They have a lot of curated lists at the top and if you search for a genre. Sure it's not great but they're there. Besides they are going to do something huge with music this year. Either very soon or at the annual OS update
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The iOS Music app is awful. Here's what's wrong with it and how to fix it [Long Post]
- Thread starter heyyoudvd
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They have a lot of curated lists at the top and if you search for a genre. Sure it's not great but they're there. Besides they are going to do something huge with music this year. Either very soon or at the annual OS update
Number 7 is huge. When I'm driving and want to skip a song, most of the time my thumb misses the next arrow. Ditto for winding back part of a song. And same for pause/play. Kinda have to live with it, don't want to become distracted.
The scrubber... utter garbage. I never had any of these issues with iOS 6 and below. In iOS 7/8 the lyrics for songs is displayed in a very corny box. What a joke.
And iOS 8 on the iPhone 4s is terrible. Even with a restore. Why don't they either fix it or not release it for the iPhone 4s in the first place?
The scrubber... utter garbage. I never had any of these issues with iOS 6 and below. In iOS 7/8 the lyrics for songs is displayed in a very corny box. What a joke.
And iOS 8 on the iPhone 4s is terrible. Even with a restore. Why don't they either fix it or not release it for the iPhone 4s in the first place?
You realize that all apple users apparently just load their phones up with crap and hit shuffle? If you don't use shuffle, you are definitely using the music app wrong because it's totally useless otherwise! 
I don't think Apple will ever fix their Music app. Nobody ever liked Cover Flow or its replacement, it's one of their universally hated features. Also, the entire internet has been complaining about the sorting issues in Artists view for several years now since the introduction of iOS 7. No one at Apple listens. Would it be that hard to bring two simple options: disable/enable Cover Flow, and display albums under Artists?
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So, what would be a good alternative to the stock Music app? I don't need a lot: I just want the app to:
- be useful in landscape mode (show longer titles),
- show albums under Artists instead of all songs (exactly the way the Music app was before iOS 7).
- support AirPlay.
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So, what would be a good alternative to the stock Music app? I don't need a lot: I just want the app to:
- be useful in landscape mode (show longer titles),
- show albums under Artists instead of all songs (exactly the way the Music app was before iOS 7).
- support AirPlay.
I don't think Coverflow is universally hated, I mean I know a lot of people who enjoy using that UI design including me. If anything, Coverflow itself isn't hated but it is well known that it isn't the best design while using the device in a car landscape mode.
Yes this. Scrubbing has been totally broken in the Music app (the Video app too) since iOS 7 and I was hoping iOS 8 would fix it. Looks like Apple doesn't care.
Brilliant post!
I couldn't agree more. It's hard to acknowledge that Apple, the guys that made the iPod, have let their Music app on their biggest selling products deteriorate into one of the most frustrating experiences of iOS devices.
The app needs a complete redesign.
Functionality overhauls of apps should have come at best, long before any display redesigns we got with iOS 7 & 9, and at worse, with them.
I couldn't agree more. It's hard to acknowledge that Apple, the guys that made the iPod, have let their Music app on their biggest selling products deteriorate into one of the most frustrating experiences of iOS devices.
The app needs a complete redesign.
Functionality overhauls of apps should have come at best, long before any display redesigns we got with iOS 7 & 9, and at worse, with them.
I hope so too. Also, your sig is true and funny. How are we going to beat the terrorists if they run Toyotas?
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I've given up waiting. I hope the Beats application will continue to be made by people who love music for people who love music.
Well since I can't get my music off of iTunes onto my iPhone 6, it is basically a theoretical problem to me. Basically I've just got a hundred songs on my phone and the rest won't sync. I know others have had this problem. I'm not sure I care enough to try every fix. I've tried a bunch.
Note that since I'm often on the subway, I can't use streaming iTunes Match. I actually need the songs on the phone. Since I've got a 64gb phone, I've got tons of free space. I could put my whole library on the phone. But it won't sync.
Oh well. Just works.
Note that since I'm often on the subway, I can't use streaming iTunes Match. I actually need the songs on the phone. Since I've got a 64gb phone, I've got tons of free space. I could put my whole library on the phone. But it won't sync.
Oh well. Just works.
I've been using it for a week now, and I don't think this is much of an improvement over the previous Music app. Thanks God it's not feature-frozen yet, we know it because they clearly said it was lacking the lyrics in this build. I hope they're about to make some bigger changes than just the lyrics in the upcoming builds though.
So yeah. Now have "Up Next" and it's rather well-implemented. But after so many versions, the Music app still does not mimic some of the old features found in iTunes. I'm thinking of making smart playlists, editing song infos, adding lyrics (or even - fetching lyrics automatically? wouldn't it be cool?), etc. Now, regarding the playlists, you get a little bit more functionality and/or ease of use in iOS 8.4, but it's still not the feature I know from iTunes.
Then, the interface is more intrusive than ever before. I found iOS 7 and iOS 8's Music app to take a lot of space, and while they have optimized a few things in the new Music app, they have made other parts worse. As soon as you open a new screen (or go to a new ViewController, if you prefer), you get strangled right away just seeing the header.
