11 ms·

In Apple's keynotes, they often claim that they "love music". But their app misses some basics that people who actually love music might like to have: To be abl

by mung 9y ago

In Apple's keynotes, they often claim that they "love music". But their app misses some basics that people who actually love music might like to have: To be able to sort music by year (and have year of release not be year of reissue), exclude various greatest hits reissues if you want to 'discover' an artist's works, and not default to shuffle when you haven't used the app for a while, because I don't know, maybe I'm old fashioned, but I'd like to listen to an album in the order that the artist put the songs in. It would also be great if syncing your own music to a device actually worked without issues (such as not copying the entire album, which you inevitably discover later, on the road). I stopped listening to music on the way to work because of all the roadblocks the app put in the way. It's utterly beyond me how the largest tech company in the world can't sort basics of their their UI out, over periods of years.

paulcole 9y ago
> their app misses some basics that people who actually love music might like to have I think I enjoy music and have never wanted any of the things you listed.
- exacube 9y ago
  it sounds like you only enjoy it, not love it :P if you look at Spotify, you find they have all these features that music lovers would use, even though they may not be the majority class of users. This feels to me like Apple is marketing themselves as what Spotify is (the leading competitor in this space), but their product development falls short of their marketing.
  - drb91 9y ago
    > it sounds like you only enjoy it, not love it :P God, how arrogant. It's one thing to be opinionated about music, it's another to judge another's enjoyment. Talk about making music something miserable to share with others. Personally, the spotify client is a piece of shit for me--buggy, slow, and it can't sync any music not in its library. Somehow spotify's marketing manages to leave that out, and Apple Music is a much better option for me. Clearly you don't really love music if you're limited to Spotify's catalogue. ;)
    - exacube 9y ago
      > God, how arrogant. It's one thing to be opinionated about music, it's another to judge another's enjoyment It was meant in jest
      - mung 9y ago
        It's not even that arrogant imo. People who regard themselves as serious about music will smirk and nod in agreement.
        drb91 9y ago
        Well of course you wouldn't consider it, it was your arrogance that started this thread. Why would you see a flaw with your own worldview? That would be uncomfortable! Who are you to define the love of music? No better than Apple.
        mung 9y ago
        Y'know, I'm quite comfortable with being told about flaws in my worldview. You just haven't not provided any so far. - But clearly you have something to say about it, I'd like to hear it. Here's a starter: I don't think taste is subjective and those that do believe it is just haven't developed any (yet). There is no shame in that, the shame should be not wanting to extend yourself. I'm not saying everybody has to have the same taste, clearly everyone can enjoy different things. But there is a clear difference between having taste (of some sort) and not having any. Ask any designer, visual artist, musician, or apparently, Linus Torvalds. This is btw not meant to disparage the great-grandfather comment about enjoying music at all, it's started this discussion, but is not related to it.
  - paulcole 9y ago
    Apple's entire business is built around restricting choice and features. In their minds, they have taste and know best for the users they want. Apple makes the rules, users play by them or choose to go somewhere else. Overall, you can't say it doesn't work for them.
  - merb 9y ago
    well.. his suggestion would probably be poor for classic music.
  - threeseed 9y ago
    > if you look at Spotify, you find they have all these features that music lovers would use Likewise when I look at Apple Music I find all these features that music lovers would use. I guess neither of us speaks for "music lovers". Beats1 is incredible for music discovery and has no peer on Spotify for example.
    - mediocrejoker 9y ago
      I have only used Spotify. What are some of the features that music lovers would use in Apple Music? What is Beats1?
      - briandear 9y ago
        “Hey Siri, play me the first Miles Davis album.” “Hey Siri, play the top song from 1987.” “Hey Siri, play some Delta Blues.” “Hey Siri, who’s the guitarist on this song?” “Hey Siri, play some sad music” “Hey Siri, play something I might like.” “Hey Siri, play John Williams radio.” “Hey Siri, what album is this from?” And with HomePod, it also sounds great.
  - mcphage 9y ago
