Apple Music Apple Music's Backend is a disaster

[JippaLippa]

Hello.

I have been using iTunes since forever, and I graduated to Apple Music in 2020.
I love the service, interface, catalogue, artists being paid a little more, lossless music, the iCloud library (which for me is must have), the interviews and whatever else.

I'm just saying that I love the idea behind apple music.

That said, after 5 years of constant use, I can say the backend of the app (both on macOS and iPhone) is a true disaster.
I'm a very patient person, therefore I waited years to hopefully see improvements in the app, but I only noticed new features being added with nothing being done on the infrastructure itself.

I'm posting this just to know if it's a problem with my devices (I hardly believe this, since the issues happen on all my apple devices, which were sold in different years and have different hardware).

I will be detailing the issues I have been experiencing, please note that these happen on both platforms (iOS and macOS), but I'd like to say that the macOS app is considerably more stable than the iPhone app.
All these issues happen both on mobile data and wifi (or ethernet, in the case of the mac studio)

Issues:

1. The app is generally slow, mostly after the first boot (especially on iPhone). In most cases there's quite a long delay when I play the first track of a listening session; other times the album art doesn't display for the tracks. Basically the app is very unresponsive on iPhone. Some other times when I add a track to a playlist, it is very slow to do so, or it does it with an extreme delay (10+ seconds).
2. The syncronization between devices is far from being perfect (especially when initiated from an iPhone); Sometimes I add some music to a playlist on iPhone and it's missing on the mac. When I perform such operations on the mac side, the syncronization mostly works.
3. Favourites disappearing (happens on both versions of the app). This is especially infuriating, since the system simply is broken. Lots of times I favourite a song when the screen is locked (with the star icon), yet it doesn't show up when I come back to the album/playlist).
   Sometimes the favourite disappears immediately after I have clicked the red star, which leads to missing some tracks, as the favourite action wasn't registered by the app.
4. Glitches all around. This might be the worst of all; in general the interface is glitchy.
   Sometimes songs added to playlists disappear, sometimes icons have glitched graphics (like the dot indicating the most played track and the favourite icons overlapping). I won't detail them all, but there are lots of glitches with the interface.

I would hope to see improvements in Tahoe, but I do that each time a new OS is released, and I always end up disappointed.
I will keep using apple music, but have you too experienced what I described or am I going insane?

I have experienced this with every release of mac or iOS since 2020.
You can see my devices in my signature; they're all always kept updated.

Thank you so much.
Cheers 🙂

 

[Bigwaff]

Might be helpful to post your iPhone model and version of iOS installed.

 

[JippaLippa]

Might be helpful to post your iPhone model and version of iOS installed.

Great suggestion, you're right.

 

[djharrypalmer]

It truly is. It hasn't been updated in a looooooong time. Its basically scotch taped together.

 

[cynics]

Responsiveness and loading is something I don't have a problem with (iPhone 11 Pro Max btw). I haven't been paying attention to sync so I just used the new playlist feature (AI?) from my iPhone and it was on my Mac within 5-10 seconds.

I'm not a fan of the UI because I find it busy and occasionally convoluted. I'lll lose features I know exist, maybe I'm just dumb though...

When I use Music I AirPlay to the HomePods, I'll sometimes have issues with multiple devices "playing" on a single user account. I just close the app on every device that I'm not playing music on.

If I were to try anything it would probably be logging out of Music and then back in. Maybe there is a iCloud sync issue not only causing your sync issue but slowing things down and it tries and fails to sync?

Edit : The playlist I had this thing make is actually surprisingly decent. Mostly songs I haven't heard but mostly the vibe I was after....

Edit edit : Really need to check the OP dates on these threads..... 🙄

 

[MacGizmo]

Honest to God, the only thing not horribly bad about Apple Music (and iTunes before it) is the icon – and even that is subjective.

 

[southnorth]

I’ve been trying to manually create playlists on Apple Music app on my iPhone 16. I create the playlist and then try to add individual songs but nothing happens, just the spinning beach ball. VPN is off. Very frustrating as being able to create a playlist ought to be basic requirement.

Is there something broken in the underlying infrastructure?

 

[JippaLippa]

I’ve been trying to manually create playlists on Apple Music app on my iPhone 16. I create the playlist and then try to add individual songs but nothing happens, just the spinning beach ball. VPN is off. Very frustrating as being able to create a playlist ought to be basic requirement.

Is there something broken in the underlying infrastructure?

I think there is.
And I really hope apple will eventually fix it, as I like literally everything else about Apple Music.
If it worked a little better when it comes to the main use (playing and managing music), it'd be perfect for me.

 

[AL2TEACH]

It does need work!!! Maybe, it needs less stuff or being able to hide/delete stuff one might not want.

 

[Eric Idle]

Apple Music is nothing but one continuous dumpster fire. A more appalling effort is impossible to comprehend.

 

[MartyCan]

My primary complaint on Apple Music is that I have a playlist I call “My Music” which is most of my music, around 6,000 tracks. I just like to put it on shuffle and listen to all the music I love all the time. I play it at home, in the car and on my AirPods when walking the dog or working out at the gym.

But now on every device we use it with at some point it just switches to playing “Marty’s Station” which is a mash up of music I have and music Apple thinks I want. Sometimes they are right and sometimes wrong. But it only makes about a 4 hour loop of music that then repeats. I listen more then 4 hours a day. I don’t want “Marty’s Station” I want the playlist I started. A 4 hour loop is too short and one of the reasons I gave up on Sirius XM. During Covid in lockdowns it started to wear on my having the same stuff repeat.

I can’t find a setting to adjust this, or at least not one that is obvious like “prefer Marty’s Station” for playback that I can switch off.