Star Ratings - workarounds or time to move on?

[steve62388]

The strange part is that in iTunes the stars are now more visible than both the love feature (heart icon has disappeared from player window and has been reduced in size everywhere else) and dislike feature (only listed when you right click on a track).
Someone new to iTunes and not using iOS might think the stars are taking over these two new features!

Apple must be testing the waters by removing the stars on iOS 10 since it is still possible to rate tracks using Siri while the smart playlists that use stars are still synchronizing. Also, they didn't replace the stars with anything new, they're just gone.

I'm no expert but I'd bet the stars are simply hidden at this point and Apple is waiting to see users reactions to decide what to do next.

Hence the importance to send them feedback telling them politely we want it back!

Or we could all be making a mountain out of a molehill.

I agree that it's peculiar star ratings in iTunes are more prominent than ever. Perhaps their removal from the iOS app is merely a reflection of the new simplified design language? Or maybe they will turn back up in a later version of iOS 10? A number of design changes were made to the iOS 9 music app through it's lifetime.

 

[Cmd-Z]

Saw a workaround in Apple forums ...

1- Create a playlist for each star, named such that they're at the top of the playlist view from your iPhone (e.g. "A!-1 star", "A!-2 star", etc.)

2- Leave these playlists empty, but sync them to your iPhone.

3- As you play songs on your iPhone and you want to add (or change) the star rating, tap the "..." and select the option to add the song to a playlist, then select the appropriate star rating playlist.

4- Later on your next sync to iTunes, review the contents of these playlists, apply the star rating, then remove them from these playlists so they're empty and re-sync for the next rating session on your iPhone.

A pain for sure, but once set up it's not so bad and at least its do-able.


Question, do these 3rd party music apps sync any rating changes you make on them back to your iTunes library, or do they just keep that star rating local within the app?

 

[The Weatherman]

A number of design changes were made to the iOS 9 music app through it's lifetime.

I've read here and there that stars were absent from early builds of iOS 9. Do you know in which version they were reintroduced? I remember using them as soon as I updated to iOS 9 but I don't remember if that was 9.0, 9.1 or even 9.2.

That might be a good indicator of our chances to see it coming it back by itself in next iOS 10 updates...

 

[ggarnold]

I wonder if Apple will eventually remove the "Smart Playlist" feature altogether. Without star ratings, Smart Playlists become a lot less meaningful. Smart Playlist "creation" has never been supported on iOS devices. However, since star ratings were a key configuration option, you could easily "manage" these playlists from an iOS device.

Essentially Apple has dumbed down playlist support on iOS devices to the Google Play, Spotify and Amazon Prime levels.

I'd be curious about other people's experience with managing large libraries using these other services. Last I reviewed, none supported the Smart Playlist type features to make playlist management easier. These other services warrant a new review since Apple's playlists are no longer a differentiator. Amazon Prime is first on my list because it would work nicely with my Amazon Echo device.

 

[Cmd-Z]

I've read here and there that stars were absent from early builds of iOS 9. Do you know in which version they were reintroduced? I remember using them as soon as I updated to iOS 9 but I don't remember if that was 9.0, 9.1 or even 9.2.

That might be a good indicator of our chances to see it coming it back by itself in next iOS 10 updates...

Star rating has NEVER been removed from iOS, what you're reading are people's misunderstanding ... there was a point in iOS 9 where Apple changed how you access the ratings (i.e. tap the song name vs. tap the now playing artwork) and some people thought it had been removed, but that's not correct it was just moved. Star ratings have always been accessible on iOS until iOS 10.

 

[ggarnold]

I've read here and there that stars were absent from early builds of iOS 9. Do you know in which version they were reintroduced? I remember using them as soon as I updated to iOS 9 but I don't remember if that was 9.0, 9.1 or even 9.2.

That might be a good indicator of our chances to see it coming it back by itself in next iOS 10 updates...

Star ratings where moved in iOS 9 (track name vs. album cover). This change caused some confusion, but pretty sure the ratings were always there. I've beta tested most versions since at least iOS 5 and am a heavy star ratings user. From my recollection, the star ratings have always been there until the first beta of iOS 10.

Edit: Looks like Cmd-Z beat me to the answer! This makes at least two that agree the star ratings have long been a part of iOS without interruption.

 

[The Weatherman]

Star rating has NEVER been removed from iOS, what you're reading are people's misunderstanding ... there was a point in iOS 9 where Apple changed how you access the ratings (i.e. tap the song name vs. tap the now playing artwork) and some people thought it had been removed, but that's not correct it was just moved. Star ratings have always been accessible on iOS until iOS 10.

