Let's talk about the steaming pile that is the Music App

[Zwhaler]

I was at the store recently and played around with the iPhone 6S Plus. It wasn't connected to the internet, so I opened up some of the stock apps to see what's new. I was shocked to find that the legendary music app has been shamelessly converted into Apple Music clickbait. Many of us remember the iconic iPhone launch event at Macworld in 2007. There were literally gasps from the crowd because of how incredibly amazing and futuristic the iPhone was at the time. Now, it is sad to say, that the Music App nine years later is worse than it was then. This article does a nice job explaining why the new app is garbage.

https://www.macnn.com/articles/15/0....makes.playback.unnecessarily.complex.129784/

The conclusion he comes to is that Apple Music deserves its own app and cramming what used to be five tabs into one (Playlists, Artists, Albums, Songs, Genres, etc.) is blatantly poor design. That is, unless the entire premise is to shove Apple Music down our throats (it is.) Unfortunately it takes an objective user such as myself all but half a second to see how poorly designed the new app is, yet this seems to have escaped Apple's designers. However, since there are directives to be followed, such as "Get as many people to subscribe to Apple Music as possible", this is what we get. I do not think Steve would have liked this. And neither do the majority of users from what I can gather.

 

[Frosties]

Made me leave the music app that I have used several times daily since iPod generation 1. Now I live in Spotify all day. This is all from Apple breaking the music app for use with your own music and pushing all music app users to Apple streaming. You can't even use it with search and not be pushed to their streaming even if the radio and streaming is set to off and you are not subscribing to Apple music. It's just a bad app joining many others in the app store. In the good old days the music app was considered one of the best. Now it's a Joke.

 

[Polaroid]

Works perfectly fine for me - easy to use and no faffing about. The app doesn't feel crammed or clogged up - just works well for me.

 

[Aquamite]

I enjoy the Music App and my Apple Music family subscription. But I hate it's bugs. It's the only thing that pisses me off about it. That and the lack of activity at the artists Connect pages.

 

[bushido]

i removed the Music app from my first page on the springboard for the first time since 2008. its horrible

 

[mjschabow]

I don't get what's so bad about it. I just opened it up now, clicked on a song, and the song played. That's what it's supposed to do right?

 

[Shark5150]

Works well for me too. It's a matter of personal taste, like most other things. You'll have those kinds of posts here where Apple can do nothing right.

 

[0003462]

My own little rant about Music:

Touch targets for For You and Pause, and My Music and Up Next, are stupidly close together.

On the lock screen, touch targets for volume adjustment and playback controls are stupidly close together.

Feedback's been sent to Apple but this has me miffed right now.

 

[oneshotpro]

The biggest problem is they tried making another music social network again and stuffed it in the app.

 

[mjschabow]

The biggest problem is they tried making another music social network again and stuffed it in the app.

You can replace it with Playlists.

 

[username:]

I kind of liked it when it came out, but over time i got sick of the landing page which is full of bad mainstream music promos (so much justin bieber) and the 'For you' section has boring suggestions. I went back to spotify which felt like a much more slick experience, they have had time to work out the bugs, and it feels more intuitive. Spotify suggestions are always interesting, finding new music on spotify is easier and more interesting. And i can see what my friends are listening to easier; the social aspect of spotify is done better too.

 

[Zwhaler]

Works perfectly fine for me - easy to use and no faffing about. The app doesn't feel crammed or clogged up - just works well for me.

Having to select and change whether I'm viewing Artists or Albums in drop down menu format felt laborious compared to the way it used to be... that is, before those tabs got demoted by Apple Music. Also the Now Playing page felt wonky and bizarre to use compared to the old one. I actually had a client so confused about how to adjust some of the play settings and modify his playlists that I kid you not he handed me a $20 bill after I told him that I knew how to do it (he said he would if I could fix it). It did take me a few minutes to figure out what the heck I was even looking at. This is a classic example of change for the sake of change, coupled with shoving Apple Music in our faces in an attempt to boost subscribers.

I enjoy the Music App and my Apple Music family subscription. But I hate it's bugs. It's the only thing that pisses me off about it. That and the lack of activity at the artists Connect pages.

That's the thing, I think the Music App opens up a whole new experience using the latest power of the internet–for Apple Music subscribes. Otherwise, as another user pointed out, us regular old users are treated as second class citizens.

I don't get what's so bad about it. I just opened it up now, clicked on a song, and the song played. That's what it's supposed to do right?

It used to be nice and spread out, now many of the useful GUI browsing elements got crammed into a vertical conglomeration in order to pave the way for Apple Music with blatant disregard for whether or not the user is a subscriber. This is reminiscent of when Apple made users look at their Apple Watch App on the home screen, among other apps, unable to delete them.

Works well for me too. It's a matter of personal taste, like most other things. You'll have those kinds of posts here where Apple can do nothing right.

I think the Music App got a sweet boost for Apple Music subscribers. But this is obviously a way of bothering users into getting Apple Music... I mean c'mon 4 out of 5 tabs related to Apple Music when obviously many are not signed up for the service? That is doing them a disservice, all in the name of boosting revenue.

 

[iBug2]

I don't have any issues with the music app, but when you are playing music and you are on the lock screen, the volume slider is awfully close to the pause/next/back buttons so instead of hitting the slider it's really easy to hit the other buttons. When you are inside the app, there's a nice vertical gap between those.