    > it sounds like you only enjoy it, not love it :P > their product development falls short of their marketing There's a difference between Apple saying "We love music" and saying "We make software for people who love music".
jakear 9y ago
Definitely agree with regards to showing albums by year and filtering for just studio/live/whatever. On the other hand, I find it quite easy to play albums straight through.
- lev99 9y ago
  Playing an album straight though steps on desktop ui: 1. Type album name is search bar 2. Select "search _album name_ in albums" 3. Hover mouse of album art 4. Press play button. It seems very reasonable.
- mung 9y ago
  Yeah that is easy, it works. I should have been more specific. On the iPhone, local albums, If I stop the music and perhaps don't get to start again for a couple of days (like on a weekend, coming back on Monday), when I hit play again, it doesn't start where I left off. It does starts on shuffle. Interestingly, I've noticed the shuffle produces exactly the same result every time too.
fermienrico 9y ago
I absolutely abhor the Apple Music UI. Why...WHY is it that people design stuff like this? > Why are the fonts so large that you can't see list of songs properly? > Why do I have to click so many times to be able to view all songs in an album? > Within a couple of clicks, I should be able to view a list of songs in my playlist and I can sort it the way I want. By year, by genre, by any parameter of the song > Same thing for albums list and artists list Unbelievable - the new UI paradigm with BOLD fonts and large negative space is eating into the limited valuable real estate on a mobile device. What goes into these people's minds? Can someone shed some light?
- jasonwilk 9y ago
  I concur. One big pain point is how small the buttons are to change songs. I'm usually driving when listening to Apple music and would love it if I had huge buttons or could go vertical for driving model which made it dead simple. Nope, let's make it hard so my eyes go off the road. This and it also seems like Apple has given up on a lot of their playlists. Adding one song per week doesn't count as updated playlist. For how many billions they generate, you'd think you could just have an army of people making amazing playlists.
  - threeseed 9y ago
    I actually disagree that Apple should make it easier for you to physically use your phone whilst driving. If you need to change songs use Siri or better yet pull over. And I also disagree that saying that Apple has given up on their "playlists" or that they are stagnant in content. There are many playlists within Apple Music: the auto generated ones e.g. Chill Mix which are refreshed once a week, the Beats1/Guest ones which are refreshed very often e.g. a few times a day and the ones littered through Browse which again are often updated once a week. Which "playlists" are you referring to ?
    - rainbowmverse 9y ago
      Arguing with a robot over spelling seems like it would be more distracting than hitting a button.
jogjayr 9y ago
> syncing your own music to a device actually worked without issues I've used iTunes for many years and how exactly this works is still a mystery to me.
amelius 9y ago
Funny that you mention "sort music by year". In Spotify, if I start a radio-station of e.g. a Sade song, it comes up with music from the same era (80s music mostly), but that's not what I want; I want music in the same style!
- mung 9y ago
  Yeah I'd agree on that. I mean though if you are trawling an artists catalogue. In that case I think it's reasonable to want to listen to a discography in the order that they were released, once you've decided that you want to get to know an artist properly.
paul7986 9y ago
Why Apple who has driven UX throughout the industry gives two craps about UX in Apple MUsic is baffling. There’s so many times I want to do something like play all songs under recently added or even one song without having to go to another screen. Also you ask Siri hey play songs similar to this one and she will but why the hell does Apple Music create a playlist I have to clear before going to play something else outside of that stupid playlist I didnt ask it to create? I just said play songs similar to this. So may terrible UX examples. I only subscribe still because Of Apple Music and Siri integration for when driving. Also music discovery is crap.. I just want it to randomly play new songs similar to a playlist I’m listening to and do so randomly/surprise me. Nope doesn’t do that and this I now subscribe to YouTube red for discovery and it rocks as I listen at work and home on my computers. Not safe to use Red while driving :-(
RileyJames 9y ago
