Really No Way to Stream Recommendations?!

[consultant1027]

One of the things I like to do is stream new music while I'm working and if I hear something I like I go tag it to review later or buy it.

It seems one of the highly touted features of Apple Music and/or iTunes Store is the ability to take into consideration what you like to listen to and make recommendations.

In iTunes there is a "For You" section but this seems to just recommend pre-existing playlists tied to certain genre's or artists, not really a list of recommended songs.

Also there is a "New" section that has a sub-section "Music You Need To Hear" which appears to just be albums and does not appear to be very specifically tailored to my listening habits but has *some* correlation.

In the iTunes store you have "My Recommended Music" which takes you to a screen title "Genius Recommendations" which has albums on the left and a list of songs on the right.

In neither of these three areas is there a way to simpley "Play All" and start streaming everything.

This leaves you having to manually go through each album and/or single. I don't know about you but I don't have the time to sit in front of items all day and go through several hundred recommended songs. I'd rather just have them streamed to me while I'm working.

Apple was always thought to be an innovative so I'm a bit perplexed that this feature is seemingly missing!? From usefulness perspective it seems like a no-brainer feature to include.

Ideally, I'd love Apple to just stream to me only new releases that "Genius" thinks I'll like based on my listening history and genre/artist preference. I'm hoping I'm just missing something.

 

[M. Gustave]

I'm hoping I'm just missing something.

Yep, you are in fact missing something. Clicking play on any song in an album, playlist, or even a search, will continue playing all the songs in it. I've even done this sometimes for fun, like search all Apple Music for a word like "blue", and then just start playing the songs it returns.

The "For You" section has playlists in genres, and based around artists, that you liked. And if you scroll down it also shows a group of individual albums that might interest you. I think it works quite well, and Apple's playlists are clearly made by people, not algorithms.

Maybe you should redo your matrix of artists and genres? I assume you did that when you joined AM.

 

[consultant1027]

I think you didn't fully understand my post because nothing you have suggested actually speaks to what I'm trying to achieve.

"Clicking play on any song in an album, playlist, or even a search, will continue playing all the songs in it."

This doesn't help me as the three areas I referenced "For You", "New - Music You Need to Hear" and "iTunes Store - My Recommended Music" none provide a playlist that you can play all songs. On the ones with recommended albums, it won't move to the next album so I'm still stuck having to go back into iTunes to start the next recommended album/song.

The subject of my post wasn't whether the various places that recommend music are or aren't making good recommendations. My point is none of these places have a "play all" option, primarily, as I've pointed out, because no where does Apple provide you with recommendations in a playlist format that you can play the entire list.

No cigar.

 

[Julien]

Your post seem hard to understand what you want. Do you want music that you like to just play all day? If so you should use Radio and you can make a custom station out of an example track or artist.

 

[Uofmtiger]

It sounds like he wants something like what Rdio had. Based on your listening preferences, they built up a playlist of songs that were selected around your past choices. You could simply start the app, click on that "radio station" and start playing it.

They also had a continue play option that would play all day if you wanted it to no matter what you were listening to. It could start with songs similar to what you were just playing and eventually change over to their recommended music based on your past selections.

I would like to see them add something like that to. I like the For You playlists and albums, but they need a way to continue playing without needing to interact with the app.

The interesting thing is that MOG had continue play before Beats bought them, but Beats rewrote the app from scratch and left out this feature. I was hoping Apple would add it, but I guess we have to wait for that feature.

 

[M. Gustave]

I think you didn't fully understand my post because nothing you have suggested actually speaks to what I'm trying to achieve.

"Clicking play on any song in an album, playlist, or even a search, will continue playing all the songs in it."

This doesn't help me as the three areas I referenced "For You", "New - Music You Need to Hear" and "iTunes Store - My Recommended Music" none provide a playlist that you can play all songs. On the ones with recommended albums, it won't move to the next album so I'm still stuck having to go back into iTunes to start the next recommended album/song.

The subject of my post wasn't whether the various places that recommend music are or aren't making good recommendations. My point is none of these places have a "play all" option, primarily, as I've pointed out, because no where does Apple provide you with recommendations in a playlist format that you can play the entire list.

No cigar.

I don't care one iota for your 'cigar', or your smug attitude, but in the spirit of taking pity on the less fortunate I'll try this one more time.

Aside from the Radio option, available on any song... What you wrote, above in bold, is wrong. Apple gives you several recommended playlists to choose from daily. You click on the playlist, it opens showing all the songs. Click on the first one (or any of them) and the entire list will play automatically, in order. (On a 6s phone, peek the playlist with 3D Touch, and slide up to play all.)

Now, if you're attempting to say that you want all of the recommended playlists to play, there isn't a button for that, but it takes about two seconds to go to the "..." menu in each playlist, and choose "Add to Up Next". Now you have one giant playlist. I'm sure you'll say the extra clicks are unacceptable, and an epic crApple fail.