Can we talk about how Apple Music is a mess on Monterey?

[DHagan4755]

Over the last couple of weeks Apple Music has tried my patience. We know it was a little flakey before macOS 12.2. Since 12.2 came out Apple Music is pretty buggy.

Sometimes while searching for an artist, Apple Music will not let me type more than one letter in the search field before beeping at me. The only way out is to either quit Apple Music or click on another part of the sidebar, like radio or a playlist in my library.

Then there's the glitch when you search an artist & the entire search results page is blank. Again, you have to either quit Apple Music or you have press the back button & go to another part of the Apple Music interface to get it to work.

Interestingly when you start the Apple Music app in macOS 12.2, it doesn't appear. You have to press the icon in the dock to get the Apple Music window. And when the Apple Music window shows, radio is the selected item in the sidebar. Really strange behavior.

There's also the existing issue that's persisted for quite awhile when you start playing a song, it skips like a 1/2 second of the song. This only happens occasionally.

So I'm now listening to Apple Music on Apple's website (music.apple.com) in my browser. There aren't any glitches there. But it has me eyeing Spotify 👀

 

[codeeater]

Full confirmation of the reported bugs. I had to turn to my work Macbook Pro running Big Sur for "media library" maintenance, because some things are just not usable.
For example: I'm heavily using the upload of music files to the Apple Music Cloud, to keep my old pre-streaming music in one place. Now, one album at a time, I go through this and remove older uploaded albums and replace them by lossless Apple Music tracks (I don't like the mix of matched songs and uploaded tracks in a single album - which happened after using iTunes Match). It turns out, I cannot reliably remove tracks from the cloud media library. Local Music app tells me the files are gone - but then I cannot "re-add" the Apple Music versions. Checking the cloud library in browser, I see that the uploaded tracks were never removed - they are stuck somewhere in background service sync limbo on my M1 Macbook Air running Monterey...
Another one that drives me nuts: from search results, there's no left arrow to go back from single search result to list; if I didn't pick the right album immediately, I have to run the whole search *again*.
I tried to work around this using a keyboard shortcut to return to the search result list - no luck.

Not even talking about Spatial Audio not working in Music app with my Airpods Max.

I had hoped the latest Monterey update would bring relief, but no.

 

[BrianBaughn]

It's the only service for which I'm actually paying Apple and it's just about the worst thing in macOS.

 

[codeeater]

I'm pretty happy with it on the other platforms that I'm using (iOS, tvOS) and even Big Sur. But everything changed in Monterey.
The key feature for me is, that Apple Music remains the only streaming service that allows me to upload my own files and fill gaps in music catalog. I'm willing to go a long way for that. Still unclear why such an important app within the Apple eco system is released in such a poor state on the latest MacOS.

 

[BrianBaughn]

The key feature for me is, that Apple Music remains the only streaming service that allows me to upload my own files and fill gaps in music catalog. I'm willing to go a long way for that. Still unclear why such an important app within the Apple eco system is released in such a poor state on the latest MacOS.

That's a big factor in my choice, also.

I just don't understand why a browser-type app won't let me have multiple pages (tabs) open. It's like using a microfiche viewer at the library in the 1970s.

 

[Fishrrman]

I see nothing of interest in me in Apple's new "Music" app.

I went back to iTunes, using the free "Retroactive" utility.

That DOES work for me, as the only real interest I had in iTunes (in years past) was the free internet streaming radio tuner (which of course is missing in "Music").

 

[TriciaMacMillan]

After I had migrated from my Big Sur MacBook to my new Monterey (12.1) MacBook, I had zero Music in the Music app. Had to find it and import it again from the file system. That was weird.

 

[codeeater]

That's a big factor in my choice, also.

I just don't understand why a browser-type app won't let me have multiple pages (tabs) open. It's like using a microfiche viewer at the library in the 1970s.

