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iOS 13's Music App Sucks

samuelstevens.me

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Re: iOS 13's Music App Sucks

#241

Post by asdff »

DavideNL wrote: post #42

I have both Apple Music and Spotify, and i also dislike Apple's Music app; First, it deleted ALL my playlists on a random day for no apparent reason, and i couldn't restore them from backups because apparently the playlists are stored in the cloud or whatever and not in a local file. Also, after converting my personal library to "iCloud", Apple replaced all my specific versions of songs with crappy alternative versio…

Spotify kinda sucks too imo. I tap on "Your Library" then "Artists," I see Lil Uzi Vert, "Choose artists," and a list of 'recommended artists based on the songs you like' of whom I have local files listed in no particular order at all. Moving over to albums, I have Kanye West's "Graduation" and "ye" listed twice, both saved, both the exact same explicit versions. Search is polluted by user playlists full of junk with the exact same name of whatever search terms you've tried. "listen on other devices" just doesn't hook to my blutooth speaker for me, even though it's listed and turned on. The UI is lazy in areas. Pull up the full playback window and you will see three dots in the top right, hiding 4 functions, three of which are already in front of you in the full playback window. It could just replaced with an 'add to playlist' button since that's the only utility in this menu, but then we wouldn't have to tap twice...

I've had spotify for 5 years now and it's always felt just as unpolished as when I first got a subscription, which is unfortunate.

Re: iOS 13's Music App Sucks

#242

Post by wyre »

OkGoDoIt wrote: post #149
nvarsj wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it’s better now. But for years basic playlist functionality on google music was buggy for me (randomly reordering songs and some other issues I have forgotten). Also no Linux app. Finally swapped to Spotify and never looked back. But I really miss being able to upload my old music.

It’s been many years since I’ve used Spotify but I remember they had the ability to add your own custom music to your library. Is that no longer the case?

You can still play songs locally on Spotify, but what it lacks compared to GPM is the ability to upload songs and listen to them on another device.

Re: iOS 13's Music App Sucks

#243

Post by woofwoofwoof »

My problems with IOS music app are 1) full-text search is bad - often can't find what exists 2) it is slow - For You tabs take forever to load even on fast WIFI/LTE connections 3) navigation is not convenient - I like playlists and it takes a few taps to reach them.

Re: iOS 13's Music App Sucks

#244

Post by astannard »

Personally I have moved away from Apple for music. I found the apps on both Mac and mobile get worse and worse. Things that were easy such as using AirTunes got much harder to use. I uploaded my music collection to google and use a combination of that and Amazon music. I find myself wanting to create a playlist for my Apple watch for jogging and putting it off as I dont want to deal with iTunes.

Re: iOS 13's Music App Sucks

#245

Post by kylehotchkiss »

the_gastropod wrote: post #66

Anyone remember Rdio? It was such a beautifully designed app. It's wild that Spotify and Apple failed to learn anything from them. Granted, Rdio did go bankrupt, but I think that had more to do with record label negotiations, and less with their app design. But who knows.

Pandora bought them (I think?) and never really took advantage of their design focus.

I miss Rdio everyday still. I'm nostalgic for it the same way I was for Palm's WebOS. Looked great but felt it never got enough eyes.

Nowaways I'm on Apple Music. Little clunky, but at least the apps are native and not webviews. I expect Apple to improve it over the next 2-3 years though, they've made Photos apps pretty compelling over the years. I don't want to pay for any service that releases a "Mac App" that's just a website with MacOS chrome.

Re: iOS 13's Music App Sucks

#246

Post by pwinnski »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #225
pwinnski wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since, oh, 2006? That's when Spotify launched. Legacy is, by definition, that which existed before. Unless you're starting your library right now, in the age of streaming, your library is legacy.

What if you don't do streaming? Then your personal library is not legacy, is it?

Think about this in another context: my company still supports a Legacy product, as well as an entirely-new product. We actually call the older product "Legacy" when talking to customers. If those customers have never used the "new" product, is it still Legacy?

Of course it is. It's legacy from the perspective of the company, and the developers at the company. Legacy doesn't mean "bad," it just means "not the latest/current thing."

Re: iOS 13's Music App Sucks

#247

Post by pwinnski »

cygned wrote: post #213
odysseus wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happens because: 1. The original app that was playing (Podcasts, Spotify, etc.) got automatically killed for whatever reason (consuming too much memory, etc.) 2. The default app for audio playback is Apple Music, so if you press play (or if your car resumes audio), that is the app that starts up. There is no way (at least right now), to change the default app for audio playback on the phone.

And that happens in the very moment when I plug in my phone? And even if, why that song? It’s not the first one. It’s neither the last one. And it’s always that one. I haven’t even downloaded it and streaming over mobile data is disabled.

There used to be an option to let Siri "help" you play the right music at the right time, which I foolishly enabled because I thought it might make things better. It would do things like suddenly revert to something I'd been playing days before, because Friday night I was in the car and playing it, so Monday morning when I got into the car again, I must want to play that again, right? Once I figured out that was why my phone kept jumping around to seemingly-arbitrary things, I turned it off, and now my phone plays whatever I was last playing 99.9% of the time.

I don't know where that option is, or maybe it's gone with iOS 13. It was annoying.

Re: iOS 13's Music App Sucks

#248

Post by pwinnski »

jkmcf wrote: post #90
vlucas wrote: post #86

> First things first, why do I get a tab bar with 5 icons, and I only ever use 2 of them? I don’t care about “For You”, “Browse” and I certainly don’t give a rat’s ass about ”Radio”. You lost me on the opening sentence. I didn't even bother to read the rest of the article. I was expecting this to be based some some valid objective reasons why the app sucks, not personal preferences. I use Spotify, and have found the…

A subsequent sentence mentioned no longer being able to customize the tab bar, which was his real complaint.

Except he can disable Apple Music in settings, eliminating the tabs he hates.

Re: iOS 13's Music App Sucks

#249

Post by pwinnski »

sbarre wrote: post #120

The elephant in the room here is that Apple forces you to use the Music app to manage/navigate/enjoy the music you have locally on your phone (I'm 90% sure I'm right about this). They maintain a monopoly on that functionality, and therefore when they make decisions that don't align with your desires or expectations, you have no recourse. You can't just use a different app - on your own device - that suits you better.…

I'm 100% sure you're wrong about this.

For example, Marvis Pro exists. Heck, multiple web interfaces to Apple Music exist!

Re: iOS 13's Music App Sucks

#250

Post by machinecoffee »

I'm struggling to see how to add songs to a playlist for my iPod - ok its old (2007 ipod nano), but I love it, so I guess I'll struggle on.

Saying that, lots of people complained about iTunes, especially that it tried do do too much.

Now it does less, and should be more focused on music but I find myself being constantly frustrated with it too.

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