iOS 7 Music App

[me7]

Whenever I'm listening to music through headphones or via USB in my car when I unlock my device the music skips back a few seconds or else skips forward to some random time.

Anyone else experience this?

I had something similar twice while playing through the regular headphone output. When unlocking my iPod, playback would jump to a specific time of the current song, and always to precisely the same time.
I skipped to a different song and the problem went away, but came back a few hours later. Then I rebooted my iPod and it's been fine so far.

iOS 7 is truly "special".

 

[henrys]

Music skips a little when I unlock the phone whilst music is playing.

Spotify stops playing when I unlock, I rebooted the phone and the issues seems to have gone. Anyone experience any of this?

 

[palmerc2]

In response the OP's first post, where he can't rate a song, incase you haven't figured it out - I discovered you just tap on the song name or the album cover. Then viola, the star rating for that song can be added / changed.

 

[nikomakhos]

I actually wonder why the iOS music app places such a strong emphasis on albums. Who the heck buys entire albums anymore? Maybe I'll buy one once in a very long while, but the vast majority of my music is individual song purchases, so when I browse by artist I see a huge mess of incomplete albums.

There should be a "I hardly ever buy entire albums" switch, that when turned on, removes album information from everything except the "albums" tab.

Maybe I'm old, but people don't buy their music in albums anymore? That's funny. Buying only singles is like buying only random chapters of books. Most (good) music albums are thematic entities that need to be listened from start to finnish.

 

[jonboy71]

I prefer the Music app in ios 6.
When I tap on an artist with more than 1 album I can see all albums by that artist and choose the one I want.
In ios 7 I have to scroll down through all the songs to find the album I want.

This is a major disappointment to me. I don't like it at all. Any fix or workaround?

 

[duffman9000]

This is a major disappointment to me. I don't like it at all. Any fix or workaround?

Complaining to Apple is the only option. Someone posted this was always the case on iPads. That sucks.

 

[Rocko1]

Bad, no play(arrow) icon at the top of the screen while songs or podcasts are playing.

 

[duffman9000]

I prefer the Music app in ios 6.
When I tap on an artist with more than 1 album I can see all albums by that artist and choose the one I want.
In ios 7 I have to scroll down through all the songs to find the album I want.

Please file a bug. That's the only way we're going to get this mess sorted.

 

[XciteMePls]

Things I hate about the new music player:

- album art next to every song in Songs view. It just clutters up the screen.

- the tiny hard to access scrubber for navigating a track

- the Explicit symbol next to songs that are Explicit. That's stupid and unnecessary.

 

[me7]

I also hate how at the end of one album, the app automatically started the playback of the next album of the same band.

 

[MFreud]

Not possible. What everyone thought was a bug in the betas is still there. You can only individually delete songs. Way to go Apple.

Agree, the fact that you can only delete a song at a time as well as the Artist view with all of the albums expanded are the worst things about the new music app. I was really excited about ios7 and for the most part have not been disappointed. However, the music app is one of my most frequently used apps and it always seems like they get it wrong when a new version of iOS is released. At least they fixed most of the issues with iOS 6 with subsequent releases, I can only hope they do the same now.

I never understood why the iPad music app had the albums expanded in artist view, but on an iphone it is a maddening experience. At least on the iPad in albums view the albums are grouped by artist, but on the iphone they are not. How does that make sense?

 

[msvadi]

I think that everyone who is frustrated by the new music app must send feedback to Apple. In the past, they listened to users and responded by correcting design flaws.

I've just submitted the following to http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html


I am very disappointed and frustrated by the changes iOS 7 brought to the Music App. The most frustrating thing for me is that you can no longer hold down a song/album to see the full title if the title is longer than the screen. Anyone who listens to a lot of classical music knows how important this is, since in classical music, titles are often very long and differ only in the last few words. For example,

Piano Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 2, No. 1: I. Allegro
Piano Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 2, No. 1: II. Adagio
Piano Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 2, No. 1: III. Menuetto (Allegretto)
Piano Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 2, No. 1: IV. Prestissimo

iPhone's screen can only fit "Piano Sonata No. 1 in F M" and there is no anymore an easy and convenient way to see the full title. This also applies to Playlists view, as most of the space is now taken by album art.

Also, you can't delete entire albums anymore if you want to free space. You have to do it song by song. This is very inefficient: I have complete works albums (bought from iTunes) with hundreds of songs. It will take awhile deleting them track by track. The lost functionality for no good reason is very frustrating.