Thanks for the clarification. I see where the confusion is coming from now. However, this clearly isn't a good sign for the days to come...

 

[Table Top Joe]

what are you on about?

I updated to iTunes 12.5.1 and no longer had the option to use star ratings, I just had a quick look at it after work to check out the new itunes, didnt have time to mess around with it, considering the fact they were missing in IOS 10 I feared the worst.....when I went back to work I checked preferences and sure enough, there they were, just needed to be turned back on

Thats pretty much it, if you need further clarification you just let me know

 

[The Weatherman]

However I still think we should petition Apple to bring them back universally.

Petition is up! Get to your keyboards, speak your mind and don't forget to share!

https://www.change.org/p/apple-inc-...utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink

 

[bobright]

I like using Marvis so I choose to upgrade to iOS 10. Bed time is a pretty good add on for me to simply track my sleeping.

Does Marvis sync and update the ratings on our Mac and within iTunes? Which is the whole point for me at least. I listen and rate songs on my iPhone and update them to my main collection on my Mac.

 

[TheNormsk]

I don't tend to hang out here as I am losing my love of all things Apple, anyway, I decided to see what you all had to say about the 5-star ratings debacle that is iOS10 music.app. I'm been on a thread over at Apple Communities since iOS10 went live looking for solutions to this. I've been doing some testing with different strategies as well.

I'll admit I haven't had the chance to read all of this thread yet so you have probably covered all of this, but in case you haven't what we've found so far is at: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7664472

Basically the bottom line is that third party apps can update/change 5-star ratings but it seems to only work if you sync though wifi or cable connection to iTunes. They do not work if you sync through iCloud Library as they use the the native music.app and Music will not recognize the rating change unless Siri initiates it.

The work around for if you use Music with iCloud Library is to create rating playlists and then add your track to the rating playlist to be later updated in iTunes.

Have I missed any? Any better solutions so far?
[doublepost=1474060191][/doublepost]

Can you explain why you need the Star rating for your music?
Can you explain why Love/Dislike is not enough to drive the automated things such as Genius? (hint: it is)

I have 24,000+ songs, some 12,000 are unrated (it used to be 8,000 unrated but iCloud in iOS9 somehow lost the ratings of some 4,000 songs Arhg!) Here is how I use the 5-star rating to curate my music.

1-star = music that I decided I don't like and I will eventually delete from my Library. I should have no one star ratings in my library because I deleted them. This can be replaced with the Dislike.

2-stars = album intros, or talky bits in albums. Stuff I would not listen to as an individual track.

3-stars = average music. It's good background music but nothing particularly memorable. You know, 70% of most albums (probably ~70% of my music)

4-stars = stuff I like (probably ~30% of my music). I set LOVED in parallel to this.

5-stars = My keepers. Music I always want on my phone - about <1% of my music. Also set to LOVED.

Now considering that I have a 128GB iphone and I keep around 32GB of music on it and I am often in locations where there is no cell phone coverage so I can stream, how do I replace this with a LOVE/DISLIKE rating that achieves the same?
[doublepost=1474060559][/doublepost]

As I said before, the only functional purpose the star ratings have ever had was driving the Genius feature, but under the hood it was a rudimentary + or - informant for Genius, which is the same as the Like/Dislike feature.

You are wrong. Perhaps you are a youngster and don't remember the "early years" but star ratings have been around for a long time before Genius was ever a thing. Genius may be converting star ratings into a binary form for music predication now, but that was never the purpose of star rating originally.

 

[JohnSFO]

I don't tend to hang out here as I am losing my love of all things Apple, anyway, I decided to see what you all had to say about the 5-star ratings debacle that is iOS10 music.app. I'm been on a thread over at Apple Communities since iOS10 went live looking for solutions to this. I've been doing some testing with different strategies as well.

I'll admit I haven't had the chance to read all of this thread yet so you have probably covered all of this, but in case you haven't what we've found so far is at: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7664472

Basically the bottom line is that third party apps can update/change 5-star ratings but it seems to only work if you sync though wifi or cable connection to iTunes. They do not work if you sync through iCloud Library as they use the the native music.app and Music will not recognize the rating change unless Siri initiates it.

The work around for if you use Music with iCloud Library is to create rating playlists and then add your track to the rating playlist to be later updated in iTunes.