Hmm, I don't know the technical details, but if Music app used to be basically a web app with Desktop chrome - maybe it was suffering from ressource (i.e. memory) leaks?
Then again, I read somewhere that there should be a new native UI in Monterey now? Maybe that's the problem of this new release, these errors that just show up in Monterey?

Yesterday I had some "error in xyz.js" appear in the main pane of Music. That didn't increase my confidence in this version of the app.

 

[codeeater]

I see nothing of interest in me in Apple's new "Music" app.

I went back to iTunes, using the free "Retroactive" utility.

That DOES work for me, as the only real interest I had in iTunes (in years past) was the free internet streaming radio tuner (which of course is missing in "Music").

Sure, I mean everything has their own angle and different use cases. Not to repeat myself but: personally, I was quite happy with Music - until I bought a new Macbook Air M1 for Christmas + went to Monterey. My previous private Macbook was stuck at Catalina, my work Macbook is still at Big Sur (Monterey not approved by company yet).
There's a noticeable loss in quality of the app running on latest MacOS.

 

[codeeater]

After I had migrated from my Big Sur MacBook to my new Monterey (12.1) MacBook, I had zero Music in the Music app. Had to find it and import it again from the file system. That was weird.

Not great, but a one-time migration issues (and you found a solution). I've switched to full cloud library some time ago, so migrations between different platforms and OS versions are pretty smooth these days.

But it's a first for me, that I see major differences in terms of bugs when running one of the core apps on different OS versions.
I mean, bugs can happen backwards and forwards in the OS lifecycle. But currently Music is almost unusable for me on Monterey for cloud library management (beyond the most basic "pick a song and playback").

 

[Danfango]

Yeah it's so good on Monterey I use my iPad for music...

 

[TriciaMacMillan]

Not great, but a one-time migration issues (and you found a solution). I've switched to full cloud library some time ago, so migrations between different platforms and OS versions are pretty smooth these days.

Yes, it’s s one time issue, but I think it’s symptomatic. I’ve never had migration issues like that before. This time, I’ve had several.

I’m also using the cloud music library, but I still have a lot of songs and versions that are not available in Apple Music. So I always want my own music library to be safe.

 

[codeeater]

So I always want my own music library to be safe.

I mitigated this by uploading all the "non mainstream and vintage" files into the cloud lib. This was the main reason for me to migrate from Spotify to Amazon Music (which had this feature for some time and then discontinued it) to Apple Music. Music catalogs are almost the same across platforms anyway.

 

[now i see it]

Apple should get out of the software business. Most of their software is junky.

 

[DHagan4755]

Apple should get out of the software business. Most of their software is junky.

No, they need to take a break from the constant yearly updates. They've got too many irons in the fire, too.

macOS
iPadOS
iOS
watchOS
tvOS

Apple should make one core OS for all its devices that runs the interface for the device it's on. Hopefully they're working towards that goal.

 

[fisherking]

Apple should get out of the software business. Most of their software is junky.

like: logic? final cut? the default apps? (mail, notes, safari). anyway, can you be specific? because i love logic and final cut, and like mail, notes, safari....

 

[Danfango]

Apple should get out of the software business. Most of their software is junky.

Says the person who has clearly never worked in the enterprise software market.

Apple stuff is top tier for actually working. Pretty sad state of affairs but accurate.

 

[fisherking]

Says the person who has clearly never worked in the enterprise software market.

Apple stuff is top tier for actually working. Pretty sad state of affairs but accurate.

right. i mean, apple music's issues don't reflect on pages, or calendar, etc. better to focus on fixing things that need fixing, than abandoning the apps and giving us a mac OS that... has... just the Finder.

 

[Bandaman]

It's about 800 times slower than Spotify at literally everything (especially the search function) and I hate it. I love the music quality, but I hate everything else.

 

[DHagan4755]

It's about 800 times slower than Spotify at literally everything (especially the search function) and I hate it. I love the music quality, but I hate everything else.

The Spotify app on macOS is written in Electron, which is Chromium-based. So you know the energy efficiency is out the window. That's the only drawback to the Spotify app on macOS.