I have a very similar complaint about the Artists tab. Instead of seeing a collapsed list of albums, one gets all songs grouped by albums. As a result, I have to scroll through hundreds of songs just to get to the right album. Sorting of albums (under artists) is also inefficient: instead of an alphabetical order, they seem to be sorted chronologically. This is extremely inefficient when there are several dozens of albums and you don't know their precise release dates.

I hope these design flaws will be fixed soon, as the new app is completely incompatible with the way serious music lovers listen to music. There are numerous discussions of this on the internet, and many already start looking for alternative software:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1601540/

 

[RobbyIdol]

Is there a current way to manually select what photo is used to represent each artist in the Artist folder? It seems to be either a randomly selected album cover or a promo-type image selected by iTunes. I want the option to either manage the photo choice myself, or turn that feature off completely.

I emailed Apple giving them my concerns on the Music app as well. Let's hope they update a few of these more obvious errors in development.

Also, I hate iOS 7 for making me upgrade to iTunes 11 which I HATE. Apple's music apps, both OSX and iOS, were always the gold standard to me, but now with iOS 7 and iTunes 11, they have become such awful to use, clunky to navigate, gawdy pieces of crap.

SHould have downgraded back to iOS 6 when I still had time.

 

[chriscl]

My biggest frustration with the iOS 7 music app is also the "Repeat" functionality.

There are only two options (other than "Repeat Off") which are "Repeat Song" or "Repeat Artist" - why can't you repeat a whole album anymore?

I have a number of artists' music on my iPhone, and when I add a new album, I often like to listen to that whole album on a loop - the only way I can do that now is by adding it to a playlist, which is an extra, unnecessary step - you used to be able to Repeat a whole album, but not anymore!

 

[me7]

There are only two options (other than "Repeat Off") which are "Repeat Song" or "Repeat Artist" - why can't you repeat a whole album anymore?

Because it's one of the themes of the iOS7 music app: no more albums. Songs aren't collapsed into albums anymore, playback doesn't adhere to albums (at the end of an album, playback of the next starts automatically), album track numbers aren't displayed (the numbers at the top of the now-playing screen represent all tracks by the artist).

From Apple's point of view it's a feature, not a bug.

 

[chriscl]

Because it's one of the themes of the iOS7 music app: no more albums. Songs aren't collapsed into albums anymore, playback doesn't adhere to albums (at the end of an album, playback of the next starts automatically), album track numbers aren't displayed (the numbers at the top of the now-playing screen represent all tracks by the artist).

From Apple's point of view it's a feature, not a bug.

Oh I know, and agree - it's not so much a bug, but they've removed functionality (or made it more complex to recreate previous functionality).

Whatever Apple may think, many artists' work is based around the concept of an album; related songs, with a similar theme.

Live Concert albums are a particular example here.

 

[me7]

I get the overall impression that the new app was developed by people who don't care much about music. Nobody with a large music collection would want all songs by an artist in a single list. I have almost 300 songs by the band Dream Theater on my iPod (they had a lengthy career and a lot of live albums so far), the workload of scrolling to the latest album is unacceptable.

 

[darngooddesign]

Ugh. This is frustrating, not being able to shuffle all songs in a genre.

I agree, super frustrating. This is the number one feature I use(d) in the Music App.

"Siri, shuffle genre, horrible dub-step"

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Because it's one of the themes of the iOS7 music app: no more albums. Songs aren't collapsed into albums anymore, playback doesn't adhere to albums (at the end of an album, playback of the next starts automatically), album track numbers aren't displayed (the numbers at the top of the now-playing screen represent all tracks by the artist).

From Apple's point of view it's a feature, not a bug.

I don't think I understand. On my phone I tap on albums and I see a list of albums. I go into an album and I can shuffle all the songs in that album. I can repeat the song or repeat the album. I also see the track numbers. I see what you mean about the tracks on now playing but I suppose I'm ok with knowing how many album songs I have from that album. I'm ok with hitting the top right button to pull up the album details.

 

[me7]

I don't think I understand. On my phone I tap on albums and I see a list of albums. I go into an album and I can shuffle all the songs in that album. I can repeat the song or repeat the album. I also see the track numbers. I see what you mean about the tracks on now playing but I suppose I'm ok with knowing how many album songs I have from that album. I'm ok with hitting the top right button to pull up the album details.