 

[Aquamite]

I don't have any issues with the music app, but when you are playing music and you are on the lock screen, the volume slider is awfully close to the pause/next/back buttons so instead of hitting the slider it's really easy to hit the other buttons. When you are inside the app, there's a nice vertical gap between those.

Totally agree on that. It's so annoying specially when I'm playing the guitar and try to use those controls quickly.

 

[rtomyj]

You can replace it with Playlists.

How?

 

[maxsix]

My own little rant about Music:

Touch targets for For You and Pause, and My Music and Up Next, are stupidly close together.

On the lock screen, touch targets for volume adjustment and playback controls are stupidly close together.

Feedback's been sent to Apple but this has me miffed right now.

I must say I am a bit surprised and disappointed about just how bad Apple Apple Music is. With stellar apps like Spotify and Google Play Music as examples, I thought Apple would create something far better than they did. Fully capable of much better, this poor excuse for a music app reflects Apple's arrogance and complacency. It makes one wonder just how lazy they'll get.

 

[0003462]

I don't have any issues with the music app, but when you are playing music and you are on the lock screen, the volume slider is awfully close to the pause/next/back buttons so instead of hitting the slider it's really easy to hit the other buttons.

And why is this?

Why does my 9.7" iPad screen have these elements so close together?

Why haven't people at Apple used the product, noticed this, and made amends?

Are they carefully adjusting how they place their finger each time instead of remembering they have the power to change this?

Do Tim Cook, Jony Ive and whoever else is in charge of UI not play music or podcasts on their devices? Do they rely entirely on Siri and the volume buttons/remote?

This is nothing but carelessness. And it - along with the mini-player/tab bar element proximity - is something that affects me when using the iPad every single day.

First world problems and all that, but this is a tool humans have made to make life easier an more convenient for themselves and other humans. In this regard they're failing.

 

[nmeed]

I don't understand why you can't order the songs in playlists alphabetically. Every time I either have to order songs manually or copy the songs into a new playlist on iTunes. It's a mess. Does nobody at Apple have playlists? Beyond that, to me at least, the greatest feature of Spotify is the ability for users to make shareable playlists. I think Apple needs to incorporate this ability. Also, someone needs to let Apple know that trance is a music genre. They have dance and electronic, and honestly, I have no idea WTF that is.

If they could fix these two gripes, with the playlist sorting being possible and the ability to listen to other people's playlists being nigh impossible. They want us stuck with their playlists. Whatever, $15 for the family pack is a decent deal.

 

[Jessica Lares]

They recently put Various Artists back into the Artists sorting (shows up on mine anyway...), and I can now rearrange the queue without it getting stuck until the next song (which it did since the feature came out). So at least they're doing something.

My biggest issue is that it STILL doesn't obey my "Skip Shuffle" settings.

 

[mjschabow]

How?

 

[trifid]

aving to select and change whether I'm viewing Artists or Albums in drop down menu format felt laborious compared to the way it used to be... that is, before those tabs got demoted by Apple Music.

100% this. My only explanation for this is either Apple has fallen to lower UI excellence which is very plausible since we have seen very questionable UI decisions since Johny Ive took reigns, AND/OR Apple wants to push Apple music subscriptions by de-emphasizing purchased music and making it a second-class mediocre experience.

 

[lovewd]

I don't understand what people's huge issue with the music app is. I think it's really nice. The UI is sleek and beautiful

 

[kiranmk2]

The real anoyance for me are:

It's very hard to pause/restart playback - try going to My Music (any groups: album, artist, song etc) start a song playing. The only ways to now pause/restart the song are tapping the pause button either on the Album art (hard to see and a small target - only the pause icon, not anywhere in the artwork) or the pause button in the now playing bar (har to hit one-handed due to the bottom-left location). Inexcusible

The up-next feature doesn't work as I would expect - Adding individual songs to up next works as expected (they are added to the end of the Up Next list). But try playing album A and then trying to add album B to Up Next. Album B will always play after the current album A song, not at the end of album B. I still don't know whether this is a bug (add to Up Next and Play Next do the same thing) or just a bad design. Eitherway, this potentially simple way of creating a play order for albums just doesn't work!

As has been said time and again, Apple Music options are encroaching on user-owned content. This, sadly seems to be the way Apple are going and it's the same with the Apple TV. Now, even if you have bought content from Apple, it is hard to get to - they are becoming fixated on renting the content over owning it. This seems to be the way entertainment is going (Office 365, Adobe CC, Netflix etc) and I'm sure is great for those people just starting out in media curation, but Apple should still support the millions of people who have GBs of purchased music and still want easy access to their own music.

 

[lagwagon]

I don't understand what people's huge issue with the music app is. I think it's really nice. The UI is sleek and beautiful

I agree. I've liked it since day one of 8.4 beta and it's only gotten better and better with refinements in nearly every update since. I've never found it difficult or confusing to navigate like some seem to find it.

 

[oldmacs]

The music app is a disaster- This that used to take one tap now take 3. The Apple music integration is all over the place and non consistent and not being able to have 'Arist', 'Album', 'Song' e.g. along the bottom of the screen is horrible.