iOS 13's Music App Sucks
samuelstevens.me
iOS 13's Music App Sucks
1–10 of 261 posts
Re: iOS 13's Music App Sucks
#2I don't use Apple Music, but Spotify, so I am a little confused about the idea that Spotify does not have a library, or "the concept of a library". I mainly use Sptify via their library, and only rarely use curated playlists or anything like that. Am I missing something here?
Re: iOS 13's Music App Sucks
#3I don't use Apple Music, but Spotify, so I am a little confused about the idea that Spotify does not have a library, or "the concept of a library". I mainly use Sptify via their library, and only rarely use curated playlists or anything like that. Am I missing something here?
Can I rip my own CDs and import them into Spotify or am I limited to the music provided by the Spotify streaming service?
I think this is what is meant by a “music library”
Re: iOS 13's Music App Sucks
#4Don't forget the mundane detail of "I have no idea what Apple did with my 60GB music library or how to get it on my phone again".
Thankfully I've been a spotify subscriber for years so I can just keep kicking that can down the road, but some day I'd like my music back.
Re: iOS 13's Music App Sucks
#5I've been using the Neutron media player app for years now. It allows you to play most file formats (including opus), supports navigation by files, and allows you to upload files via FTP to bypass iTunes. It's also one of those rare applications these days where nearly everything is configurable.
Re: iOS 13's Music App Sucks
#6He's completely right about Apple Music and it's been bad since long before iOS 13. The navigation is incredibly difficult to understand. I get very frustrated about why I have to both tell Apple I love something and put it in my library before their algorithms are smart enough to figure out that maybe I like that band / song and they should find related music. The Spotify discovery algorithms are better in every way.
So why even bother with Apple Music - it's really simple and it's why I see Apple services being huge... you get an Apple card and its cash back will pay your Apple Music and Apple TV+ and Apple News+ bill every month. Why pay for another music service when Apple Music is "good enough" and is "free" at that point?
Re: iOS 13's Music App Sucks
#7I don't use the Music App because I don't maintain all my mp3s in iTunes and without iTunes you can't (keep my honest here) get your mp3s into the Music App.
Re: iOS 13's Music App Sucks
#8I have an Apple Music subscription and use Apple Music (the app) daily.
In this article, I hear a lot of "I". IMO, the big challenge with Apple Music is all the legacy that a) personal libraries, b) iTunes Match, and c) iTunes purchases all bring to the new streaming paradigm. Those are problems Apple has to solve, and can't just discard. Apple's customers have plowed tons of $$$ to "own" their libraries, and Apple is doing the right thing to bring them along.
That complexity explains the difference between "hearting" a song/playlist/station and "plus'ing" one, or "clouding" one, amongst others.
I actually appreciate Apple's queue approach, which has a long history in iTunes. I love being able to insert or reorder songs without having to "recover" the previous state. That may not be everyone's cup of tea, or mental model, but it isn't bad design.
I do agree with the author that configurability of the tabs and the main buttons of the Now Playing screen would be handy. I know of several changes I'd make if able.
I do think that there are several good criticisms here, but when the first paragraph includes a lot of "I don't care about"s, that is a good sign to me that the author is not thinking about the design challenges holistically.
Re: iOS 13's Music App Sucks
#9Apple Music, and particularly iTunes Match, are the opposite of "just works". I wanted to switch back from Spotify, but I found that Match had made a complete mess of my library. Half of my album art gone. Albums were striped with some tracks that were replaced with the iTunes store versions, and some left as my uploaded MP3 V0 versions (most obvious because, even with Sound Check on, the volume levels between each track differ greatly post-iTunes Match).
I've been able to look past a lot of the decline in Apple's software quality, but the data corruption problems springing up (Catalina Mail, iOS 13 Photos incidents also come to mind) are a bridge too far. The primary reason I avoid turning on a new Apple cloud service is that it's likely it'll do something highly undesirable to my data.
Re: iOS 13's Music App Sucks
#10I don't use Apple Music, but Spotify, so I am a little confused about the idea that Spotify does not have a library, or "the concept of a library". I mainly use Sptify via their library, and only rarely use curated playlists or anything like that. Am I missing something here?
I guess after clicking on "Your Library" he isn't switching to the "Artists" or "Albums" tabs. Then again, I don't know what it looks like when you're not a subscriber. The Spotify app doesn't "see" your music in your iTunes library, perhaps that is the complaint?