I haven't used Apple music, but I feel Spotify also falls down in the UI. There seem to be plenty of pitfalls where the best of both worlds could be provided, yet aren't. Basics like, why only show the top 5 popular songs from an artist? with no option to "view all songs based on popularity" If I can't recall a song name from an artist, I then need to start going through individual albums to find it... Or if I've over played the top 5 songs, and just quickly want to throw something from say, the top 20. No dice. Alternatively, if I go into "my library" and select an artist, I now see ONLY those songs I've saved. With no option to view the rest of what they have to offer. Likewise for an album (only songs I've saved on that album). And WHY can't I scroll backwards through the songs I've most recently played WITHOUT changing the current song? Seriously? Has a spotify staff member never been in a situation where their friend has asked, "hey what was that song two songs ago?" These seems like pretty basic UI navigation options that should be easy to access.
- b1daly 9y ago
  The Spotify interface relies heavily on the “...” option. This menu always provides the option to go to album, artist, like the track, and share. This suboptimal in one major way, which is that this three dot link is hard to target!
acchow 9y ago
Can you see releases by music label? That would be game changing for me. Spotify doesn't have this.
- thojac 9y ago
  It's actually possible to search for labels on Spotify. Just type: label:[LABEL] (with spaces you have to use quotation marks, i.e. label:"Smalltown Supersound"). A shame that it's not implementet better... when they obviously have the data for it.
  - acchow 9y ago
    Wow, thanks for this. This is game changing.
bobbles 9y ago
The thing that baffles me is that now if you're listening to a playlist and you tap the album/song it takes you back to the playlist its playing in, not the album itself. it takes like 3 more taps just to get to the actual album
enlightenedfool 9y ago
If you want to experience the intense usability and customer focus of Apple, try the keyboard on Apple TV. Blows the competition out.
pfarnsworth 9y ago
iTunes and Apple Music is garbage. I'm tempted to write my own music player with big buttons that I can press while driving, without all the bullshit. It's incredible how dumb they are about this.
pishpash 9y ago
People also often claim they "love music." Turns out many of them just want to turn a fob and have the top hits continuously fed into them without effort on their part.
yeowMeng 9y ago
> ... can't sort basics of their their UI out ... Consumer lock in && feature bias to minimize UI complexity && tradition of maintaining long standing bugs... So basically, XXXXX XXXX as in Don’t care.
newscracker 9y ago
> It's utterly beyond me how the largest tech company in the world can't sort basics of their their UI out, over periods of years. The same way the App Store on Apple TV still doesn't have an "Updates" tab with updates available for the apps one has installed. The only way to do this is to go to each app's page and see if there are updates available. It has been this way since the fourth generation of Apple TV with the App Store was released about two and a half years ago! I've been repeating this a few times — Apple and its leadership ought to be deeply ashamed about such things, but never seems to be and doesn't show that it cares either. What ever happened to user experience being a distinguishing factor on Apple products???
tytytytytytytyt 9y ago
> It's utterly beyond me how the largest tech company in the world can't sort basics of their their UI out, over periods of years. It might be what the demographic they are target likes, which probably isn't audiophiles. "Yes, let's target 1% of the population instead of 50%."
forgotmypw 9y ago
This entire thread is why I still go through the trouble of downloading MP3 files and using a standalone music player.
metafunctor 9y ago
I find the Music app unbearable. It feels like a webview app, or ported from Android; definitely not optimized for the iPhone. It feels like it was designed by committee, like something that came from Microsoft or Nokia 10 years ago. Sometimes I feel like there must be something wrong with how I think about music, because I like a lot of what Apple comes up with, but the Music app I cannot stand. Surely it cannot be that bad, and I should just adjust? Then I actually use the Music app for a bit, and I'm again convinced that I'm not crazy. The app is confusing and hard to navigate, but somehow still manages to miss so many features I'd look for in a music app—I don't even want to start listing everything I don't like. I, for one, will certainly not be getting an Apple Music subscription until they come up with a music app that actually makes sense. It is making me listen to less music. And I love music.
r_singh 9y ago
I've heard at least 4 people convey similar emotions towards Apple Music's UI. One of my friends dislikes to UI so much that he uses the app only through Shazam.