I'll end it here for today : it's still a pain in the ass to listen to Linkin Park (one of my all-time favorite artists), since I have over 40 albums and 400 songs, including live shows, underground stuff and EPs. To be perfectly honest with you guys, once I click it, I get discouraged by the long list and go listen to something else. It's been like this since iOS 7. In fact, it is mainly the structure of the app that makes it hard to find what you want. Since iOS 7, it is Artists > Albums & Songs, while it was Artists > Albums > Songs before. These days were perfect. So far, it won't change in iOS 8.4.
I have reported the fact that the app structure is wrong and the only thing I got was :
"Tell us if it's still present in iOS 8 Beta 5" --> YES, the structure is still the same found in iOS 7, different from iOS 6.
Their answer ? "If this issue is still occurring, please include any relevant logs, and or a test case with your update."
Ok.... they clearly skipped every single word of my explanations.
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Global search is changing how I use the Music app and making it much more enjoyable. The headers are kind of huge, (probably comically so on 4" devices) but they look great and go a long way toward making the app feel modern but there's so much wasted space.
What does global search mean? The iOS Music app already has a search function at the top of the screen. How is the new one different?
It searches iTunes Radio too and its a button that is consistently on the top right versus a pull down search field.
Very good thread and some very good points made.
While I share a lot of the interface complaints that many of you do, what's been inexcusable to me is just the horrendous bugginess of this app since iOS 7. It seems impossible for them to fix one bug without introducing another one. It's been especially true if you have iTunes Match. When iOS 8 launched, it was impossible to delete any music from your library. They fixed that, but then it became impossible to change the year of any album (a bug which still exists). iOS 8.2 killed the ability to sort artists by last name, iOS 8.3 restored it, but introduced other quirks of its own. It's endless.
Not to mention most the total borking of "sort album" tags in general in iTunes, starting around iOS 7.1. It was one thing to change the default order to reverse chronological order, but that didn't mean that they had to completely eliminate the ability for us to use "sort album" tags to sort it how we want to. The good news, from what I've heard, this is restored in iOS 8.4. But all these workarounds are just so tiring and laborious. The point is to enjoy my music collection, not constantly have to manage it so much.
I was thinking that it would be interesting to use this thread as a sort of Open Radar for us. In other words, a lot of us power users seem to have similar complaints about what the music app has become post-iOS 6, but let's be honest: we're kind of a minority. A lot of people probably just don't care, and for the ones that do, there's probably not many riled up enough to file bug reports about it, if they're even aware of being able to do that. (You can do it for free. You don't have to be a registered developer.) And because of that, nothing will change. So it might be useful for all of us to compile a list of the stuff that bugs us into a Wiki, and we each could file duplicate Radars to up vote it, hopefully giving it way more priority for Apple.
Apple is probably paying more attention to the Music app right now than they have in the past couple of years, and probably more than they will for the next couple of years, so it seems very timely to do this right now, given we're still in the early part of the beta process. It can't hurt.
While I share a lot of the interface complaints that many of you do, what's been inexcusable to me is just the horrendous bugginess of this app since iOS 7. It seems impossible for them to fix one bug without introducing another one. It's been especially true if you have iTunes Match. When iOS 8 launched, it was impossible to delete any music from your library. They fixed that, but then it became impossible to change the year of any album (a bug which still exists). iOS 8.2 killed the ability to sort artists by last name, iOS 8.3 restored it, but introduced other quirks of its own. It's endless.
Not to mention most the total borking of "sort album" tags in general in iTunes, starting around iOS 7.1. It was one thing to change the default order to reverse chronological order, but that didn't mean that they had to completely eliminate the ability for us to use "sort album" tags to sort it how we want to. The good news, from what I've heard, this is restored in iOS 8.4. But all these workarounds are just so tiring and laborious. The point is to enjoy my music collection, not constantly have to manage it so much.
I was thinking that it would be interesting to use this thread as a sort of Open Radar for us. In other words, a lot of us power users seem to have similar complaints about what the music app has become post-iOS 6, but let's be honest: we're kind of a minority. A lot of people probably just don't care, and for the ones that do, there's probably not many riled up enough to file bug reports about it, if they're even aware of being able to do that. (You can do it for free. You don't have to be a registered developer.) And because of that, nothing will change. So it might be useful for all of us to compile a list of the stuff that bugs us into a Wiki, and we each could file duplicate Radars to up vote it, hopefully giving it way more priority for Apple.
Apple is probably paying more attention to the Music app right now than they have in the past couple of years, and probably more than they will for the next couple of years, so it seems very timely to do this right now, given we're still in the early part of the beta process. It can't hurt.
Well I've just had a look at the new music app in 8.4 and in my opinion it's not much better than 8.3.
Still no collapsed albums which is a must for people like me with artists that have multiple albums.
Also I'm not keen on the recently added, I know what I have added recently so I don't need reminding. Just a waste of space.
I'm sticking with the Cesium Music app. Best 69p I have spent.
Still no collapsed albums which is a must for people like me with artists that have multiple albums.
Also I'm not keen on the recently added, I know what I have added recently so I don't need reminding. Just a waste of space.
I'm sticking with the Cesium Music app. Best 69p I have spent.
Our of curiosity, have they stabilized Sort fields? I'm finding them inconsistently followed. sometimes an artist is properly sorted after a sync but, mysteriously, a few hours later it hasn't stick. it affects about a dozen artists (that I've noticed) repeatedly. driving me NUTS.
Especially since wireless sync is broken (only on my iOS 8 device) and even weirded syncs often take several attempts and gaming of check iTunes checkboxes to trick iTunes into actually syncing.