Apple Music on iOS 17 Introduces Crossfade, Collaborative Playlists, and New Music Player

[Devnul0]

About time. Crossfade was around in Mac OS X iTunes dating back a loooong time. IIRC even my firewire-era iPod would do it.

 

[rwilliams]

I am massively disappointed that there’s no proper update to Music for another year. I feel like music obsessives are completely overlooked by streaming apps, and I was hoping that Apple would be the ones to step in.

Streaming is amazing, and having instant access to so much music really is a miracle. However with this the personal experience surrounding music has been vastly diminished.

Consider that back in the day you would purchase music from a huge choice of stores each with their own unique atmosphere and focus. When travelling you might head into the local store just to experience it. You would organise your music collection however you saw fit, perhaps pulling out a pile of albums for the week or rearranging everything to rediscover old favourites. Then you would listen on a variety of devices each with a unique interface and character.

Now the vast majority of us use one of just two apps to discover music, both of which are very sanitised so as to appeal to the widest range of people (ie the mainstream) with design choices that encourage users toward curated playlists. The options for arranging our collections are limited, instead of being able to place our music how we like we rely on scrolling down lists which are clunky to manage. Our interface is a featureless flat screen where the controls are always in the same place.

I don’t wanna go back to the past, I now have access to more music than I ever dreamed I would and it’s truly amazing. I just wish that the experience of interacting with my music didn’t have to be so impersonal cold and corporate, and I wish that the people who are in a position to do something about this would actually DO SOMETHING about it.

You just managed to sum up everything I’ve been feeling about the experience of listening to music now but couldn’t quite put into words. I’ve been considering going back to buying CDs because I miss the personal interaction with my music. As you said, something as simple as arranging your music on a shelf or in a binder felt personal. I can’t get that from scrolling on my phone.

 

[19callum93]

Crossfade FINALLY 👏🏼

 

[Shollywood]

Same, i have reported it.

Same

 

[Krypton Deer]

within the music player, which now features full-screen animated artwork for albums that support animated artwork.

Apple pretends dynamic island does not exist on all upcoming iPhone that they push album art to the top?

I don’t want a cutout from my favorite artists’ foreheads thanks

 

[jimthing]

FLAC is currently the market standard for lossless audio, or what is most widely adopted by people who are building and maintaining their own digital music libraries, and the services providing music in lossless formats.

Apple for some reason refuses to support FLAC files. While converting to ALAC “works”, (it was initially designed by Apple as a proprietary competitor to FLAC, and has since been open sourced yet remains functionally stagnant) there are a number of technical reasons that would not be a desirable move, which could be a dealbreaker for many.

I still have yet to see any compelling reasons why Apple shouldn’t simply just support FLAC files, but as it sits, Apple deliberately blocks you from adding them to your library. No other current music software or hardware audio player has this issue, and it appears to be an entirely arbitrary decision on Apple’s behalf.


Apple even officially claims to “support” FLAC according to the iPhone’s published specifications - as in, sure, iOS can decode and play the files… they just won’t let you load the files into your music library in the first place, so this “support” is rather meaningless.

It would be as if Apple blocked you from using MP3, JPEG, PNG, .PDF or any other commonly used file format in place of their own. It’s pretty blatant anti-consumer behavior as far as I’m concerned.

While I agree FLAC would be nice, I think that ship has sailed.

One reason I think it might be, is Apple's backend matching systems are set-up to work with ALAC as the lossless format option (along with lossy AAC and MP3), but not all the variants that lossless FLAC files can be.

Lossless Music app users have their libraries in ALAC, and Apple match these over iTunes Match (I still sub to this) or Apple Music subs to their cloud variants (or upload if not found).

 

[GermanSuplex]

People have been waiting for crossfade since the original iPods. ”A while” is an understatement.

 

[MrRom92]

While I agree FLAC would be nice, I think that ship has sailed.

One reason I think it might be, is Apple's backend matching systems are set-up to work with ALAC as the lossless format option (along with lossy AAC and MP3), but not all the variants that lossless FLAC files can be.

Lossless Music app users have their libraries in ALAC, and Apple match these over iTunes Match (I still sub to this) or Apple Music subs to their cloud variants (or upload if not found).

Unless I’m missing something, what are all the variants of FLAC files? There are different versions of the FLAC encoder, but no version yet has broken compatibility with any other versions going forwards or backwards. A file encoded with v0.5 can be decoded by 1.4.3, and vice versa. FLAC files otherwise only encode and decode the same PCM formats that would be encodable by ALAC.


The iTunes Match thing is the first plausible explanation I’ve heard for why it may truly be a bit more complicated than simply enabling support within iTunes. That said, it’s nothing the greatest tech company in the world couldn’t work around. An in-cloud conversion to ALAC would be simple and perfectly suitable as it would not effect the locally stored copy of the file - I am assuming they already do this with any iTunes Match uploads of WAV or AIFF files, due to space/bandwidth concerns.


