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

[RobbyIdol]

I have no problem with Apple Music for those that enjoy it. In fact, I think a dedicated AM app installed on iOS should take the shackles off the stock Music.app for those that only want songs loaded directly onto the phone. AM app looks and behaves like the current app combined with Beats/Spotify. The stock Music app returns to a clean, no frills interface like iOS 6.

Who wouldn't be happy with this?

 

[unobtainium]

But I sure like the Siri integration w/AM

Apple Music is about the same price if I recall. The reason I use Spotify is that it's cheaper for students (half price).

 

[adamhenry]

No. Here's how it works: you pay an absurdly low monthly fee to Spotify for access to unlimited music. You sync up to 10,000 songs to your phone for offline playback. Do this at home or at work or at Starbucks or anywhere else with Wi-Fi. If you're with Verizon*, disable streaming over cellular and you're good to go.

If you get bored with your 10,000 offline tracks, you can change them up whenever you're on Wi-Fi.

* Better yet, switch to T-Mobile and get unlimited streaming.

I checked out Spotify and found it to be a very good replacement for Apples music app. Everything is easy to find and work with. I pulled the music app out of the dock and replaced it with Spotify. Apples music app is now in a the very fitting "Useless" folder sitting on the last home page.

Thanks for for the shove in the right direction. Apple can do as they please with the music app. I won't be complaining any more.

 

[trifid]

I'm also a Spotify subscriber and was deterred into switching to Apple music in part due to the dissapointing UI issues.

I'll happily keep supporting Spotify until Apple gives me a more than compelling reason to switch, which I don't expect in any foreseeable future.

 

[danleon950410]

Lol...seperate app? Yeah, right. While we're at it lets have apps that cost money have their own App Store app. I don't want to look at apps that cost money when looking for free apps.

I barely ever use bookmarks in Safari. Apple should have Safari bookmarks as a separate app also. I don't want to see the bookmark button at the bottom while browsing.

Seperate apps for every feature of iOS!!! Things are too simple these days.

Wow i'm SO impressed about your level of mocking. God, a guy from who-knows-where wrote three sentences of pure sarcasm to bash me over an iOS discussion...I don't think i'm gonna be able tosleep tonight.(sarcasm)

Not, to the actual answer: What a crazy idea, it's not like Podcasts,Books and other stock apps where that way in the past. Great examples, the thing with them is that they actually do their job. AM doesn't...for like, A LOT of people.
Local music wasn't given proper attention with the arrival of AM (which i BET you're a subscriber of). Separate apps (accodring to youandora,Spotify,Deezer, Beats, they never existed then). Separate apps would give more control over an online and offline library.There's just no point in baking everything into a single app if it's gonna end this way.

 

[lagwagon]

Not, to the actual answer: What a crazy idea, it's not like Podcasts,Books and other stock apps where that way in the past. Great examples, the thing with them is that they actually do their job. AM doesn't...for like, A LOT of people.
Local music wasn't given proper attention with the arrival of AM (which i BET you're a subscriber of). Separate apps (accodring to youandora,Spotify,Deezer, Beats, they never existed then). Separate apps would give more control over an online and offline library.There's just no point in baking everything into a single app if it's gonna end this way.

Nothing with local music was really changed at all. Except you see a couple extra tabs at the bottom of the screen that don't relate to your local music. Tap on the My Music tab and You can do everything that you could do previously. I find it hard to believe that having to tap the My Music tab is life ruining.

What does being a subscriber have to do with it? I actually barely use Apple Music, at least 95% of the music on my phone are my locally stored music. I only use AM to fill out holes in my collections, add possible new artists I've discovered or randomly stream something nostalgic. My experience playing the 95% of my library isn't ruined because AM exists.

Having AM as a separate app would make all that a whole lot less streamlined into my already owned personal music. If I had an artist in my library where I own 7/8 albums, why should I have to leave the Music app, launch Apple Music app, go search that artist, find the one album I'm missing, add it to my library, leave the AM app, re-launch Music app and then play/download for offline the newly added album in my library. When I can currently while viewing my 7 albums I own out of the 8, tap the "All" tab, scroll to the missing album and add it, play it, download it for offline right there without having to go anywhere.