Have I missed any? Any better solutions so far?
[doublepost=1474060191][/doublepost]

I have 24,000+ songs, some 12,000 are unrated (it used to be 8,000 unrated but iCloud in iOS9 somehow lost the ratings of some 4,000 songs Arhg!) Here is how I use the 5-star rating to curate my music.

1-star = music that I decided I don't like and I will eventually delete from my Library. I should have no one star ratings in my library because I deleted them. This can be replaced with the Dislike.

2-stars = album intros, or talky bits in albums. Stuff I would not listen to as an individual track.

3-stars = average music. It's good background music but nothing particularly memorable. You know, 70% of most albums (probably ~70% of my music)

4-stars = stuff I like (probably ~30% of my music). I set LOVED in parallel to this.

5-stars = My keepers. Music I always want on my phone - about <1% of my music. Also set to LOVED.

Now considering that I have a 128GB iphone and I keep around 32GB of music on it and I am often in locations where there is no cell phone coverage so I can stream, how do I replace this with a LOVE/DISLIKE rating that achieves the same?
[doublepost=1474060559][/doublepost]

You are wrong. Perhaps you are a youngster and don't remember the "early years" but star ratings have been around for a long time before Genius was ever a thing. Genius may be converting star ratings into a binary form for music predication now, but that was never the purpose of star rating originally.

[doublepost=1474064902][/doublepost]I came here hoping to find out where the ratings went to. They were difficult to find in iOS 9 and now they're just gone in 10. I've submitted feedback to Apple: http://www.apple.com/feedback/

As for ratings, for those who use them regularly they're a major enhancement to the music experience. It changes the relationship you have with music when you listen closely to a song and judge its intricacies. You dig deep into what makes a song a song and how it makes you feel. Although I totally get why some people don't want to spend the time to do it...and I'm sure they're relationship to music is just as important and fulfilling.

I'll admit that I don't generally change ratings on my phone, but I certainly like to look at them! A great old song will come on and I'll wonder if I gave it 4 stars. Sometimes you want to reassess, but now I can't do that on the iPhone.

Another important aspect of ratings is the ease of finding the best songs by an artist. It's so much quicker to see 4 and 5 star songs by Blondie than to wonder if, say, "Union City Blue" is one of their best tracks or not. BTW, at 3.5 stars it's middle of the road and not one of their very best, imho. With the rating system I know that with a quick glance.

Since we're geeking out and comparing, here's my system:

1 star: dead to me...and not in my iTunes
2 stars: below average and I have way too many songs to be bothered (also not in my iTunes).
3 stars: average, listenable, enjoyable at times, worthy of a spot in the artist's playlist
4 stars: above average, highly enjoyable, an acheivement
5 stars: wouldn't change a thing, never gets old, award winning

Half stars are fun to use too. Just gives you a little more room for differentiating between tracks.

One thing I always do is periodically I make a copy of my entire itunes song list. I copy and paste the list into a Pages document and it shows the same metadata that I have in my iTunes, but for the rating it assigns a number. For example, a 5 star song is given 100, 4.5 is 90, 4 is 80 and so on. I do this so that if (and probably when) Apple does away with star ratings I will not have lost all that data. It took me a long time to listen to and rate 7000 songs!

Ok, that's my 2 cents. People just don't like to have their music habits messed with -- and Apple's rating system has been around a long time.

 

[msvadi]

With Cesium and iCloud Music Library enabled (Apple Music), can I still upload music files from iTunes on my computer to my iPhone?

Thanks

Cesium is pretty amazing, and it's the closest thing to the iOS 6 and prior music app I've ever found.

The only issue it has that annoys me is that you can't queue a song without interrupting playback briefly. But the developer says this is an API issue, and not something he can control.

 

[TheNormsk]

With Cesium and iCloud Music Library enabled (Apple Music), can I still upload music files from iTunes on my computer to my iPhone?

Thanks

If you have iCloud Library enabled you cannot upload from your computer to your phone. Rather you library is in the cloud and you have to manually select which sones/artists/playlists you want to download if you want an offline copy. However if you use iCloud Library, none of the 3rd part music apps (I've tried both Cesium and Marvis - though others use the same API and suffer the same limitations) are able to update rate ratings and/or loved/dislike back through the cloud. Apple does not allow it.

If iCloud Library is disabled, then you may upload/sync from the computer to the phone and vis-versa for ratings, though the LOVE/DISLIKE still will not sync up to the computer (you have to use the music app for that).
[doublepost=1474086153][/doublepost]

Saw a workaround in Apple forums ...

1- Create a playlist for each star, named such that they're at the top of the playlist view from your iPhone (e.g. "A!-1 star", "A!-2 star", etc.)

