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Ah, Soundcloud. One of the companies I should love the most given my usage of it, but hate with a strong passion due to their product and technical bungles. Let

by ruddct 10y ago

Ah, Soundcloud. One of the companies I should love the most given my usage of it, but hate with a strong passion due to their product and technical bungles. Let's take it from the top: Product (applicable to iOS and web): * Their mobile app and desktop products are, essentially, two completely different experiences. They have not evolved in sync with each other at all. * Listening to tracks I've saved is hidden deep, deep within the app. * Social capabilities don't exist in the app. Inexplicably, it's most of what exists on the desktop product. * Oh look, I got a notification on the app. Who knows what it's about, though, no way to find out. * What about something as simple as listening to a track and trying to figure out what time is? Nope. Their music player inexplicably hides the on-screen clock because some designer didn't want it messing with album artwork. * Every aspect of the web product screams 'we just cloned every other social network out there all at once'. It's a messy hodgepodge of features, 80% of which I don't use. Technical: * This one is easier to explain. The web and mobile products are constantly, incredibly buggy. Music stops every 10 minutes or so, randomly. The app crashes. Display errors abound. It's a mess. A shame because the 'magic moment' in Soundcloud is, truly, incredible. Make connections with artists and tastemakers you like. See their music and interact with moments of it with other fans. I'm frustrated because I truly believe it could be great. Unfortunately, their product and technical teams have not kept up.

cyberferret 10y ago
Agreed. I use their web interface all the time, NEVER use the mobile app which I installed years ago. The experience is just so different and broken... As someone who has published over 100 of my own recordings on SC, interaction with fans is paramount, and the mobile app just plainly sucks at it - it is more of a 'quickie consumer' gateway, not a social experience at all.
adrianpike 10y ago
Another fun one for me is when the web experience mysteriously pegs a CPU core. Seems to happen every couple days.
- Matsta 10y ago
  Happens to me as well, but only with Chrome. I Also have an issue when you go to another tab and come back and all the waveforms have disappeared. Firefox and Safari don't seem to have these issues.
yks 10y ago
I generally like the full web version, but the mobile app is atrocious. Why, why on Earth can't I see the list of last searches or at least last played songs.
minikomi 10y ago
Agreed. Most frustrating app I use daily. Wish I could turn off reposts in. My stream. Wish I could sort and refine searches - is sort by upload date too much to ask? Wish I could at least see track information on the iOS app - super important especially for mix tracklists.. At this point I'd say essentially no-one feels loyalty to the soundcloud brand, and few trust the service to listen to its users (both content creators or consumers). A risky place to be as a consumer facing business.
cloudjacker 10y ago
I use the mobile app exclusively. I remember their old mobile app, a split ios and ipad experience, sometimes one version was not available on one device's iTunes Store at random times. I like what is has become.... if you already know what artist you want to listen to. - The push notification randomness is annoying, I've never responded to a push, except as a shortcut to open the app to get to the artist I wanted - My most annoying gripe was that it forces you to sign up if you want to retain history (or follow an artist to at least have them in your feed) - But after you sign up it is just as forgetful as ever, except if you follow an artist they'll be in your feed... somewhere....
thirdsun 10y ago
Spot on. At this point Soundcloud's biggest advantage is the fact that it has every tastemaker / DJ on there - some time ago the same thing could be said about MySpace and bands / artists. My use case for Soundcloud is mostly listening to sets, often featuring rare material, well done by crate diggers as well as keeping up with some smaller labels I enjoy. Frankly, these days I'd prefer to do that on Mixcloud, which isn't flawless but at least gets the basics right, like remembering my play queue and current position. Sidenote: When speaking about Soundcloud's mobile app one has to mention the fact that there is a seperate app, Pulse, just to handle comments and notifications which seems insane to me. As a content creator I use it, but don't see how this couldn't be integrated into the already existing app which apparently is for consumption only.
dsl 10y ago
This. Every time I use the Soundcloud app I think to myself "I wonder if I could crowdsource the development of a third-party iOS app..."
audessuscest 10y ago
Also no listened tracks history. When you want to find a tracks you listened some day ago but can't remember the title.
pawadu 10y ago
> Social capabilities don't exist in the app. Inexplicably, it's most of what exists on the desktop product. and thanks god for that!

by ruddct 10y ago

cyberferret 10y ago

Agreed. I use their web interface all the time, NEVER use the mobile app which I installed years ago. The experience is just so different and broken... As someone who has published over 100 of my own recordings on SC, interaction with fans is paramount, and the mobile app just plainly sucks at it - it is more of a 'quickie consumer' gateway, not a social experience at all.

adrianpike 10y ago

Another fun one for me is when the web experience mysteriously pegs a CPU core. Seems to happen every couple days.

Matsta 10y ago
Happens to me as well, but only with Chrome. I Also have an issue when you go to another tab and come back and all the waveforms have disappeared. Firefox and Safari don't seem to have these issues.

yks 10y ago

I generally like the full web version, but the mobile app is atrocious. Why, why on Earth can't I see the list of last searches or at least last played songs.

minikomi 10y ago

Agreed. Most frustrating app I use daily. Wish I could turn off reposts in. My stream. Wish I could sort and refine searches - is sort by upload date too much to ask? Wish I could at least see track information on the iOS app - super important especially for mix tracklists.. At this point I'd say essentially no-one feels loyalty to the soundcloud brand, and few trust the service to listen to its users (both content creators or consumers). A risky place to be as a consumer facing business.

cloudjacker 10y ago

I use the mobile app exclusively. I remember their old mobile app, a split ios and ipad experience, sometimes one version was not available on one device's iTunes Store at random times. I like what is has become.... if you already know what artist you want to listen to. - The push notification randomness is annoying, I've never responded to a push, except as a shortcut to open the app to get to the artist I wanted - My most annoying gripe was that it forces you to sign up if you want to retain history (or follow an artist to at least have them in your feed) - But after you sign up it is just as forgetful as ever, except if you follow an artist they'll be in your feed... somewhere....

thirdsun 10y ago

Spot on. At this point Soundcloud's biggest advantage is the fact that it has every tastemaker / DJ on there - some time ago the same thing could be said about MySpace and bands / artists. My use case for Soundcloud is mostly listening to sets, often featuring rare material, well done by crate diggers as well as keeping up with some smaller labels I enjoy. Frankly, these days I'd prefer to do that on Mixcloud, which isn't flawless but at least gets the basics right, like remembering my play queue and current position. Sidenote: When speaking about Soundcloud's mobile app one has to mention the fact that there is a seperate app, Pulse, just to handle comments and notifications which seems insane to me. As a content creator I use it, but don't see how this couldn't be integrated into the already existing app which apparently is for consumption only.

dsl 10y ago

This. Every time I use the Soundcloud app I think to myself "I wonder if I could crowdsource the development of a third-party iOS app..."

audessuscest 10y ago

Also no listened tracks history. When you want to find a tracks you listened some day ago but can't remember the title.

pawadu 10y ago

> Social capabilities don't exist in the app. Inexplicably, it's most of what exists on the desktop product. and thanks god for that!