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Why no music search?
- Thread starter frosse
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it was never removed, it was never there in the first place
you just need to use the letters down the side
you just need to use the letters down the side
I think OP means that the search function was there in the earlier iPods, but got "removed" from ipod Touch/iPhone.
And while the alphabet list on the side is useful for finding single songs, there are times when I want to search for, say, all songs with the word "love" in the title. Or, you know, I can't remember the first word of the song title, only word(s) in the middle. In fact, I'm somewhat disappointed the Touch/iPhone doesn't have a function to let you create on-the-fly Smart Playlists. Considering the versatility of the iPhone interface, it seems very doable, don't you think?
And while the alphabet list on the side is useful for finding single songs, there are times when I want to search for, say, all songs with the word "love" in the title. Or, you know, I can't remember the first word of the song title, only word(s) in the middle. In fact, I'm somewhat disappointed the Touch/iPhone doesn't have a function to let you create on-the-fly Smart Playlists. Considering the versatility of the iPhone interface, it seems very doable, don't you think?
Exactly what I mean. Earlier ipods had the search function by scrolling letters, with iphone/touch it would be far easier.
I often forget like song names and stuff so a search feature would be really great
Oh yeah, I'm adding a poll just for fun 
I do think it should be added, they probably just forgot to. I have far more songs than contacts so it would be much more useful to me to have the search feature in the iPod.
Still, hopefully we will get it soon...
Still, hopefully we will get it soon...
This really annoys me as it's such a basic function and is part of Itunes. Whats worse is when you use the remote feature and the iphone connects to your Itunes library there is a search facility!!
Also, I would love to have the album artflow view arrange by album tittle rather than artist, but even that isn't an option!
Bah!
Right, there should be a separate coverflow for each "section" of music. When I'm browsing through my most-used playlist, I want to see my album art come up just like it does on the computer. My brain is used to seeing it that way.
Agreed!
Why do we have to scroll through hundreds of albums…
The lack of coverflow categories makes it useless for me on the iPhone.
I don't use the iPod part of my iPhone very often at all...but I was kinda surprised yesterday when I went to search for a song and had no way to do so. Kind of surprising (to me, at least) that they didn't include it.
Totally agree!
I literally stopped using my 4g (mono) ipod soon after I got it (right when it was released) because 50% of my songs weren't tagged, and I couldn't search for them. It was so awful trying to ever find a song to listen to. Sure, partly my fault that they weren't tagged, but there was absolutely no reason that it should have been a problem because search would have fixed it perfectly. Tagging wasn't as big of a thing back then as it now (or so it seemed to me) as there weren't many tools to tag for you when you have several thousand songs, so it wasn't practical to really go through and retag everything. But that's neither here nor there.
I've since fully tagged my library, so I don't TERRIBLY miss search on the iphone like I would without tags, but still, it would be very helpful to me. I honestly can't believe it doesn't have it. Like, the contacts list has the "search" bar on the right but ALSO has a search at the top. Why isn't the music interface the exact same?
And I also definitely agree about smart playlists, etc for the iphone and touch. I can't believe that these advanced devices have awesome apps and ridiculous potential, yet the music portion of them (a big draw for the iphone, and a HUGE draw for the touch) is so basic. You would think they would have made a "mini-itunes"-like program for it where you can do 90% of the same stuff that itunes can do. Or at least have it be an "advanced" option to the basic music app.
Oh well. I've just written a feedback form in for the search functionality. Hopefully enough of us request it that they add it in.
I literally stopped using my 4g (mono) ipod soon after I got it (right when it was released) because 50% of my songs weren't tagged, and I couldn't search for them. It was so awful trying to ever find a song to listen to. Sure, partly my fault that they weren't tagged, but there was absolutely no reason that it should have been a problem because search would have fixed it perfectly. Tagging wasn't as big of a thing back then as it now (or so it seemed to me) as there weren't many tools to tag for you when you have several thousand songs, so it wasn't practical to really go through and retag everything. But that's neither here nor there.
I've since fully tagged my library, so I don't TERRIBLY miss search on the iphone like I would without tags, but still, it would be very helpful to me. I honestly can't believe it doesn't have it. Like, the contacts list has the "search" bar on the right but ALSO has a search at the top. Why isn't the music interface the exact same?
And I also definitely agree about smart playlists, etc for the iphone and touch. I can't believe that these advanced devices have awesome apps and ridiculous potential, yet the music portion of them (a big draw for the iphone, and a HUGE draw for the touch) is so basic. You would think they would have made a "mini-itunes"-like program for it where you can do 90% of the same stuff that itunes can do. Or at least have it be an "advanced" option to the basic music app.
Oh well. I've just written a feedback form in for the search functionality. Hopefully enough of us request it that they add it in.
All made worse by a major flaw in the iPhone software in general: the swipe scrolling is beautiful but laborious for anything vaguely long.
Why can't one even drag the scrollbar that comes up like on a computer?
Why can't one even drag the scrollbar that comes up like on a computer?
All made worse by a major flaw in the iPhone software in general: the swipe scrolling is beautiful but laborious for anything vaguely long.
Why can't one even drag the scrollbar that comes up like on a computer?
You can in both the iPod and Contacts apps...just hold down on the letter row until it turns gray, you can then "scroll" the list.
Good tip, but only works for alphabetized lists. Doesn't work, for instance, if I'm scrolling through a playlist. And I have some rather big ones, with well over 100 songs. Which reminds me, you have to scroll to the bottom of a playlist to see how many songs are in it -- would like to have that info at the top! And also would be nice if a playlist could be sorted -- right now songs in a playlist turn up in what seems like totally random order.
This seems like an obvious oversight that I hope Apple fixes in an update. The coverflow thing reverting to displaying my whole library of music even when I only want to see a playlist is really annoying also.
Oh, sorry, didn't catch that you were talking about playlists as well....As far as ordering the playlist, it would be nice to be able to reorder on the go, but this can be done through iTunes before going out. I wonder how much of this is falling into limitations of the device (editing/reordering music on the go) and our expectations of it functioning like a mini-computer. Hopefully these issues will be resolved!
Would be nice but is not the end of the world as I just go by Artist and Song and use the letters on the right hand side.
But, I agree that I have thought about it and wished it at times
But, I agree that I have thought about it and wished it at times
Exactly. And it should be there for consistency (with the Contact app) if nothing else. In fact, it ought to be in-built into the SDK so that whenever an alphabetised list is used it automatically appears. At the moment, it must be specifically programmed for the Contacts app because the Facebook list doesn't have search either.
EDIT: the Facebook app does have search but it doesn't appear on the shortcut list on the right, unlike the Contact app. Hmmm... all this inconsistency...