Alternatively, they could just simply give the caveat that FLAC is incompatible with iTunes Match or any cloud services like that. However they choose to go about it would be better than just entirely not supporting what is currently the most widely adopted lossless audio format.

 

[ambientdaw]

Why are they avoiding improving the player in terms of usability? Why can't we get a like button on the player itself. Why can't we do more with the playlists then the current limitations. These are basic things people ask for and Apple just ignores the service almost entirely. Not only that, but they raise the price of the service but don't offer improvements to it. I use AM because it's probably the nicest user interface in terms of organizing the library (And I've been using Itunes and it's features for close to 20 years) but why can't we have a better, more improved product that keeps improving and refining every year?

It does boggle my mind that people seem to not care and that Apple does not care what a piece of crap the iOS app is. My iPhone is NOT AN iPod!! It is a barely usable music file player. My iPods were a joy. My iPhone is barely sufficient for simple file playback and shuffle. I do not use Apple Music and rarely use Spotify. I PAY FOR THE MUSIC I own I pay the artists (or labels at least) and collect what I want. And Apple is very uncool to DEMAND that I use streaming instead of being a music collector. I will give them one thing: the desktop Music app is better than I had hoped for. When they announced the demise of iTunes I was worried. I lost some important features to me but am overall happy with it. On my iPhone? The Music app Sucks (as does it's name)!

 

[ErikGrim]

They need to make the collaborative playlists work like iTunes DJ did: Only the owner/host can move or remove tracks, anyone can add and vote on other tracks. The higher voted tracks bubbles to the top of the queue.

Letting anyone move or remove tracks is pure anarchy.

 

[Kier-XF]

I simply don't understand why Apple has not implemented a landscape mode for Apple Music on iOS.

It plays back stereo, or even spatial audio through the speakers on the top and bottom of the phone, so it's clearly meant to be held in landscape orientation to hear the separate channels, yet in doing so we get to see the interface on its side.

Unbelievably disjointed engineering.

 

[MrRom92]

I simply don't understand why Apple has not implemented a landscape mode for Apple Music on iOS.

It plays back stereo, or even spatial audio through the speakers on the top and bottom of the phone, so it's clearly meant to be held in landscape orientation to hear the separate channels, yet in doing so we get to see the interface on its side.

Unbelievably disjointed engineering.

Landscape mode used to put you into a different mode where you could browse through all the cover art in your library, but I think they deprecated that a long time ago. Not to mention they also removed the entire iOS home screen being functional in landscape mode altogether.

 

[seinman]

How about a MANUAL EQUALIZER function ?, another 17 years perhaps......

Also, different equalizer settings for different output devices would be nice. Right now if I EQ for AirPods then it sounds awful when using CarPlay, and vice versa.

 

[sjsharksfan12]

Landscape mode used to put you into a different mode where you could browse through all the cover art in your library, but I think they deprecated that a long time ago. Not to mention they also removed the entire iOS home screen being functional in landscape mode altogether.

Apple did a lot of questionable things with Apple Music a long time ago. It's just amazing how neglected it's become. I think the biggest change they've made in the last 5 years was the whole spatial audio thing. I don't even count Apple Music Classical as that is a separate app entirely.

 

[F27]

Landscape mode used to put you into a different mode where you could browse through all the cover art in your library, but I think they deprecated that a long time ago. Not to mention they also removed the entire iOS home screen being functional in landscape mode altogether.

CoverFlow was pretty much universally loved and Apple canned it with iOS7. Basically when the iPod’s popularity started to wane so did them caring about Music and Music organisation.

 

[cgs1xx]

Equalizer please!! Listening to old albums is awful! No bass, no treble and volume too low … presets not powerful enough …

 

[DesignMonkey]

Finally!! My iPod nano from 13 years ago had this. Was great for workouts at the gym.

 

[zach-coleman]

Is it just me or do the changes to album art look terrible?

 

[jimthing]

Unless I’m missing something, what are all the variants of FLAC files? There are different versions of the FLAC encoder, but no version yet has broken compatibility with any other versions going forwards or backwards. A file encoded with v0.5 can be decoded by 1.4.3, and vice versa. FLAC files otherwise only encode and decode the same PCM formats that would be encodable by ALAC.

The iTunes Match thing is the first plausible explanation I’ve heard for why it may truly be a bit more complicated than simply enabling support within iTunes. That said, it’s nothing the greatest tech company in the world couldn’t work around. An in-cloud conversion to ALAC would be simple and perfectly suitable as it would not effect the locally stored copy of the file - I am assuming they already do this with any iTunes Match uploads of WAV or AIFF files, due to space/bandwidth concerns.

Alternatively, they could just simply give the caveat that FLAC is incompatible with iTunes Match or any cloud services like that. However they choose to go about it would be better than just entirely not supporting what is currently the most widely adopted lossless audio format.

