Visual Design Student Reimagines Apple Music With Unified Artwork, Better Discovery, and More

[Spendlove]

I think Yuan done a great job. I LOVE the swipe left/right aspect of the sampler. That alone should get him into Apple even if it is only to explain his idea to the team.

An awful lot of MacRumours people posting gubbins about font sizes, did any of you actually read the article? Yuan has done a blooming good job here and deserves a shot at sorting it out.

I personally preferred the older version - at least it was a continuous scroll down - now it is just a pain to use on the iPhone and just as confusing to find your way through.

 

[panleya]

All I want is to be notified when artists I follow release new music, and a place to quickly get to that.

 

[Schizoid]

not having Zane Lowe's mug appear as soon as you open the app would be a start...

 

[iPadProBaby]

The current Apple Music (left) compared with Yuan's redesign (right)​

[/QUOTE]

Ok, look so-called 'Designers', consider - just for a second - that you're going to get old. That not everyone's eyesight is 20:20 and you are going to get at the least, age related eye degradation.

SO STOP MAKING THE F**KING FONTS SMALLER!!!!!

FFS... THINK ABOUT ACCESSIBILITY AND NOT JUST WHITESPACE!

 

[m4mario]

Its quite easy to do minor corrections to the original design, once the user feedback has come. Hopefully Apple already has done a better job with iOS 11.

But "connect" is a business decision. Making a decision to remove it is not the job of a visual designer.

 

[jmpage2]

While I am all for good ideas, how is this news? Are we going to start covering everyone who re-imagines Apple's products and / or UI?

Slow news day apparently when this kind of mental masturbation gets more attention than parts leaks of the iPhone 8.

 

[Mactendo]

There's a couple of nice ideas, like sampler and integrating existing social networks inside app, but the UI is boring and mediocre. Not better than the current one.

 

[Larry-K]

Student Work...

 

[Dranix]

There's a couple of nice ideas, like sampler and integrating existing social networks inside app, but the UI is boring and mediocre. Not better than the current one.

Where do you see the value in integrating social networks inside a music player? Has the world gone mad with all that social network stuff?

 

[bizack]

As with any great idea, there's usually some technicality or legal issue that mucks it all up. Like with the sampler, sounds great but I bet the licensing would require each 15 second preview to be paid as a full listen so if someone is swiping away like mad it could rack up a lot of micro payments multiplied over millions of people.

That's not true actually. Also, this functionality exists in Spotify (you can long press any album artwork to 'sample' it before listening). Licensing is on a per-stream basis, which is longer than 15 seconds.

 

[HighStrungLoner]

This guy knows that Apple made a big deal about getting rid of drop shadows and dimensionality, right?

 

[jonnysods]

Spotify kills Apple Music in the UI dept.

 

[Zedcars]

What did he really change? Font size and artwork? Big deal.

Much more than that. If you'd bothered to read his blog rather than make a knee-jerk negative comment, then you'd know!

Personally, I think the sampler is an amazing idea. I'm not crazy about the name, but the concept is brilliant.

 

[Mactendo]

Where do you see the value in integrating social networks inside a music player? Has the world gone mad with all that social network stuff?

Easy sharing of your playlists/favorite artists/new song discovered/etc to your friends on Twitter with a link back to Apple Music would just be a free ad for Apple. It could be as easy as 1-2 taps. And same tweets (or something else) from your family/friends could optionally appear inside the app as suggestions to you.

 

[dypeterc]

Read through his brief and it's really good work especially for an undergrad. Kind of puts Apple's Apple Music UX/UI designers to shame. Ive and Cue should get him on board.

To all those who say it's just some simple typography and graphics changes didn't read the entire brief. Yuan is making Apple Music more interactive and personal through "gamifying" the experience especially in music discovery. He's also unifying and simplifying the mess of the apps look and design.

 

[Zedcars]

I was very against the redesign to the music app when it first debuted.