Are you really comparing other 3rd party apps because they are seperate, AM should be too? AM is Apple own service, and those other music streaming offerings are 3rd party. Of course Apple is going to incorporate their own service about music in their own music app. So that it's easy for the people who do use the service + have their own music to seamlessly mix them together and find everything in one place.

 

[oldmacs]

Nothing with local music was really changed at all. Except you see a couple extra tabs at the bottom of the screen that don't relate to your local music. Tap on the My Music tab and You can do everything that you could do previously. I find it hard to believe that having to tap the My Music tab is life ruining.

Its very poor design, given changing between artists, songs, albums, whatever you do now takes repeated taps, when before you could change between those tabs from anywhere in the app. Now if you're in radio for example, you've got to tap all music, then scroll to where the drop down menu is, then select what you want, instead of tapping an icon on the always present bottom menu. That is a step backwards. They could easily fix it by allowing the bottom menu to be customised like we used to.

I'm sure there will be a rebuttal to this though. I'm open to change, but not change that makes using an app more complex, and take more taps to navigate through. Change is not always equal to good.

 

[adamhenry]

Are you really comparing other 3rd party apps because they are seperate, AM should be too? AM is Apple own service, and those other music streaming offerings are 3rd party. Of course Apple is going to incorporate their own service about music in their own music app. So that it's easy for the people who do use the service + have their own music to seamlessly mix them together and find everything in one place.

Yes, Spotify is proof that streaming and local music can be combined in an app and remain usable. Apples developers should download Spotify and go to school.

 

[lagwagon]

Its very poor design, given changing between artists, songs, albums, whatever you do now takes repeated taps, when before you could change between those tabs from anywhere in the app. Now if you're in radio for example, you've got to tap all music, then scroll to where the drop down menu is, then select what you want, instead of tapping an icon on the always present bottom menu. That is a step backwards. They could easily fix it by allowing the bottom menu to be customised like we used to.

I'm sure there will be a rebuttal to this though. I'm open to change, but not change that makes using an app more complex, and take more taps to navigate through. Change is not always equal to good.

I agree that in that situation, yes there are more taps vs just hitting a tab at the bottom. That is something that could very easily change in a future update if enough feedback actually gets sent to Apple via their feedback tools (like being able to customize the tabs as you suggest.)

It's not something I ever run into though because mine stays as Artist view 100% of the time because if I'm looking for a album or song I know which artist to navigate to to find them. (Artist list is shorter and requires far less scrolling than a 600+ album view or 8000+ song view.)

For people who do not subscribe to AM or wish to ever see anything AM. There are dozens of music apps available to download that fit all their needs. (Since some seems to love the idea of seperate apps.)

 

[trifid]

I want to make something clear about the extra taps required in the new Music app, compared to the previous, it's more than one may think. For those of us that used "Artists", "Songs" "Albums" "Genres" more, it can be quite annoying.

Here's a scenario:

• In the old app, you'd just tap on one of the sections at the bottom: Album/Artist/Song/Genre
(1 tap in total)

In the new app, things can get complicated, consider the following, suppose that you are in artist view, and tap on an artist (ie Coldplay), then tap on an album (ie Parachutes) and tap on a song, but then suppose you go to the playlists section and play one. From here if you want to go to Album/Song/Genre view for example, you have two ways of doing it:

• Tap on "My music" -> tap back button (takes you back to artist Coldplay)-> tap back button (takes you back to all your music) -> scroll up to go to the top of the list -> tap on selector -> tap on Album/Song/Genre
(6 taps/swipes in total)

or

• Tap on "My music" -> Tap on "My music" again which takes you to the 'home' page and saves you one step compared to above -> scroll up to go to the top of the list -> tap on selector -> tap on Album/Song/Genre
(5 taps/swipes in total)

So navigation inefficiency can increase considerably in the new Music app for local media, depending on one's usage from what it was before. I personally find this annoying and tedious and it definitely diminishes from the elegance and simplicity that we had before with local music.

Bottom line is, even if I don't subscribe to Apple music and use Spotify, I have to live with the inferior UI to browse my local media.