I'm no expert on FLAC's specs. But AFAIR, variants can include rare things like using non-FLAC codecs (eg. ogg?) inside the FLAC container, et al. But I could be wrong.

Because converting FLAC to ALAC is simple and easy (and all the metadata tags are the same...aren't they? Regardless of different players often interpreting tag info in differing ways, which adds to the confusion!), Apple likely think most users who want their own lossless in their Music app to simply convert in seconds and add to library.

I have all my stuff in both formats, as storage in cheap: FLAC for non-direct Apple usage (Roon, Plex, whatever player/db system(s) you prefer) + converted to ALAC and added to Music app (synced via iTunes Match).

Although, I do need to get more into tagging, as mine are only the main fields, and I'd like more info. But it's so confusing with all the ID3 variants and what is worth doing now vs. legacy stuff that can be ignored?!

 

[MrRom92]

I'm no expert on FLAC's specs. But AFAIR, variants can include rare things like using non-FLAC codecs (eg. ogg?) inside the FLAC container, et al. But I could be wrong.

Because converting FLAC to ALAC is simple and easy (and all the metadata tags are the same...aren't they? Regardless of different players often interpreting tag info in differing ways, which adds to the confusion!), Apple likely think most users who want their own lossless in their Music app to simply convert in seconds and add to library.

I have all my stuff in both formats, as storage in cheap: FLAC for non-direct Apple usage (Roon, Plex, whatever player/db system(s) you prefer) + converted to ALAC and added to Music app (synced via iTunes Match).

Although, I do need to get more into tagging, as mine are only the main fields, and I'd like more info. But it's so confusing with all the ID3 variants and what is worth doing now vs. legacy stuff that can be ignored?!

I don’t think anything like alternative codecs exist within FLAC, not to my knowledge anyway… on the other hand that DOES exist in M4A though apple seems to have accounted for it in some way. Would be simple to do so for FLAC as well, hypothetically, if that were to be a problem.

Unfortunately one of the key differences between FLAC and ALAC is that the metadata is not 1:1 identical. FLAC by default stores a MD5 checksum on a per track basis, whereas ALAC has no such provisions for verifying file integrity. This alone would be a dealbreaker for anyone wanting an archival quality music library, and to convert from FLAC to ALAC would irreversibly destroy the provenance of the file.

FLAC compression is also a bit more efficient, but like you said, storage is cheap these days. Maybe not a huge concern but it isn’t an insignificant factor to consider either. I’ve ran many tests and I’ve come to the conclusion that the total size of my library would inflate by several hundred GB just by converting to ALAC.


As cheap as storage is, (more than) doubling the necessary storage to keep everything in both formats is a really unattractive proposition, as is the task of manually maintaining 2 otherwise identical libraries. More power to you if you’re willing to take that on!
None of that would be necessary though if Apple simply opened up support for a format that - again - NO other audio hardware or software company currently has an issue supporting in this day and age. One way or another, they have us jumping through these hoops and there really isn’t any logical justification for it on their end.

 

[CarAnalogy]

Crossfade was part of iTunes many years ago. LOL. Crazy it's not being touted as a "new feature." 🤷‍♂️

This is the pattern in software development for the last decade. Discontinue the "old" reliable version and release the "new" version with a worse interface and fewer features. Then eventually add the features you took away and call it new features, worthy of paying to upgrade again of course.

 

[phobrla]

You also now can play and shuffle playlist folders on iOS and iPadOS. Previously only possible on macOS.

 

[balzmcfearson]

For those who got it to work is there any beat matching intelligence built into the new crossfade feature or does it just end and start based on time?

 

[GWLBE]

Most of the comments regarding the Music App I agree with. I'm running IOS 17 on an older phone just to test crossfade. It's not very good. Initially, it didn't' cross fade, it truncated the end of the song at 10 seconds. I was streaming via a hot spot with a newer phone while driving using a DOLBY ATOMS playlist. Now, in my office using WiFi the same playlist is somewhat cross fading, more a gap less fade. The songs aren't fading together like a DJ type mix. It is BETA. I downloaded the BETA TVOS for my ATV4K, it does not have crossfade. Very disappointed.
Regarding FLAC, the attached images are screen shots of the FOOBAR 2000 in landscape and portrait of 5.1 FLAC files. Foobar is my go to music app on my phone and IPads. It crossfades, has an EQ, replay gain, drag and drop through iTunes and other features. Seamless incorporates the Itunes library. Check it out if your like me and prefer my own library vs streaming. I wish Timmy C would allow us to drag and drop our music files using windows exploder. Timmy and Billy need to play better together.
Also, if I was king, all phones with cameras that take video would default to landscape mode so if you wanted to take a video that looks like it was shot through a door or portrait, the idiot operator would have to rotate their phone to landscape, especially now that all monitors and TVs are 16x9. Rant for day.