This might be a change from recent iOS 9 updates. I can see this in iOS 9.2 beta 2.
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Current iOS Music app is GARBAGE
- Thread starter Smallpaw
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Well, my thought is somewhat a mixture.
Pros:
1. Clear design and fewer icons. I hate a row of icons on bottom. This new one looks cleaner than previous one. (I have turned Apple Music off and Connect off in Restrictions)
2. Up next lets music playback more like iTunes. I was hoping this feature could go live on stock music app long time. Now if I want to listen to a song while not switching to a totally different queue, I can just "add to up next".
3. Mini player is also my favourite. Although, yes, iPhone one is not as good as iPad one.
4. Recently added is great for me, especially I want to quickly listen to songs just imported to iPhone/iPad.
5. Ability to jump to album/artist without leaving current view is also great.
Cons:
1. Constant banner if "showing only offline music" is on. Annoying.
2. UI animation speed is too slow. I hope it can be faster, cause before animation ends, I can do nothing.
3. Somewhat imply me to go to Apple Music, while what I can find in Apple Music is not what I expect, or I cannot find a song I want to listen.
4. Smart Playlist cannot display four-album-artworks combined picture as artwork, while desktop iTunes can.
5. Search feature doesnt support fuzzy search. (Which should be a problem even before iOS 8.4)
For alternative, I use Marvis. Really powerful and highly customisable. For those who don't want customisation, default set is also really great.
Ecout is not easy to use. "Listen" is somewhat not intuitive for me. "Muzik" has too many bugs. "VOX" is really unstable, plus quitting app will stop music playback.
Pros:
1. Clear design and fewer icons. I hate a row of icons on bottom. This new one looks cleaner than previous one. (I have turned Apple Music off and Connect off in Restrictions)
2. Up next lets music playback more like iTunes. I was hoping this feature could go live on stock music app long time. Now if I want to listen to a song while not switching to a totally different queue, I can just "add to up next".
3. Mini player is also my favourite. Although, yes, iPhone one is not as good as iPad one.
4. Recently added is great for me, especially I want to quickly listen to songs just imported to iPhone/iPad.
5. Ability to jump to album/artist without leaving current view is also great.
Cons:
1. Constant banner if "showing only offline music" is on. Annoying.
2. UI animation speed is too slow. I hope it can be faster, cause before animation ends, I can do nothing.
3. Somewhat imply me to go to Apple Music, while what I can find in Apple Music is not what I expect, or I cannot find a song I want to listen.
4. Smart Playlist cannot display four-album-artworks combined picture as artwork, while desktop iTunes can.
5. Search feature doesnt support fuzzy search. (Which should be a problem even before iOS 8.4)
For alternative, I use Marvis. Really powerful and highly customisable. For those who don't want customisation, default set is also really great.
Ecout is not easy to use. "Listen" is somewhat not intuitive for me. "Muzik" has too many bugs. "VOX" is really unstable, plus quitting app will stop music playback.
@BillyMatt87
So are you using any alternative music app, for example Cesium as recommended by forumers here? Spotify maybe?
iOS 6 music app is fine imo. I'm still using it on my 4th gen iPod Touch, functions properly till this day and has a clear focus on your music library instead of, you know, other irrelevant streaming stuff that costs $$.
It's clean design at the expense of usability... more clicks, swipe gestures - this is unnecessarily complicated.
pre-iOS8.4 Music app had only 4 icons on the bottom and you could customize which icons you want there.
In the new Music app, navigating to all your local songs are grouped into just one tab forcing you to click to select Artist, Albums, Genre etc..and then gesture controls - swipe down, left, right, click. All seems unnecessary for something as simple as choosing and playing songs quickly. The new app lost the simplicity. With the new interface, Apple assumes that everyone is subscribing to Apple Music. At least they should allow to customize and get back pre-iOS 8.4 interface.
pre-iOS8.4 Music app had only 4 icons on the bottom and you could customize which icons you want there.
