to every song ever recorded. I want my library with access to SOME streaming songs. Now I’m simply overwhelmed with choice which, frankly, makes the experience a drag.
This is irritating in the extreme and happens to me often.
I bought it. I ripped it. Apple matched it. And then it disappears.
I really don't have a problem with Apple Music other than the fact that it's painfully slow in comparison with literally everything else on the market and there's still no option for high quality music on Windows. The UI could've been much better also and that applies to their operating systems in general. But with Apple Music you'll get the best music quality at the best price. There's no competition on this front. And what's the main factor of using it for me is that I can have songs and albums that I actually want to have in my library. If I like songs in Spotify and others I just don't see only a certain song but I have the whole album there and then the endless list of songs I liked. With Apple Music I can add to my library things that I actually want them to be there.
We have recently moved from Spotify to Apple Music, purely to try and save money each month considering we were paying for Spotify, Apple TV+, Fitness Plus, Apple News and multiple 200GB icloud subs.
Now we pay £30 a month for Apple One between four family members so £7.50 each which seems resonable.
I still prefer Spotify though by a mile.
Now we pay £30 a month for Apple One between four family members so £7.50 each which seems resonable.
I still prefer Spotify though by a mile.
Does this still happen in 2022?
I’m firmly in Apple ecosystem with the Apple One premier family plan. I find Apple Music streaming pretty good but the mixing of my own purchased or ripped library with Apple Music has always been a concern. I’m about to rip my last remaining CDs into Apple Lossless (ALAC) so that I can consign the CDs to history. I’d assumed that by now those ripped files would be protected in their entirety and no longer messed with by Apple Music.
I have pondered going with Qobuz but makes no financial sense given the family all use Apple. I don’t want yet another subscription service.