by mung 9y ago

paulcole 9y ago

> their app misses some basics that people who actually love music might like to have I think I enjoy music and have never wanted any of the things you listed.

exacube 9y ago
it sounds like you only enjoy it, not love it :P if you look at Spotify, you find they have all these features that music lovers would use, even though they may not be the majority class of users. This feels to me like Apple is marketing themselves as what Spotify is (the leading competitor in this space), but their product development falls short of their marketing.
- drb91 9y ago
  > it sounds like you only enjoy it, not love it :P God, how arrogant. It's one thing to be opinionated about music, it's another to judge another's enjoyment. Talk about making music something miserable to share with others. Personally, the spotify client is a piece of shit for me--buggy, slow, and it can't sync any music not in its library. Somehow spotify's marketing manages to leave that out, and Apple Music is a much better option for me. Clearly you don't really love music if you're limited to Spotify's catalogue. ;)
  - exacube 9y ago
    > God, how arrogant. It's one thing to be opinionated about music, it's another to judge another's enjoyment It was meant in jest
    - mung 9y ago
      It's not even that arrogant imo. People who regard themselves as serious about music will smirk and nod in agreement.
      - drb91 9y ago
        Well of course you wouldn't consider it, it was your arrogance that started this thread. Why would you see a flaw with your own worldview? That would be uncomfortable! Who are you to define the love of music? No better than Apple.
        mung 9y ago
        Y'know, I'm quite comfortable with being told about flaws in my worldview. You just haven't not provided any so far. - But clearly you have something to say about it, I'd like to hear it. Here's a starter: I don't think taste is subjective and those that do believe it is just haven't developed any (yet). There is no shame in that, the shame should be not wanting to extend yourself. I'm not saying everybody has to have the same taste, clearly everyone can enjoy different things. But there is a clear difference between having taste (of some sort) and not having any. Ask any designer, visual artist, musician, or apparently, Linus Torvalds. This is btw not meant to disparage the great-grandfather comment about enjoying music at all, it's started this discussion, but is not related to it.
- paulcole 9y ago
  Apple's entire business is built around restricting choice and features. In their minds, they have taste and know best for the users they want. Apple makes the rules, users play by them or choose to go somewhere else. Overall, you can't say it doesn't work for them.
- merb 9y ago
  well.. his suggestion would probably be poor for classic music.
- threeseed 9y ago
  > if you look at Spotify, you find they have all these features that music lovers would use Likewise when I look at Apple Music I find all these features that music lovers would use. I guess neither of us speaks for "music lovers". Beats1 is incredible for music discovery and has no peer on Spotify for example.
  - mediocrejoker 9y ago
    I have only used Spotify. What are some of the features that music lovers would use in Apple Music? What is Beats1?
    - briandear 9y ago
      “Hey Siri, play me the first Miles Davis album.” “Hey Siri, play the top song from 1987.” “Hey Siri, play some Delta Blues.” “Hey Siri, who’s the guitarist on this song?” “Hey Siri, play some sad music” “Hey Siri, play something I might like.” “Hey Siri, play John Williams radio.” “Hey Siri, what album is this from?” And with HomePod, it also sounds great.
- mcphage 9y ago
  > it sounds like you only enjoy it, not love it :P > their product development falls short of their marketing There's a difference between Apple saying "We love music" and saying "We make software for people who love music".

jakear 9y ago

Definitely agree with regards to showing albums by year and filtering for just studio/live/whatever. On the other hand, I find it quite easy to play albums straight through.

