Graphic Designer Envisions Apple Music With Simpler UI, Music History Stats, Group Playlists, and More

[Exile714]

Usually graphic designers have stupid ideas and designs that are beautiful but impractical. This guy has some great ideas, but the design is straight iOS 10/11.

I wouldn’t say I’d be disappointed if Apple did it, but I worry for this guy’s career in design.

 

[Rogifan]

Anyone remember a time when the music app WASN'T this convoluted?

You mean when it wasn’t a streaming music app and just a player for whatever you loaded on your phone? Can’t really compare.

 

[farewelwilliams]

extremely busy and complicated. glad this isn’t real.

 

[DNichter]

I am on board with simplifying. What we have here looks even more cluttered though.

 

[bchery21]

I'll admit I don't use the Music app that often but this UI doesn't look simpler to me...

 

[Dave00]

Can we just go back to a music player that's easy to use, just like the original iPod was? Just playing my own music has gotten insanely and unnecessarily complicated.

I'd pay good money for an app that navigated music with the same interface as the old iPods did.

 

[JohnStrass]

Graphic designer Álvaro Pabesio shared his vision for an updated, enhanced Apple Music on Behance earlier today, and it's an impressively detailed look at UI tweaks and changes that Apple could make to fix a few user gripes with its streaming music app. As you look at Pabesio's designs, remember that this is a concept and in no way indicates or confirms what we'll see with Apple Music in iOS 12 later this year.


Article Link: Graphic Designer Envisions Apple Music With Simpler UI, Music History Stats, Group Playlists, and More

HOW ABOUT LYRICS? Yes, I know the "stream" service will have that, but for those of us who don't stream, it would be nice to be able to see lyrics while on an airplane...

 

[Millah]

I like it.

Can we please get rid of the big bold title fonts?
That’s all I really want. I don’t know who thought that was a good idea but they’re wrong. That’s my only gripe with iOS’s design in general right now.

Have you used an iPhone X yet? They make a lot more sense on the X now that it has a super long aspect ratio. Honestly when the large title font hides and it shrinks to the old title bar design, the top of the UI looks completely off-balance and ridiculous. The status bar “ears” are taller than the old title bar.

Large title font looks natural and balanced on the iPhone X. And guess what, it only shows when you reach the top of a list, shrinks when you scroll down. This just feels appropriate and well done IMO

 

[TechRemarker]

While not attractive too look at, imagine it was more created quickly to show some new feature ideas the artists personally wants, though ended up making it look even more cluttered visually.

 

[ikramerica]

Anyone remember a time when the music app WASN'T this convoluted?

It would be nice if Apple offered a standalone music library App for those who don’t use Apple Music. Or opened the API enough for third party apps simply to play and manage the music library.

 

[Chrjy]

Personally this just looks messy to me, in a fussy way. There's so much going on it's hard to establish what the screen is telling me. I feel that Apple Music needs to be simplified, reduce the clutter make it look neat and one glance tells the user what the view is about.

 

[Feyl]

What he fails to account for is that this is the "Music" app, not the "Apple Music" app. More than 90% of iOS users don't subscribe to AM, so the app has to accommodate everyone that wants to play just the music on their phone through this app.

I fault Apple for this (but this guy still fails to account for it)... Apple hijacked the Music app for AM when AM should have been a separate app. Either that, or disabling AM in the settings should truly give you back the Music app navigation and functionality, pre-AM.

I can't be alone in not wanting stream my media or show my entire cloud music library on my phone. I chose the music I wanted to sync because that's the music I wanted to listen to, and I don't want to have to wade through all the streaming/curation/recommendation cruft to do that.

You’re not alone my friend 🙂

 

[Chrjy]

As a matter of interest (I subscribe to Apple Music), do others think Spotify has a cleaner UI, easier to understand than Apple Music? Pro's and Cons?

 

[Feyl]

Getting rid of that ugly bright pink floating on a whole lot of nothing (white) would be a start to be honest

Ha ha, can’t agree more.
[doublepost=1527024541][/doublepost]

Can we just go back to a music player that's easy to use, just like the original iPod was? Just playing my own music has gotten insanely and unnecessarily complicated.

I'd pay good money for an app that navigated music with the same interface as the old iPods did.

That’s why I use my iPhone 4 with iOS 6 as my iPod, alarm clock. The iOS 6 music app is a joy to use!
[doublepost=1527025546][/doublepost]

As a matter of interest (I subscribe to Apple Music), do others think Spotify has a cleaner UI, easier to understand than Apple Music? Pro's and Cons?