 

[Reggaenald]

Finally a trending post about AM. I for my part hate the macOS app, it’s just a mess. Too many silly and obvious bugs, and continuity with the iOS app is laughable.
I think it’s insulting that Apple actually asks for money for a service that doesn’t even work properly.
But, usually if it seems that Apple has abandoned a product, may it be software or hardware, they are either discontinuing or updating it. And I don’t see them quitting the Music industry. 😄
So, here is hoping that they are getting their act together for this years refresh.

 

[kemo]

The Spotify app on macOS is written in Electron, which is Chromium-based. So you know the energy efficiency is out the window. That's the only drawback to the Spotify app on macOS.

While I'm not fan of Electron written apps due to the fact that native UI's (understand Swift for macOS) always shape the overall App experience in really tight to the OS it's running on. On the other end I always prioritize overall experience and usability over the technology used and in this case Spotify is having far better experience not only on macOS, but on iOS as well.

What I don't understand is that the actual creator (Apple - with nearly unlimited amount resources) of underlying technology (namely Swift, macOS/iOS UI components and frameworks) is not able to produce the top notch experience for services they sell. It's surprising how they can handle the presentations and present the buttery smooth animations and stuff working, but really it's nowhere near the reality for the past couple of years.

Safari - various bugs from tabs freezing, annoying memory consumption notifications, beach balls, crashes
macOS Monterey - external SSD speed issues, memory leaks, dozens of UI bugs

TLDR: Until the AM team get's their *** together, it's an easy choice for me to stay on Spotify, and although it's not native app and the quality of streaming is not there yet, it still provides better experience compared to AM.

 

[tfigs]

Here are my issues.

1. I can not log into my account settings. It repeatedly keeps asking for my user name and password. I type in the correct information it looks like it's trying to load and then again, asks my for my user name and password. And around and around that goes.

2. When I open in Song view, after closing the app, it does not save my settings. I like to have it set on Album by Artist/Year and it resets to Album by Artist.

3. I've had numerous issues with songs being moved, or uploaded or added to albums without any rhyme or reason.

All this began when last summer I was beta testing Monterey, and have continued through Monterey.

 

[bluecoast]

Isn't 12.3 Music meant to move from using a web view for all of its gallery content pages to a native catalyst view (I'm not a dev so I don't know the precise terms to use). Let's hope.

I know that Music is a way smaller part of Apple's biz compared to 15 years ago, but the drop in Music software quality has been shocking.

I'm using Apple Music at the moment, but only because I bought a new pair of AirPods.

Would I actually pay to use it? No way.

As many above have noted, it's a bad piece of software - performance wise and UX wise.

However, it's not just the lack of quality on the Mac, but Spotify's ML personalisation engine is so so much better.

Apple relies way to heavily on curated playlists and genre pages. And that's OK I guess If you like the common popular genres - pop, rap, Rob, country etc. etc. but if your taste is more eclectic (I'm not bragging but mine generally is), it's really hard to find what you like on AM.

Spotify on the other hand, seems to be almost psychic, for me.

With Spotify on the ropes because of the Joe Rogan debacle, this could be Apple's time to improve. But they need to improve both Music on the Mac and the ML personalisation on all platforms. Let's see if they do.

 

[ignatius345]

I just don't understand why a browser-type app won't let me have multiple pages (tabs) open. It's like using a microfiche viewer at the library in the 1970s.

Spotify for Mac has this problem too. I think the problem is apps trying to "unify" their interfaces to the lowest common denominator to accomodate mobile devices. I've come across it on a lot of other apps and it's a huge loss on the Mac to not be able to spread stuff out across a desktop. Even Apple's own iWork apps suffer from this -- Pages and Keynote, particularly could really use separate control palettes. But I think for the sake of interface parity among Mac, iPad and browser versions, all the controls are in dumb sidebars you have to endlessly flip through to get to things you need.