lev99 9y ago
Playing an album straight though steps on desktop ui: 1. Type album name is search bar 2. Select "search _album name_ in albums" 3. Hover mouse of album art 4. Press play button. It seems very reasonable.
mung 9y ago
Yeah that is easy, it works. I should have been more specific. On the iPhone, local albums, If I stop the music and perhaps don't get to start again for a couple of days (like on a weekend, coming back on Monday), when I hit play again, it doesn't start where I left off. It does starts on shuffle. Interestingly, I've noticed the shuffle produces exactly the same result every time too.

fermienrico 9y ago

I absolutely abhor the Apple Music UI. Why...WHY is it that people design stuff like this? > Why are the fonts so large that you can't see list of songs properly? > Why do I have to click so many times to be able to view all songs in an album? > Within a couple of clicks, I should be able to view a list of songs in my playlist and I can sort it the way I want. By year, by genre, by any parameter of the song > Same thing for albums list and artists list Unbelievable - the new UI paradigm with BOLD fonts and large negative space is eating into the limited valuable real estate on a mobile device. What goes into these people's minds? Can someone shed some light?

jasonwilk 9y ago
I concur. One big pain point is how small the buttons are to change songs. I'm usually driving when listening to Apple music and would love it if I had huge buttons or could go vertical for driving model which made it dead simple. Nope, let's make it hard so my eyes go off the road. This and it also seems like Apple has given up on a lot of their playlists. Adding one song per week doesn't count as updated playlist. For how many billions they generate, you'd think you could just have an army of people making amazing playlists.
- threeseed 9y ago
  I actually disagree that Apple should make it easier for you to physically use your phone whilst driving. If you need to change songs use Siri or better yet pull over. And I also disagree that saying that Apple has given up on their "playlists" or that they are stagnant in content. There are many playlists within Apple Music: the auto generated ones e.g. Chill Mix which are refreshed once a week, the Beats1/Guest ones which are refreshed very often e.g. a few times a day and the ones littered through Browse which again are often updated once a week. Which "playlists" are you referring to ?
  - rainbowmverse 9y ago
    Arguing with a robot over spelling seems like it would be more distracting than hitting a button.

jogjayr 9y ago

> syncing your own music to a device actually worked without issues I've used iTunes for many years and how exactly this works is still a mystery to me.

amelius 9y ago

Funny that you mention "sort music by year". In Spotify, if I start a radio-station of e.g. a Sade song, it comes up with music from the same era (80s music mostly), but that's not what I want; I want music in the same style!

mung 9y ago
Yeah I'd agree on that. I mean though if you are trawling an artists catalogue. In that case I think it's reasonable to want to listen to a discography in the order that they were released, once you've decided that you want to get to know an artist properly.

paul7986 9y ago

Why Apple who has driven UX throughout the industry gives two craps about UX in Apple MUsic is baffling. There’s so many times I want to do something like play all songs under recently added or even one song without having to go to another screen. Also you ask Siri hey play songs similar to this one and she will but why the hell does Apple Music create a playlist I have to clear before going to play something else outside of that stupid playlist I didnt ask it to create? I just said play songs similar to this. So may terrible UX examples. I only subscribe still because Of Apple Music and Siri integration for when driving. Also music discovery is crap.. I just want it to randomly play new songs similar to a playlist I’m listening to and do so randomly/surprise me. Nope doesn’t do that and this I now subscribe to YouTube red for discovery and it rocks as I listen at work and home on my computers. Not safe to use Red while driving :-(