Now? I actually really like it. Why on earth would I say that? Because it's really easy to navigate while driving.

OMFG - pull over if you have to change the song. Using your phone whilst driving is extraordinarily dangerous!!!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...r-jailed-tomasz-kroker-10-years-a7389241.html

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/20831...hile-he-changed-music-on-his-phone-is-jailed/

Warning, the following video is graphic and harrowing:

 

[Porco]

No offence intended, because he obviously put thought, time and effort into what he did, but I think it still looks horrendous. But that's more a criticism of the direction Apple went in that he is trying to stay relatively close to, than to his attempts to improve the design of the app.

 

[dmrowley]

How about a Landscape mode? Not too much to ask for Apple, just a simple landscape mode.

 

[petsounds]

15 seconds to decide if you like a song? Maybe if all you listen to is pop music. This is not the deep dive personalization I'm looking for. You can't do that with algorithms throwing some random sample clips in your face. That's something Google would do.

As for the rest of it, it's not much of a redesign. More like rearranging deck chairs. Music needs a total revamp.

 

[vladi]

Read through his brief and it's really good work especially for an undergrad. Kind of puts Apple's Apple Music UX/UI designers to shame. Ive and Cue should get him on board.

To all those who say it's just some simple typography and graphics changes didn't read the entire brief. Yuan is making Apple Music more interactive and personal through "gamifying" the experience especially in music discovery. He's also unifying and simplifying the mess of the apps look and design.

Actually big companies don't want to acknowledge any outside ideas cause it makes them look bad. They spend millions on R&D and here comes an individual that does it for them with a breeze. It puts them to a shame really. I won't be surprised if this guy gets cease and desist letter.

 

[Defthand]

Apple need to hire this guy. Why they passed him up is beyond me. It's not a perfect re-design but better than the convoluted mess we have.

Apple has become the type of corporate behemoth that Apple used to lament when it was smaller and took on IBM and, later, Microsoft. Large companies are bureaucracies by virtue of their size and complexity. The environment is also a bonfire of egos intercompeting for recognition. Apple can hire all the brilliant talent it wants, but the protocols, policies, chain of command, and politics will weigh like an anchor on those persons unless they are granted autonomy. Even then, the shear number of participants guarantees that any design decisions will be by committee. Committees create camels. According to wisdom, a camel is a racehorse designed by a committee. That's why Steve Job's personal tastes and agenda were responsible for shaping the brand.

It should worry fans and investors alike that cofounder Steve Wozniak told a journalist that neither cofounder would be hired by Apple today because of their lack of credentials!

 

[Shirasaki]

I want is the ability to edit metadata in my library without having to use iTunes.

There is one type of metadata you can edit on iOS device but not iTunes: playlist description.

Didn't the original Apple Music app changed colors based on the color of the cover art?

No. Just a no.
Always pure white.

Student Work...

Those designers Apple has hired were all graduated from their student age. Plus students are more willing to challenge the existing vision than others.

15 seconds to decide if you like a song? Maybe if all you listen to is pop music.

Even pop music I need 30s if not a full playback to decide whether I like or not.

 

[Tech198]

15 seconds to decide if you like a song? Maybe if all you listen to is pop music. This is not the deep dive personalization I'm looking for. You can't do that with algorithms throwing some random sample clips in your face. That's something Google would do.

As for the rest of it, it's not much of a redesign. More like rearranging deck chairs. Music needs a total revamp.

...and Apple just went in the wrong direction. You can't improve something if u only tag by song and expect to get it right 100%. unless u include the album it came from as well. Apple can improve the algorithm as much as it likes, but they should look at what others do.

Google at least "try's"

 

[0388631]

What's next? Toto invent a toilet that can play your tunes from your phone while you go potty?

 

[ErikGrim]

There are some great ideas here (sampler, album doing things, gestures, preview next/previous), some ho-hum ideas (cover redesigns) and some bad ideas (reducing legibility, drop shadows). All in all a decent unsolicited student case.