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It's funny how people can have such different experiences. I'm currently trialing a switch from Apple Music to Spotify, and the Spotify UI is completely bafflin

by baddox 6y ago

It's funny how people can have such different experiences. I'm currently trialing a switch from Apple Music to Spotify, and the Spotify UI is completely baffling. I cannot understand how they make it impossible to, just, browse the music in my library. I just want to add songs to my library, then browse my library by artist. This is, as far as I can tell, impossible with Spotify. But then again, music discovery is something I am absolutely not interested in for my music player. Different strokes for different folks.

baumandm 6y ago
Same experience for me moving from Google Play Music to Spotify. Their UI is missing incredibly basic features, and isn't even consistent across platforms. - Want to clear everything in your queue and listen to something else? You need to select each queued song and remove it manually. - Adding a song to the queue, OK. Adding a playlist to the queue, impossible. - Want to change your profile name? You can't do that on the website, just on the mobile app. - Want to edit the description of a playlist? You can't do that on either the mobile app or the website. I was only able to do this in a Linux desktop app And those are just the ones off the top of my head.
- baddox 6y ago
  The queue stuff is mind-bogglingly broken. Sometimes, if I have old stuff in my queue, whenever I instruct Spotify to start playing a new album or playlist, it will play only the first new song, then will skip to the old queue. This doesn’t seem to happen consistently, but it’s incredibly annoying while driving.
  - jasonv 6y ago
    I have this problem too. Things keeping me away from Apple Music: 1) I like being able to use my Amazon Echo and my Roku to run my Spotify. 2) I can't use Soundiiz (or similar) to sync Artists & Albums from Spotify to Apple. Right now I'm paying for Youtube Premium, Spotify, and 2TB iCloud. The fact that I don't particularly care about the cost is kind of keeping me on those three platforms..
fossuser 6y ago
I thought I didn't care about music discovery either, but for me that turned out to just be because all the discovery I'd seen previously was bad. Spotify Discovery weekly playlists are really good and getting a new one each week is a really good model. I generally agree with you on the UI, Spotify's is also bad. You can add songs to 'liked songs' which is functionally the library (used to be called library, before that was 'starred songs') and then sort by artist that way. I have no idea what they're doing over there though changing that stuff every couple of months. They have no idea how their UI should work, no design consistency - it's generally bad. Is the Apple stuff pretty good now?
- EricE 6y ago
  Apple still has the radio station functionality (AI generated playlists on demand, from a seed song you pick) and they also have curated playlists that change on a routine basis as well. I far prefer Apples interface, and they are slowly fixing the major issues with the Music app - it's not nearly as awful as when it first launched and still way better than Spotify's UI for all reasons already outlined.
  - fossuser 6y ago
    The seed song approach isn't very good. I think the way Spotify discovery works is looking at songs you have favorited and compares other human created playlists from users that have your favorite songs, then taking songs from those playlists you haven't heard and putting them in a list for you. I think they also do some modeling after that, but it's secondary. This works really well since there's a human selection element they're taking advantage of and playlists tend to collect stuff that people who have the same taste will probably like. Radios based on seed songs I've found to be pretty unimpressive, similarly curated playlists that don't know about your tastes are also uninteresting. It's the combination that works. The weekly distribution is also good because you get time to explore new stuff each week (rather than just being overwhelmed) and you can further improve things by liking/disliking new stuff. Good to know the Apple UI improved though.
    - 6y ago

by baddox 6y ago

baumandm 6y ago

Same experience for me moving from Google Play Music to Spotify. Their UI is missing incredibly basic features, and isn't even consistent across platforms. - Want to clear everything in your queue and listen to something else? You need to select each queued song and remove it manually. - Adding a song to the queue, OK. Adding a playlist to the queue, impossible. - Want to change your profile name? You can't do that on the website, just on the mobile app. - Want to edit the description of a playlist? You can't do that on either the mobile app or the website. I was only able to do this in a Linux desktop app And those are just the ones off the top of my head.

baddox 6y ago
The queue stuff is mind-bogglingly broken. Sometimes, if I have old stuff in my queue, whenever I instruct Spotify to start playing a new album or playlist, it will play only the first new song, then will skip to the old queue. This doesn’t seem to happen consistently, but it’s incredibly annoying while driving.
- jasonv 6y ago
  I have this problem too. Things keeping me away from Apple Music: 1) I like being able to use my Amazon Echo and my Roku to run my Spotify. 2) I can't use Soundiiz (or similar) to sync Artists & Albums from Spotify to Apple. Right now I'm paying for Youtube Premium, Spotify, and 2TB iCloud. The fact that I don't particularly care about the cost is kind of keeping me on those three platforms..

fossuser 6y ago

I thought I didn't care about music discovery either, but for me that turned out to just be because all the discovery I'd seen previously was bad. Spotify Discovery weekly playlists are really good and getting a new one each week is a really good model. I generally agree with you on the UI, Spotify's is also bad. You can add songs to 'liked songs' which is functionally the library (used to be called library, before that was 'starred songs') and then sort by artist that way. I have no idea what they're doing over there though changing that stuff every couple of months. They have no idea how their UI should work, no design consistency - it's generally bad. Is the Apple stuff pretty good now?

EricE 6y ago
Apple still has the radio station functionality (AI generated playlists on demand, from a seed song you pick) and they also have curated playlists that change on a routine basis as well. I far prefer Apples interface, and they are slowly fixing the major issues with the Music app - it's not nearly as awful as when it first launched and still way better than Spotify's UI for all reasons already outlined.
- fossuser 6y ago
  The seed song approach isn't very good. I think the way Spotify discovery works is looking at songs you have favorited and compares other human created playlists from users that have your favorite songs, then taking songs from those playlists you haven't heard and putting them in a list for you. I think they also do some modeling after that, but it's secondary. This works really well since there's a human selection element they're taking advantage of and playlists tend to collect stuff that people who have the same taste will probably like. Radios based on seed songs I've found to be pretty unimpressive, similarly curated playlists that don't know about your tastes are also uninteresting. It's the combination that works. The weekly distribution is also good because you get time to explore new stuff each week (rather than just being overwhelmed) and you can further improve things by liking/disliking new stuff. Good to know the Apple UI improved though.
  - 6y ago