2- Leave these playlists empty, but sync them to your iPhone.

3- As you play songs on your iPhone and you want to add (or change) the star rating, tap the "..." and select the option to add the song to a playlist, then select the appropriate star rating playlist.

4- Later on your next sync to iTunes, review the contents of these playlists, apply the star rating, then remove them from these playlists so they're empty and re-sync for the next rating session on your iPhone.

A pain for sure, but once set up it's not so bad and at least its do-able.


Question, do these 3rd party music apps sync any rating changes you make on them back to your iTunes library, or do they just keep that star rating local within the app?

Ha ha! I just saw this. That was my solution over there.... Small world.

 

[Shirasaki]

Does Marvis sync and update the ratings on our Mac and within iTunes? Which is the whole point for me at least. I listen and rate songs on my iPhone and update them to my main collection on my Mac.

Yes, it does sync between devices and can even sort of modifying certain smart playlists.

 

[ggarnold]

Petition is up! Get to your keyboards, speak your mind and don't forget to share!

https://www.change.org/p/apple-inc-...utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink

Thanks for setting up this petition! We are close to the 100 signature goal.

 

[ggarnold]

Maybe Consumer Reports should follow Apple's lead and switch from from their 5 category rating (Excellent/Very Good/Good/Fair/Poor) to a binary Like/Dislike system.

On a more serious topic, I have tried the Music Rating widget which is really clever and handy. However I am finding the ratings changes don't seem to get sync'd to my iTunes Library. They stick with the song on my iPhone but never get updated in my iTunes/iCloud library. Ratings set using Siri seem to update my iTunes Library with no problems.

Is this a limitation for all 3rd party apps? What about Marvis and Cesium?

 

[Cmd-Z]

I have tried the Music Rating widget which is really clever and handy. However I am finding the ratings changes don't seem to get sync'd to my iTunes Library. They stick with the song on my iPhone but never get updated in my iTunes/iCloud library. Ratings set using Siri seem to update my iTunes Library with no problems.

Is this a limitation for all 3rd party apps? What about Marvis and Cesium?

Apparently if you use iCloud Music Library or iTunes Match, no 3rd party app will push rating changes from the device to your library (they can read it fine, but can't write to it). I'm sure there's a technical explanation for that due to changes Apple has made.

I'm using Marvis and it syncs rating changes from my iPhone back to my library just fine, but I don't use iCloud for my music.

 

[ggarnold]

Apparently if you use iCloud Music Library or iTunes Match, no 3rd party app will push rating changes from the device to your library (they can read it fine, but can't write to it). I'm sure there's a technical explanation for that due to changes Apple has made.

I'm using Marvis and it syncs rating changes from my iPhone back to my library just fine, but I don't use iCloud for my music.

Thanks for the info. Do you know if this was a change in iOS 10 or limitation in previous iOS versions for iCloud Music Library andiTunes Match users?

 

[Cmd-Z]

Thanks for the info. Do you know if this was a change in iOS 10 or limitation in previous iOS versions for iCloud Music Library andiTunes Match users?

Since I've never used iCloud for my music I can't say for sure, but I gotta believe that if iOS 9 had a problem transferring ratings back to your library through iTunes Match or iCloud Music Library we would've heard about it. It think this is all from iOS 10 changes.

 

[TheNormsk]

Thanks for the info. Do you know if this was a change in iOS 10 or limitation in previous iOS versions for iCloud Music Library andiTunes Match users?

It's an iOS10 thing as far as I am aware, though I never used third party music apps prior to iOS10.

 

[skatp]

Music Rating Widget is most likely going to get updated for iOS 10. http://appshopper.com/music/music-rating-widget

I have never used it, but there is a review from someone saying they're using it in the beta and it works.

I found this 3rd party app, but it has scant description and no reviews. Frustrating, b/c I remember seeing in an article last week about a 3rd party app that let you rate w/o interrupting play or using Siri, but can't find the story now.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rating-stars-5-out-of-5/id1135086336?mt=8

 

[Jessica Lares]

I found this 3rd party app, but it has scant description and no reviews. Frustrating, b/c I remember seeing in an article last week about a 3rd party app that let you rate w/o interrupting play or using Siri, but can't find the story now.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rating-stars-5-out-of-5/id1135086336?mt=8

I haven't seen that app in particular mentioned, but their website is pretty nice and have some contact information: https://m4rr.ru/stars

 

[The Weatherman]

Still no sight of stars in 10.0.2?

 

[Table Top Joe]

Nope