 

[lagwagon]

I want to make something clear about the extra taps required in the new Music app, compared to the previous, it's more than one may think. For those of us that used "Artists", "Songs" "Albums" "Genres" more, it can be quite annoying.

Here's a scenario:

• In the old app, you'd just tap on one of the sections at the bottom: Album/Artist/Song/Genre
(1 tap in total)

In the new app, things can get complicated, consider the following, suppose that you are in artist view, and tap on an artist (ie Coldplay), then tap on an album (ie Parachutes) and tap on a song, but then suppose you go to the playlists section and play one. From here if you want to go to Album/Song/Genre view for example, you have two ways of doing it:

• Tap on "My music" -> tap back button (takes you back to artist Coldplay)-> tap back button (takes you back to all your music) -> scroll up to go to the top of the list -> tap on selector -> tap on Album/Song/Genre
(6 taps/swipes in total)

or

• Tap on "My music" -> Tap on "My music" again which takes you to the 'home' page and saves you one step compared to above -> scroll up to go to the top of the list -> tap on selector -> tap on Album/Song/Genre
(5 taps/swipes in total)

So navigation inefficiency can increase considerably in the new Music app for local media, depending on one's usage from what it was before. I personally find this annoying and tedious and it definitely diminishes from the elegance and simplicity that we had before with local music.

Bottom line is, even if I don't subscribe to Apple music and use Spotify, I have to live with the inferior UI to browse my local media.

It can be much less taps depending on which album you're trying to get to. Say you're listening to a playlist on random and a Metallica song comes on. You feel like listening to a different song from that album. As of 9.3 just tap the song title in the player view, it takes you to the album. (In 9.2.1 you tap on the "..." At the bottom right corner and then tap on the song/cover art at the top of the menu) from there if you're wanting a different album from the same artist, tap the artist name (in this example) where it says "Metallica>" at the top, to the right of the small album art (in between where it says the album name and year of the album) while in an album. This takes you to the artist/view of all the albums you have for that artist. (*iOS 9.3* 1 tap to get to the album the song is playing belongs to. 2 taps to get to all albums you have from that artist.)

But if you're looking to get to an album from a different artist that the song that is playing from your playlist then yeah it's more taps doing it the way you layed it out. (Your example wasn't clear if it was to get to another Coldplay album or a whole different artists album.)

However, you are kinda adding unnecessary steps. When going back to My Music and it's in artist view from your previous time in My Music. If you know what artist the album you're looking for is from, then it would be quicker to stay in artist view since the list of artists is much shorter than the list of albums and massively shorter than the list of songs. My Artist list for example is somewhere between 50-60 long, album is 500-600 long and songs is 8000+ long. That's a huge difference and being in Artist view cuts down the scrolling required to navigate by a lot. In your steps staying in artist view would cut your taps down by half, 6 down to 3. 1: tapping My Music > 2: tapping whatever artist that has the album > 3: tapping the album you want to hear.

In you're steps actually scrolling back up to change views isn't needed. Tap the time in the Status Bar. It instantly takes you to the top (where the view change button is.) It's an iOS wide feature. Still a step bit a tap is quicker than swiping (scrolling back up)

You don't have to put up with an inferior UI (your opinion) either. There are music player apps available on the App Store. I've heard many talk about both Cesium and Ecoute. Those two seem to be popular. They play your offline library and only your offline library without having to look at AM tabs or anything but your offline library. So there are options that already exist for those who despise the new Music app layout/UI and want to use something more fitting to their taste/preference.

Apple will probably never remove AM from the Music app. That wouldn't be good business for them on their brand new service that they are trying to sell. Because out of sight, out of mind. Less people would subscribe if they didn't see it and maybe get intrigued to do the trial.

 

[trifid]

It can be much less taps depending on which album you're trying to get to. Say you're listening to a playlist on random and a Metallica song comes on. You feel like listening to a different song from that album. As of 9.3 just tap the song title in the player view, it takes you to the album. (In 9.2.1 you tap on the "..." At the bottom right corner and then tap on the song/cover art at the top of the menu) from there if you're wanting a different album from the same artist, tap the artist name (in this example) where it says "Metallica>" at the top, to the right of the small album art (in between where it says the album name and year of the album) while in an album. This takes you to the artist/view of all the albums you have for that artist. (*iOS 9.3* 1 tap to get to the album the song is playing belongs to. 2 taps to get to all albums you have from that artist.)

