Sorry in advance for the rant. I'm just frustrated.
I had such deep hope for Apple Music. The promise of integrating my personal collection with a streaming service and having all my music available on the road from all my devices was enticing. The reality is something else altogether.
In fact, I find Apple Music incredibly frustrating to use. I can't find the music I'm looking for. The interface is non-intuitive, overly precious, and hard to use. The performance is slow and unpredictable.
Here's just a few of my gripes. Death by 1000 cuts.
1. Sorting by {first name} {last name}
I don't know who the genius is that thought of this. Have they never been to school or in a library, or for god's sake a record store? Worse yet, music from my library that matched is now under the idiotic sorting, but music that didn't is available under the logical method. That means I need to look in at least two places to try to find albums that should be in one.
2. Having to toggle between "All Apple Music" and "My Music"
I understand the rationale for this in some situations. But this toggle is too prominent. You shouldn't have to toggle back and forth all the time as it destroys the perception of integration.
3. The "feature" that only shows a few songs per album and the extra "show complete album" tap.
Just show me the full album. What's the point of only listing a few songs when there is enough screen real estate to full the show list?
4. In general way too many clicks to do routine tasks.
Example: I'm listening to a playlist. A song comes on that I like. I want to hear more of that artist but from a different album. From the main menu on Spotify you can "show artist" and "show album". Apple Music? Tap the "..." menu. Tap the non-intuitive right arrow. Tap the band name. Three taps for something that should be far more obvious.
Oh, and if you tap on the band or album name, it toggles the star rating for the song. That's obvious.
5. Precious interface that's painful to navigate.
I guess this is just a carry over from the iOS guidelines but the interface is a pain to use, especially if you are walking around and trying to select songs. From the tiny search icon, to navigating from a playing song to other things.
And take a look at Apple Music on an iPad Pro. Absolutely awful.
Great use of screen real estate on the iPad Pro. That's a NOT joke for ya.
6. General UI quirks
Sometimes the download from iCloud option is available. Sometimes it isn't. Sometimes clicking it (for example, for an album) works and the tracks download. Sometimes it does nothing. Sometimes it only downloads one or two songs from the total then disappears.
Sometimes tapping on an artist tags one to the artist page. Sometimes nothing. Just a blank page. No indication that content is loading.
7. Syncing personal library simply does not work consistently.
My complete library is synced. I had 19 albums from Brian Eno. Now here is what I have in "My Music" for Brian Eno:
Music. Poof. And only a few songs per album are actually available.
And take a look at the iPad screenshot above. An album in my collection with only one song. I don't know where the other songs are. They are just gone.
8. General performance is laggy with high resource use and frequent crashes.
I listen on Bluetooth headphones. Apple Music magically stops all the time, even in songs I've marked for offline access. Sometimes it crashes. Sometimes it freezes. Really temperamental app and service. Then you get all kinds of informative messages like this:
Trying to play songs from the AM library sometimes gives this informative error. This was my music that was matched and uploaded. Now I can't listen to it.
9. Matching is opaque, inconsistent, incomplete, and error prone
Some albums have been matched. Some have had their artwork completely replaced with something else. Some are matched and have the correct metadata but now play completely different content. Some albums are just plain missing.
Matching needs to be done with the hugest of fidelities. If a match is made, ALL metadata should be preserved. If there is the slightest chance that there is no match, leave it alone.
--
This is just the top of my head list. Like I said I really want to use Apple Music for its integration. But for me, using it is an exercise in frustration. And I'm not really seeing any progress in fixes to the service, having been using it since the beta days.
Someone fill me with hope that Apple is doing something -- anything -- about the disaster that is Apple Music. Has anything improved since the public beta days?
I had such deep hope for Apple Music. The promise of integrating my personal collection with a streaming service and having all my music available on the road from all my devices was enticing. The reality is something else altogether.
In fact, I find Apple Music incredibly frustrating to use. I can't find the music I'm looking for. The interface is non-intuitive, overly precious, and hard to use. The performance is slow and unpredictable.
Here's just a few of my gripes. Death by 1000 cuts.
1. Sorting by {first name} {last name}
I don't know who the genius is that thought of this. Have they never been to school or in a library, or for god's sake a record store? Worse yet, music from my library that matched is now under the idiotic sorting, but music that didn't is available under the logical method. That means I need to look in at least two places to try to find albums that should be in one.
2. Having to toggle between "All Apple Music" and "My Music"
I understand the rationale for this in some situations. But this toggle is too prominent. You shouldn't have to toggle back and forth all the time as it destroys the perception of integration.
3. The "feature" that only shows a few songs per album and the extra "show complete album" tap.
Just show me the full album. What's the point of only listing a few songs when there is enough screen real estate to full the show list?
4. In general way too many clicks to do routine tasks.
Example: I'm listening to a playlist. A song comes on that I like. I want to hear more of that artist but from a different album. From the main menu on Spotify you can "show artist" and "show album". Apple Music? Tap the "..." menu. Tap the non-intuitive right arrow. Tap the band name. Three taps for something that should be far more obvious.
Oh, and if you tap on the band or album name, it toggles the star rating for the song. That's obvious.
5. Precious interface that's painful to navigate.
I guess this is just a carry over from the iOS guidelines but the interface is a pain to use, especially if you are walking around and trying to select songs. From the tiny search icon, to navigating from a playing song to other things.
And take a look at Apple Music on an iPad Pro. Absolutely awful.
Great use of screen real estate on the iPad Pro. That's a NOT joke for ya.
6. General UI quirks
Sometimes the download from iCloud option is available. Sometimes it isn't. Sometimes clicking it (for example, for an album) works and the tracks download. Sometimes it does nothing. Sometimes it only downloads one or two songs from the total then disappears.
Sometimes tapping on an artist tags one to the artist page. Sometimes nothing. Just a blank page. No indication that content is loading.
7. Syncing personal library simply does not work consistently.
My complete library is synced. I had 19 albums from Brian Eno. Now here is what I have in "My Music" for Brian Eno:
Music. Poof. And only a few songs per album are actually available.
And take a look at the iPad screenshot above. An album in my collection with only one song. I don't know where the other songs are. They are just gone.
8. General performance is laggy with high resource use and frequent crashes.
I listen on Bluetooth headphones. Apple Music magically stops all the time, even in songs I've marked for offline access. Sometimes it crashes. Sometimes it freezes. Really temperamental app and service. Then you get all kinds of informative messages like this:
Trying to play songs from the AM library sometimes gives this informative error. This was my music that was matched and uploaded. Now I can't listen to it.
9. Matching is opaque, inconsistent, incomplete, and error prone
Some albums have been matched. Some have had their artwork completely replaced with something else. Some are matched and have the correct metadata but now play completely different content. Some albums are just plain missing.
Matching needs to be done with the hugest of fidelities. If a match is made, ALL metadata should be preserved. If there is the slightest chance that there is no match, leave it alone.
--
This is just the top of my head list. Like I said I really want to use Apple Music for its integration. But for me, using it is an exercise in frustration. And I'm not really seeing any progress in fixes to the service, having been using it since the beta days.
Someone fill me with hope that Apple is doing something -- anything -- about the disaster that is Apple Music. Has anything improved since the public beta days?