So Apple Music on macOS is still a sluggish mess, some of this year's Music features are half baked such as the artist follow feature, there's evidence of an upcoming Apple Music Classical app, and overall there's really nothing fundamentally new in Apple Music this year.
My theory (another word for "dream" given this will never happen) is Apple are preparing an enormous revamp of Apple Music along with the long rumored Apple Music Classical experience for browsing classical records intuitively (by composition, composer, etc. the full dream spec for any classical listener). Not only will the app finally be usable on macOS, it will also introduce a brand new experience for discovering music and expanding your library outside of the dehumanizing presentation of AI suggestion playlists.
Give me features nobody else is bothering to do. I'm sick of every streaming platform having the same interface and feature set (aka: a barebones "My Library" browser, playlists, recommended platform playlists, 'radio' playlists with seemingly unstructured recommendations. why is everything outside of genre pages represented as a barebones playlist UX???)
- new ways to explore music by country of origin, maybe a world map interface to go along with it (cover flow was an original way of exploring your own music, why not create more original interfaces for exploring new music?)
- more detailed extensive genre browsing including interesting niche sub-genres, emerging musical trends, and more OUTSIDE of linear playlists ("Hip Hop" is comprised of many MANY different sub genres within it from all over the world). there are people out there with deep knowledge of UK grime, NY drill, 90s west coast rap, why isn't that knowledge and *narrative* finding its way into Apple Music outside of playlists with absolutely 0 context and no related content such as a lone "Best of 90s Rap" playlist randomly sitting somewhere in the "Hip Hop" page.
- more original interfaces for browsing sub genres as well as 'snapshots' of musical moments in history. instead of a "Best of 00s Pop" playlist that has the same barebones utility and look we've had for 2 decades, give me a chronological interface of music with annotations from an expert explaining the significance of those songs or albums. the ability to play in different sorting arrangements: default sorting as setup by the playlist author, by release date, by artist, etc.
- artist bios including ages, nationality, and anything else that helps me understand who the artist is and how their identity potentially informs the kind of music they make (why do I have to do this independently on wikipedia or via social media)
- don't just show me "related artists" show me WHY they're related, what sub genre do these artists share? what period? what relationship? have they worked on songs together? is this other artists an inspiration for the artist I'm currently looking at? maybe vice versa?
- anonymous stats on demographic of people listening to a certain genre, artist, playlist, etc. including a real time trends page showing what's being listened to at this very second rather than "what's generally trending this week"
- an original detailed chronological interface for an artist's work with clear distinctions on which projects are collabs, features, etc. include greyed out projects from artists that aren't on DSPs but can be tracked down elsewhere independently (such as mixtapes). i.e, not just a grid of album art with tiny greyed out years underneath them)
- tastemakers should have public profiles too (not just artists) where they can publish what they're listening to right now, original playlists, etc. I think Spotify has something like this but Apple could do a much better job.
Apple are the one DSP that can budget something like this. They could be truly innovating on the most important aspect of music outside of listening: DISCOVERY! but instead look to gimmicks like 360 audio (atmos) that don't add much to the experience anyway. Is it a tall order? Difficult to accomplish and requires lots of music domain experts to contribute? Yes but historically that hasn't stopped Apple.
and before someone adds the inevitable "I love Atmos it's awesome" comment, that's great and I'm happy for you but wouldn't you love to see discovery updates too?
My theory (another word for "dream" given this will never happen) is Apple are preparing an enormous revamp of Apple Music along with the long rumored Apple Music Classical experience for browsing classical records intuitively (by composition, composer, etc. the full dream spec for any classical listener). Not only will the app finally be usable on macOS, it will also introduce a brand new experience for discovering music and expanding your library outside of the dehumanizing presentation of AI suggestion playlists.
Give me features nobody else is bothering to do. I'm sick of every streaming platform having the same interface and feature set (aka: a barebones "My Library" browser, playlists, recommended platform playlists, 'radio' playlists with seemingly unstructured recommendations. why is everything outside of genre pages represented as a barebones playlist UX???)
- new ways to explore music by country of origin, maybe a world map interface to go along with it (cover flow was an original way of exploring your own music, why not create more original interfaces for exploring new music?)
- more detailed extensive genre browsing including interesting niche sub-genres, emerging musical trends, and more OUTSIDE of linear playlists ("Hip Hop" is comprised of many MANY different sub genres within it from all over the world). there are people out there with deep knowledge of UK grime, NY drill, 90s west coast rap, why isn't that knowledge and *narrative* finding its way into Apple Music outside of playlists with absolutely 0 context and no related content such as a lone "Best of 90s Rap" playlist randomly sitting somewhere in the "Hip Hop" page.
- more original interfaces for browsing sub genres as well as 'snapshots' of musical moments in history. instead of a "Best of 00s Pop" playlist that has the same barebones utility and look we've had for 2 decades, give me a chronological interface of music with annotations from an expert explaining the significance of those songs or albums. the ability to play in different sorting arrangements: default sorting as setup by the playlist author, by release date, by artist, etc.
- artist bios including ages, nationality, and anything else that helps me understand who the artist is and how their identity potentially informs the kind of music they make (why do I have to do this independently on wikipedia or via social media)
- don't just show me "related artists" show me WHY they're related, what sub genre do these artists share? what period? what relationship? have they worked on songs together? is this other artists an inspiration for the artist I'm currently looking at? maybe vice versa?
- anonymous stats on demographic of people listening to a certain genre, artist, playlist, etc. including a real time trends page showing what's being listened to at this very second rather than "what's generally trending this week"
- an original detailed chronological interface for an artist's work with clear distinctions on which projects are collabs, features, etc. include greyed out projects from artists that aren't on DSPs but can be tracked down elsewhere independently (such as mixtapes). i.e, not just a grid of album art with tiny greyed out years underneath them)
- tastemakers should have public profiles too (not just artists) where they can publish what they're listening to right now, original playlists, etc. I think Spotify has something like this but Apple could do a much better job.
Apple are the one DSP that can budget something like this. They could be truly innovating on the most important aspect of music outside of listening: DISCOVERY! but instead look to gimmicks like 360 audio (atmos) that don't add much to the experience anyway. Is it a tall order? Difficult to accomplish and requires lots of music domain experts to contribute? Yes but historically that hasn't stopped Apple.
and before someone adds the inevitable "I love Atmos it's awesome" comment, that's great and I'm happy for you but wouldn't you love to see discovery updates too?
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