But if you're looking to get to an album from a different artist that the song that is playing from your playlist then yeah it's more taps doing it the way you layed it out. (Your example wasn't clear if it was to get to another Coldplay album or a whole different artists album.)

However, you are kinda adding unnecessary steps. When going back to My Music and it's in artist view from your previous time in My Music. If you know what artist the album you're looking for is from, then it would be quicker to stay in artist view since the list of artists is much shorter than the list of albums and massively shorter than the list of songs. My Artist list for example is somewhere between 50-60 long, album is 500-600 long and songs is 8000+ long. That's a huge difference and being in Artist view cuts down the scrolling required to navigate by a lot. In your steps staying in artist view would cut your taps down by half, 6 down to 3. 1: tapping My Music > 2: tapping whatever artist that has the album > 3: tapping the album you want to hear.

In you're steps actually scrolling back up to change views isn't needed. Tap the time in the Status Bar. It instantly takes you to the top (where the view change button is.) It's an iOS wide feature. Still a step bit a tap is quicker than swiping (scrolling back up)

You don't have to put up with an inferior UI (your opinion) either. There are music player apps available on the App Store. I've heard many talk about both Cesium and Ecoute. Those two seem to be popular. They play your offline library and only your offline library without having to look at AM tabs or anything but your offline library. So there are options that already exist for those who despise the new Music app layout/UI and want to use something more fitting to their taste/preference.

Apple will probably never remove AM from the Music app. That wouldn't be good business for them on their brand new service that they are trying to sell. Because out of sight, out of mind. Less people would subscribe if they didn't see it and maybe get intrigued to do the trial.

Good post thanks. About the scrolling up step, I know one either swipe or tap the top status bar, but either way it counts as an extra action/step.

You mention one could save extra steps by going through artist and reaching your album that way, but the point of album view is or should be that it gives you a visual view of your music which is great when you don't know what you want to listen to.

I understand Apple wants to put AM front and center and get people to subscribe. Fine, do it. But it's clear the UI decision resulted in local music taking a hit (perhaps not for you, but for others yes), I would argue at minimum Apple should have let us customize tabs like we could before, one could easily remove "connect" and "radio" and put your favorite tab. This is not ideal, because most users keep a 'default' setup and don't realize they can make it 'better' but at least it would be an option.

 

[oldmacs]

I understand Apple wants to put AM front and center and get people to subscribe. Fine, do it. But it's clear the UI decision resulted in local music taking a hit (perhaps not for you, but for others yes), I would argue at minimum Apple should have let us customize tabs like we could before, one could easily remove "connect" and "radio" and put your favorite tab. This is not ideal, because most users keep a 'default' setup and don't realize they can make it 'better' but at least it would be an option.

turning Apple Music off should allow you to populate the bottom menu with the tabs you use to be allowed to have. That would fix this problem.

 

[lagwagon]

Good post thanks. About the scrolling up step, I know one either swipe or tap the top status bar, but either way it counts as an extra action/step.

You mention one could save extra steps by going through artist and reaching your album that way, but the point of album view is or should be that it gives you a visual view of your music which is great when you don't know what you want to listen to.

I understand Apple wants to put AM front and center and get people to subscribe. Fine, do it. But it's clear the UI decision resulted in local music taking a hit (perhaps not for you, but for others yes), I would argue at minimum Apple should have let us customize tabs like we could before, one could easily remove "connect" and "radio" and put your favorite tab. This is not ideal, because most users keep a 'default' setup and don't realize they can make it 'better' but at least it would be an option.

There definitely has been something going on with the tabs recently that could indicate changes around the corner. It happens on both 9.2.1 and 9.3 beta that I've seen. Nearly every time I launch the Music app the tab that is usually Connect will sometimes be Playlist instead. And sometimes it's still Connect. Other times it will flash as Playlist briefly after launching but then change to Connect. It could be they are playing around testing things behind the scenes for 9.3 or a later release for non AM subs. (Back in 8.4 beta Apple were able to change/add tabs at will without requiring an update during testing.) Radio tab I can see them getting rid of too for non subscribers soon. Maybe as soon as 9.3 official release. Because Apple killed off iTunes Radio and made it AM subs only I believe and this all happened very recently (Just after 9.3 beta 2 came out I think.)