In the new Music app, navigating to all your local songs are grouped into just one tab forcing you to click to select Artist, Albums, Genre etc..and then gesture controls - swipe down, left, right, click. All seems unnecessary for something as simple as choosing and playing songs quickly. The new app lost the simplicity. With the new interface, Apple assumes that everyone is subscribing to Apple Music. At least they should allow to customize and get back pre-iOS 8.4 interface.
How about some nostalgia for you guys? The good o' days from my iPod Touch.... This baby can last weeks without charging because the only thing I use it for is offline music listening.
Sometimes I want Scott Forstall back so badly... At least his versions of iOS were relatively more stable as compared to what we are getting these days, and the designs were better imo. Screw the Skeuomorphism, I can live with that.
Just look back at the iPhone 5 on iOS 6. That thing will beat an iPhone 6S on iOS 9 anyday man...
Sometimes I want Scott Forstall back so badly... At least his versions of iOS were relatively more stable as compared to what we are getting these days, and the designs were better imo. Screw the Skeuomorphism, I can live with that.
Just look back at the iPhone 5 on iOS 6. That thing will beat an iPhone 6S on iOS 9 anyday man...
I think they are forgetting the power of simplicity of their previous os designs. Cluttering up the screen isn't good design. Remember the old yahoo search ( the current one isn't too great) a tiny little search bar with a screen full of CR**
The UI there wasn't even that skeumorphic if you really look into it. Lets see: no unnecessary textures but still has the right amount of contrast and depth. The layouts and the Now Playing screen were all done perfectly in the iOS 6 version of the music app and there was no need to fix what wasn't broken. This should've been the overall UI refresh for iOS 7 instead of what he have now. It would've been much smoother and more consistent so the transition wouldn't have been as aggravating and polarizing as it actually was.
With $3 Billion invested I do believe Apple will get it sorted out over the next year to two. As the company and its top people age they're slowing down, becoming conservative, and finding it more challenging to innovate. It's only natural. They're incentive is also waning after becoming so wealthy. Look around, the success of their marketing shows everywhere and there's no sign of iPhone sales slowing. Fat and Happy, Apple is simply cruising along.
Well, now, for me is to quickly spot the album and the song I want to listen. Since a very large portion of them are Japanese, I need fuzzy search to help me find out which song I want to listen, no matter what I enter is Kana or Hiragana.
And yes, I can feel that I need more taps to reach destination. Sometimes more than 10 taps if I tap into wrong place. I agree with your idea. Spotlight search is too limited, and this is another "cons".
Trade off of offline usability and another kind of simplicity compared with functionality and clean design. This is even more obvious for still a lot of user preferring listening to music stored in local library.
I wish I could say the same, either.
El Capitan and iTunes 12.3 probably have dropped the support of this almost a decade old device.
Another thing:
We do know this is in list mode, without displaying artworks right?
Scrolling performance in this mode is way better than showing artworks while scrolling.
One thing I find incredibly annoying, is it always deletes songs I've made available offline. It'll either randomly delete a few songs I've downloaded, or the entire playlist. Really annoying when I go to play the songs whilst driving and and won't let me because they aren't available offline.
I guess this would probably be the problem for Apple Music subscriber.
I listen to music synced through iTunes and I don't have such issue.
I wish I could say the same, either.
El Capitan and iTunes 12.3 probably have dropped the support of this almost a decade old device.
I have an iPod classic and iTunes still supports it.
I have tested my half a decade iPhone 4 and iTunes still supports it.
iTunes 12.3.0 for Windows.
The problem with that is I listen to a lot of progressive rock bands from foreign countries so Siri frequently won't get it right: "Hey Siri, play Ifrån Klarhet Till Klarhet by Änglagård". Not only can't Siri get it right I can't even pronounce it correctly!
Do you think there would be anyway that this Caesium app could read my offline Google Play Music as well?
THANK YOU for the Cesium recommendation. I literally haven't wanted to listen to music on my phone since they made these changes to the native music app, I freaking HATE IT. Downloaded Cesium based on this recommendation; it's intuitive and works EXACTLY how a music app should work, like the Apple one used to work. Well worth the $1.99 for anyone who hates the current Music app!