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What would you like to see in Music App on iOS 17?

A

Andrew73875

macrumors regular
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Feb 1, 2022
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Music App is one of the most popular apps on an iPhone. Which new features, design/UI changes would you like to see in the next iteration of the Music App on iOS?

I have the following suggestions.

1. Continuity feature
This would allow to continue listening to a song on another device. This feature existed on Spotify for years, but somehow never made it to Apple Music. My Mac doesn't know what I'm listening to on my iPhone and vice versa.

2. Better discovery and faster loading for "Listen now" and "Browse" tabs
Right now it's rather slow. I use Spotify when I need to find a new song (even though I don't have a Spotify subscription). If I like it, I go to Apple Music and add it to my library.

3. Ability to edit tabs
This feature was there since the very first iPhone and then disappeared with Apple Music introduction.

musicscreen-jpg.1962375


Some people want to have a quick access to "Artists", others to "Albums" etc.

4. Cover Flow or similar mode
We have the biggest screens ever, the biggest music libraries ever. But there's no way to scroll through the library while enjoying the artwork.



5. Full screen artwork, on-screen "shuffle" and "repeat"

image-jpeg.1953920


Would be great to see the full screen artwork while listening to music. "Shuffle" and "repeat" are hidden now, would be nice to bring them back to the main screen.


What are your suggestions?
 
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1) Folders for Playlists that are not yours

2) Like a song on the player itself (Not having to tap 2 or 3 times to like a song)

3) easier access to the radio part of Apple Music, and the ability to save radio playlists and episodes

4) A better schedule of what radio shows air at what times. Notifications to when your radio show is going to start

5) Play Count identification. You want to bring up details of a song, it should show how many times you have played the song
 
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I’m actually pretty content with how Apple Music looks and functions. There are definitely some great ideas to add, like an Apple Music version of Spotify Connect, but it’s also not anything I’m personally asking for.

All I would like would be:
- Nested Playlists/Playlist Folders

- The full screen pop-ups for certain actions like adding a song to a playlist or the queue reduced to toast/island pop ups.

- Actually showing what song is playing when listening to FM-based radio stations instead of just the station name and logo (could easily be powered by Shazam if the broadcast provider doesn’t have it)

Other than those three, personally there’s nothing I really “want” from Apple Music nor any changes I can think of that I would “need”.
 
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As suggested above, folders for playlists (you can only move your own playlists into folders)

Much faster searching, available in Spotify, no reason why it shouldn’t be available on AM. The current search is painfully slow. I’ve also noticed that when I have a poor cellular signal, downloaded music is slow to load - that shouldn’t happen. These aren’t new features but fixes to improve the user experience.
 
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As a (former) musician, I’d love to see the ability to isolate tracks on songs. For example, I just want to hear the bass track, or a vocal track. I’d like to be able to deconstruct a song to learn how to play it.

Everyone else’s suggestions wold be fantastic too.
 
Crossfade. Search within my own playlist by artist. Continue on another device and control playback from another device. Gone back to Spotify as it has all of these.
 
• Bug fixes, bug fixes, bug fixes

• A live events calendar for artists you follow (like Spotify)

• Collaborative playlists

• A much, much faster app experience…including a smarter search function

• The ability to see ALL of the artists that you follow, not just some

• Fix all the bugs in the library section of the app (albums splitting into compilations, messed up metadata, recently played albums that were removed from the library not appearing in the “recently played” section, etc.

• An improved “new releases” section for artists that you follow. Unless they specifically release a new song as a single, it won’t appear in your “new releases” section. For example, a lot of singles are released via the entire album (with all the other tracks grayed out until the album release date). These songs don’t appear in your “new releases” section and it’s insanely frustrating.

• Basic features like crossfade, a better EQ, playlist folders

• Better continuity (basically, Spotify Connect)
 
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Bulk downloading songs like a download all button for your library.

I'd like shuffle not to play 3 songs from the same band back-to-back all the time when I have like a thousand songs =P
 
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I've made a thread about this before and I'll paste my thoughts below. In summary I want new methods of exploring music with more detail in regards to niche subgenres and the history of music. Apple Music should almost be the wikipedia of music apps, a knowledge base of artists and their work. There are so many ways to improve music streaming services but they have not evolved (for the most part) beyond the same paradigm as CDs and tapes.

Give me a way to see the history of an artist weaved into a timeline of their releases. A grid of music simply listed as "Albums" and "Singles" tells me nothing about the artist, I always have to do the work of understanding context and what other artists have contributed towards that particular subgenre. I want entire pages dedicated to the most peculiar queries: what music genres were peaking in 1985? what artists were becoming popular during that time?

With that being said I would happily trade any/all new features for a year in exchange for a WORKING, ZERO LAG, SMOOTH MACOS MUSIC APP EXPERIENCE. The macOS Music app is extraordinarily slow; Tidal (an Electron app) is snappier and less buggy than the trillion dollar company's app.

zakarhino said:
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.
Click to expand...
 
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Andrew73875 said:
1. Continuity feature
This would allow to continue listening to a song on another device. This feature existed on Spotify for years, but somehow never made it to Apple Music. My Mac doesn't know what I'm listening to on my iPhone and vice versa.
Click to expand...

This is my top request too. And I’d love it if iPhones and iPads showed up alongside HomePods and Apple TVs in the Now Playing section of control center. It would be nice to be able to control media on one device from another sometimes.
 
* Edit smart playlists on the phone

* Not have to click through multiple menus to 🤍 a song

* Edit song data on the phone- genre, artist, etc
 
Wish we could delete items from the Recently Played section. Siri constantly misunderstands what I want it to play and I end up with really weird crap in there. Would rather just remove it.
 
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I love Apple Music, but Apple could learn an awful lot from Spotify when it comes to the user interface.
 
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While listening to Apple Music, it pauses when I open Spotify, even just to browse. Is this expected behavior or a setting? It doesn’t do it for YouTube or any other app. Super annoying.
 
pudge104 said:
While listening to Apple Music, it pauses when I open Spotify, even just to browse. Is this expected behavior or a setting? It doesn’t do it for YouTube or any other app. Super annoying.
Click to expand...
Yeah that happens. Kinda sucks, but I think that's normal.
 
I would like to see a car mode like Spotify has where the music screen stays lit on the phone while using CarPlay.
 
MegaBlue said:
I’m actually pretty content with how Apple Music looks and functions. There are definitely some great ideas to add, like an Apple Music version of Spotify Connect, but it’s also not anything I’m personally asking for.

All I would like would be:
- Nested Playlists/Playlist Folders

- The full screen pop-ups for certain actions like adding a song to a playlist or the queue reduced to toast/island pop ups.

- Actually showing what song is playing when listening to FM-based radio stations instead of just the station name and logo (could easily be powered by Shazam if the broadcast provider doesn’t have it)

Other than those three, personally there’s nothing I really “want” from Apple Music nor any changes I can think of that I would “need”.
Click to expand...
You can actually do this through Music/iTunes and it syncs to your iPhone but too many steps 😂
 
Links to commercial and internet stations (like iTunes used to have)

The default splash screen to be my library
 
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