RileyJames 9y ago

I haven't used Apple music, but I feel Spotify also falls down in the UI. There seem to be plenty of pitfalls where the best of both worlds could be provided, yet aren't. Basics like, why only show the top 5 popular songs from an artist? with no option to "view all songs based on popularity" If I can't recall a song name from an artist, I then need to start going through individual albums to find it... Or if I've over played the top 5 songs, and just quickly want to throw something from say, the top 20. No dice. Alternatively, if I go into "my library" and select an artist, I now see ONLY those songs I've saved. With no option to view the rest of what they have to offer. Likewise for an album (only songs I've saved on that album). And WHY can't I scroll backwards through the songs I've most recently played WITHOUT changing the current song? Seriously? Has a spotify staff member never been in a situation where their friend has asked, "hey what was that song two songs ago?" These seems like pretty basic UI navigation options that should be easy to access.

b1daly 9y ago
The Spotify interface relies heavily on the “...” option. This menu always provides the option to go to album, artist, like the track, and share. This suboptimal in one major way, which is that this three dot link is hard to target!

acchow 9y ago

Can you see releases by music label? That would be game changing for me. Spotify doesn't have this.

thojac 9y ago
It's actually possible to search for labels on Spotify. Just type: label:[LABEL] (with spaces you have to use quotation marks, i.e. label:"Smalltown Supersound"). A shame that it's not implementet better... when they obviously have the data for it.
- acchow 9y ago
  Wow, thanks for this. This is game changing.

bobbles 9y ago

The thing that baffles me is that now if you're listening to a playlist and you tap the album/song it takes you back to the playlist its playing in, not the album itself. it takes like 3 more taps just to get to the actual album

enlightenedfool 9y ago

If you want to experience the intense usability and customer focus of Apple, try the keyboard on Apple TV. Blows the competition out.

pfarnsworth 9y ago

iTunes and Apple Music is garbage. I'm tempted to write my own music player with big buttons that I can press while driving, without all the bullshit. It's incredible how dumb they are about this.

pishpash 9y ago

People also often claim they "love music." Turns out many of them just want to turn a fob and have the top hits continuously fed into them without effort on their part.

yeowMeng 9y ago

> ... can't sort basics of their their UI out ... Consumer lock in && feature bias to minimize UI complexity && tradition of maintaining long standing bugs... So basically, XXXXX XXXX as in Don’t care.

newscracker 9y ago

> It's utterly beyond me how the largest tech company in the world can't sort basics of their their UI out, over periods of years. The same way the App Store on Apple TV still doesn't have an "Updates" tab with updates available for the apps one has installed. The only way to do this is to go to each app's page and see if there are updates available. It has been this way since the fourth generation of Apple TV with the App Store was released about two and a half years ago! I've been repeating this a few times — Apple and its leadership ought to be deeply ashamed about such things, but never seems to be and doesn't show that it cares either. What ever happened to user experience being a distinguishing factor on Apple products???

tytytytytytytyt 9y ago

> It's utterly beyond me how the largest tech company in the world can't sort basics of their their UI out, over periods of years. It might be what the demographic they are target likes, which probably isn't audiophiles. "Yes, let's target 1% of the population instead of 50%."

forgotmypw 9y ago

This entire thread is why I still go through the trouble of downloading MP3 files and using a standalone music player.

metafunctor 9y ago

I find the Music app unbearable. It feels like a webview app, or ported from Android; definitely not optimized for the iPhone. It feels like it was designed by committee, like something that came from Microsoft or Nokia 10 years ago. Sometimes I feel like there must be something wrong with how I think about music, because I like a lot of what Apple comes up with, but the Music app I cannot stand. Surely it cannot be that bad, and I should just adjust? Then I actually use the Music app for a bit, and I'm again convinced that I'm not crazy. The app is confusing and hard to navigate, but somehow still manages to miss so many features I'd look for in a music app—I don't even want to start listing everything I don't like. I, for one, will certainly not be getting an Apple Music subscription until they come up with a music app that actually makes sense. It is making me listen to less music. And I love music.

r_singh 9y ago

I've heard at least 4 people convey similar emotions towards Apple Music's UI. One of my friends dislikes to UI so much that he uses the app only through Shazam.