Going this route, I'd have to scroll though a list of 532 albums to find the album I want.
The only sensible way to organize this is: pick an artist -> get a list of albums by artist -> pick an album -> get songs of album

 

[StevenB14]

Going this route, I'd have to scroll though a list of 532 albums to find the album I want.
The only sensible way to organize this is: pick an artist -> get a list of albums by artist -> pick an album -> get songs of album

This!

Apple just need to put this step back in. I see no upside as to why they changed it.

 

[darngooddesign]

Going this route, I'd have to scroll though a list of 532 albums to find the album I want.
The only sensible way to organize this is: pick an artist -> get a list of albums by artist -> pick an album -> get songs of album

Ok I see what you're saying. Who do you listen to that has 532 albums you have to scroll thoroughly?

 

[MHaynes772]

I freaking HATE the music app is iOS 7! I hate how you can't delete the albums. And also, the stupid thing keeps getting hung up trying to download my music, and half the albums artwork isn't showing up. It's just grey with their name and artwork. WTF!? I hate this ****!

 

[jon3543]

Because it's one of the themes of the iOS7 music app: no more albums. Songs aren't collapsed into albums anymore, playback doesn't adhere to albums (at the end of an album, playback of the next starts automatically), album track numbers aren't displayed (the numbers at the top of the now-playing screen represent all tracks by the artist).

From Apple's point of view it's a feature, not a bug.

The Music app no longer respects album boundaries when you enter an album through Artists view. It treats all the albums under that artist as belonging to an implicit playlist. When you shuffle, all songs on all albums for that artist are shuffled and play. When you try to play an album, it doesn't stop when the album is over; playback continues with the next album. Here is a workaround, but please complain about the new behavior and ask Apple to fix it here:

http://www.apple.com/feedback

The workaround:

1. Go to Artists view, select an Artist with several albums, and start playing a song in the album you want to play. For example, at the top of Now Playing, I see "1 of 216" for a 13 track album, with the 216 being the total number of tracks for that artist.
2. Press the menu button in the upper right of the Now Playing screen, which will take you to a view of the single album with all its tracks, plus a Rating button in the upper left and a Done button in the upper right.
3. Press a different song, and immediately afterwards, press the song you want to start on.
4. Press Done. You're returned to Now Playing. I now see "1 of 13" for my 13 track album, and the playback is indeed confined to this one album. I can even press the Shuffle button to shuffle and play just the songs on this album. When the album is finished, I'm returned to the Artists view.

 

[HMI]

The Music app no longer respects album boundaries when you enter an album through Artists view. It treats all the albums under that artist as belonging to an implicit playlist. When you shuffle, all songs on all albums for that artist are shuffled and play. When you try to play an album, it doesn't stop when the album is over; playback continues with the next album. Here is a workaround, but please complain about the new behavior and ask Apple to fix it here:

http://www.apple.com/feedback

The workaround:

1. Go to Artists view, select an Artist with several albums, and start playing a song in the album you want to play. For example, at the top of Now Playing, I see "1 of 216" for a 13 track album, with the 216 being the total number of tracks for that artist.
2. Press the menu button in the upper right of the Now Playing screen, which will take you to a view of the single album with all its tracks, plus a Rating button in the upper left and a Done button in the upper right.
3. Press a different song, and immediately afterwards, press the song you want to start on.
4. Press Done. You're returned to Now Playing. I now see "1 of 13" for my 13 track album, and the playback is indeed confined to this one album. I can even press the Shuffle button to shuffle and play just the songs on this album. When the album is finished, I'm returned to the Artists view.

What I did is:
1) Select the "artist" view.
2) Scroll to the top of the "artist" list (or press the small magnifying glass icon on the top of the alphabetical selection scroll bar on the right side of the screen) to show the search bar text field above the list of Artists.
3) Type the name of the Artist you want to listen to in the search bar text field. This displays a list of search results below with albums that match the artist you typed in the the search bar text field. I've found that I don't even need to type the full Artist name before I'm able to view/select the correct Album desired.
4) Select the Album you want to listen to from the list of albums in the search results. This filters out everything except the specific album you are interested in.
5) Play Album songs as desired.

It's a very different system than before, but once one understands how to find what they want, they may not mind this new system as much.

Good luck!

 

[T-Will]

"Siri, shuffle genre, horrible dub-step"

Good idea, but I'm not going to use Siri while at work.