I can see your point about getting different view of your music when you're unsure what to play (I usually just hit Shuffle All on my entire library in those circumstances because I hate having to decide.) But if we're talking pure efficiency when you do know exactly what album you want (with how things currently are) staying in Artist view will be more effieict most of the time.

 

[Jsameds]

No. Here's how it works: you pay an absurdly low monthly fee to Spotify for access to unlimited music. You sync up to 10,000 songs to your phone for offline playback. Do this at home or at work or at Starbucks or anywhere else with Wi-Fi. If you're with Verizon*, disable streaming over cellular and you're good to go.

If you get bored with your 10,000 offline tracks, you can change them up whenever you're on Wi-Fi.

* Better yet, switch to T-Mobile and get unlimited streaming.

So your argument is to pay £10/month for something that's as easy as we previously used to be able to do for free?

If it's so absurdly low you won't mind paying it for me then...

 

[Arran]

Simple solution (for me) was to find an alternative music app.

There are plenty in the App Store - all cheap. I actually quite enjoy discovering a new one and giving it a try. So much so, that I've not used the native app for months.

It'll be shoved in the junk folder soon. RIP!

 

[crookadile]

Simple solution (for me) was to find an alternative music app.

There are plenty in the App Store - all cheap. I actually quite enjoy discovering a new one and giving it a try. So much so, that I've not used the native app for months.

It'll be shoved in the junk folder soon. RIP!

Mines been in the junk folder for months. I use Cesium. Best £1.69 I ever spent.

 

[unobtainium]

So your argument is to pay £10/month for something that's as easy as we previously used to be able to do for free?

If it's so absurdly low you won't mind paying it for me then...

You used to be able to get music for free? How?

 

[Jsameds]

You used to be able to get music for free? How?

Ripped from the CDs that I already own.

 

[adamhenry]

Ripped from the CDs that I already own.

Th music you own is still available in Spotify. You just point Spotify to the directory that holds it and it shows up as Local music. It doesn't matter much though because you could put all of your CDs in the trash and you would still have access to all of the music that was on them plus millions more tunes.

 

[dk001]

Th music you own is still available in Spotify. You just point Spotify to the directory that holds it and it shows up as Local music. It doesn't matter much though because you could put all of your CDs in the trash and you would still have access to all of the music that was on them plus millions more tunes.

Or you could create your own off line library and have it as a backup.
I did - about 50GB worth.
Yes, this is the same library that AM borked a copy of 2x. A new copy now resides on GM.

 

[Arran]

Mines been in the junk folder for months. I use Cesium. Best £1.69 I ever spent.

Yep, Cesium's one of the best.

 

[AdonisSMU]

I have no problem with Apple Music for those that enjoy it. In fact, I think a dedicated AM app installed on iOS should take the shackles off the stock Music.app for those that only want songs loaded directly onto the phone. AM app looks and behaves like the current app combined with Beats/Spotify. The stock Music app returns to a clean, no frills interface like iOS 6.

Who wouldn't be happy with this?

I'm happy with it. I think it's the right way to go. Sometimes I want to buy the songs outright and sometimes I want to stream them.

 

[MarvinHC]

The solution is simple: move into the 21st century and start steaming your music with Spotify or Apple or some other service.

Some people don't only listen to mainstream stuff, I agree what is said above. Also, keep in mind streaming is ok if you have unlimited data. I for example travel a lot into various countries, so I want to listen to my music locally saved without consuming (roaming) data.

I really hate the new music app. Finding something in my now (admittedly large) collection is much harder than it used to be. I recently found my old iPod classic, which sadly I prefer to the music app.

 

[ericgtr12]

They've taken what was once a user friendly, intuitive app and turned into an overly complicated, confusing mess that looks like it was designed in Frankenstein's lab. I payed $5.99 for a simple MP3 player that just plays your songs.