Spotify is definitely better. It has a normal sized font, easier controls and overall nicer UI. I’m only 25 but I really don’t like the “teenage” look of Apple Music. That pastel color palette with bright red (pink?) never felt quite right.

 

[viachicago22]

I would personally love more robust social integration into AM. The best music discoveries I make are from friends, not algorithms

 

[Chrjy]

Spotify is definitely better. It has a normal sized font, easier controls and overall nicer UI. I’m only 25 but I really don’t like the “teenage” look of Apple Music. That pastel color palette with bright red (pink?) never felt quite right.

Thanks for replying. I kind of like the look of Spotify having browsed the images on the App Store in terms of the UI. I think I'll download it and take a look, I might prefer it to Apple Music.

 

[Analog Kid]

I feel like a 9 year old with a crayon could "envision" a better interface than Apple gave us. That same 9 year old would also probably understand that the words to the songs should be somewhere you can see them too.

And while I'm here, I'll repeat my assertion that someone needs to `rm -rf *` the iTunes for Mac codebase and start again.

 

[xDENTALPLANx]

Really into the idea of incorporating some last.fm style statistics into the app, even if only available on desktop.

The one thing I envy Spotify users for is the end of year breakdowns they are able to generate.

 

[0388631]

Looks silly.

 

[xalea]

It would be hard to make the Music app any worse. Those "cards" things were idiotic and take up too much screen space with mostly empty whitespace. I stopped using it months ago and just use Spotify now.

 

[Music Ambulance]

I feel like I, the user have to bend around the interface and the agenda of Apple Music. This is a fail. I actually began to stop enjoying music after using Spotify, rdio and Apple Music. My solution was buying vinyl. Now music is my happy place again.

Obviously streaming has its advantages, but the experience needs to be more personal and it needs to better mimick the feeling of flipping through records or scanning a shelf of CDs. Three fixes for me would be: user-organised ‘stacks’ of albums which can be toggled with the alphabetical organisation; base ‘for you’ recommdations on artists I like rather than artists Apple likes (wow); on iOS a way to shuffle whole albums.

P.s. jimmy, dre, Trent and Bono can all suck one

 

[Defthand]

Really into the idea of incorporating some last.fm style statistics into the app, even if only available on desktop.

The one thing I envy Spotify users for is the end of year breakdowns they are able to generate.

I don’t intend for this to sound snarky but can you enlighten me? Which statistics or metrics are you describing? How do metrics enhance One’s enjoyment of music? It sounds like information only a record executive would use.

I used to assign a rating to my favorite songs when I first used iTunes. However, I soon realized that effort was pointless. Song preferences change with One’s mood and experiences.

 

[itsmilo]

I don’t intend for this to sound snarky but can you enlighten me? Which statistics or metrics are you describing? How do metrics enhance One’s enjoyment of music? It sounds like information only a record executive would use.

I used to assign a rating to my favorite songs when I first used iTunes. However, I soon realized that effort was pointless. Song preferences change with One’s mood and experiences.

Spotify has some awesome „years end“ currated lists just for you and then you can save it as playlists like „your top and most played genre / artist etc of the year“ and a „what you missed“ playlis as well as your top songs and albums of 201x

I sometimes go back to like 2015 and am i like omg how could i listen to this crap or omg i forgot about this song!

It even tells you how old you are based ln the music you listen to haha listening to ed sheeran for example aged me quite a bit

 

[ErikGrim]

Apple needs to copy all the last.fm features. I'm surprised they still hang on after all these years without a clear business model.

 

[Brandhouse]

I’ve never understood why random graphic designers who post stuff on the internet is considered newsworthy. Yet all the rumor sites seem to think so. I remember a few years ago when someone’s awful concept of widgets on the home screen was shared right before WWDC and everyone went nuts over it even though it looked awful. Same with iPhone and Apple Watch concepts that show super thin devices that could never be built and if they were they’d get maybe 2 hours battery life and everyone goes ZOMG! Apple must do this now, fire Tim Cook if they don’t. Of course anybody can mock something up when it just needs to look pretty and they don’t actually have to do any engineering behind it. 🙄

And when it's greenfileds you can do anything you like without any consideration to usability testing or understanding pain points, drivers, context and goals of the user.