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You are here: MacNN Forums > News > Mac News > Opinion: The trouble with the Music app for iOS

Opinion: The trouble with the Music app for iOS
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NewsPoster
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Aug 2, 2015, 07:55 AM
 
In response to Jim Dalrymple's troubles with Apple Music and its problematic integration with iTunes and iTunes Match, Marco Arment wrote a piece recently that provided a good explanation of why this seems to have reached a tipping point. While Arment highlighted a range of issues, one that he said he didn't want to get "started on" was the Music iOS app. In the absence of Arment's views, I have put forward what my issues with the Music app for iOS are here.

The Music app for iOS has undergone several revisions over the years. For the most part, these haven't particularly upset users, most of whom have been happy to go with the flow of Apple's tide. Although there are alternatives to Apple's Music app on the App Store, there are far fewer of these than some other stock Apple app alternatives like Calendars, for example.

I put it to you right now that if you are developer, there has never been a better opportunity to write an alternative app for the new Music program.

Why? The new Music app, which replaces the old Music app, has the worst UI I have seen in an Apple app, that has resulted in a user experience for me that I simply cannot tolerate. I was so exasperated by it that I wrote to Apple CEO Tim Cook, who forwarded my feedback to the relevant engineering team and had one of Apple's PR team contact me to get a full picture of the issues I am experiencing, and how I feel about the user experience.

If there is one thing that you have to give credit to Apple for, is that it has a deeply ingrained culture that places a high value on the customer experience. Apple listens to customer feedback and looks to incorporate positive and practical suggestions where it can. Not too many CEOs care enough that they make a point of spending a considerable part of each day reviewing correspondence from their customer base - if only more CEOs followed the example of Tim Cook, and his predecessor who established the practice, the late Steve Jobs.

As Arment explained with regard to the current problems with iTunes, Apple Music and the iOS app, it is not that Apple's software designers aren't good at what they do -- they just seem to get some less than stellar project briefs. The "upgrade" that has been given to Music is a perfect illustration of this. I was happy with the old Music app. It just worked. I am very unhappy with the new Music app because it doesn't "just work" they way that it used to. This is not a problem in and of itself -- it's just that the way it works now is demonstrably inferior and much less intuitive.

The old Music app simply had to handle your own Music collection, either in iCloud or on your computer. This has been replaced by a complex user interface (for a mobile app) that tries to integrate the Apple Music subscriptions service with your existing library. While this is a nice idea, its implementation leaves a lot to be desired. So much so, that for me, I am avoiding using it as much as possible. In fact, I've even reverted to carrying my iPod Classic around with me, which ironically, I find much easier to use and a whole lot less frustrating -- which is, of course, plainly a ridiculous situation.

For me, the problems with the new Apple Music app stem from the fact that pretty much all the functionality that was found in the interface of the old Music app has now been stuffed into just one of several new tabs, labelled "My Music." As you can imagine, taking all the functionality of the old app and sticking into just one tab of a new app is going to potentially cause a lot of issues when trying to retain the original's ease of use.

If you, like me, typically prefer to listen to albums rather than shuffling songs, listening to radio or listening to playlists, Music as it stands just tramples all over the old interface in favor of an interface that puts the Apple Music streaming service first. Even, then, the music playback UI is still horrible.

The old Music app was dedicated to helping you getting the most out of your own music collection, and it did a great job at it. It was also quite flexible, in that it allowed you to choose the tabs that you preferred to have lined up at the bottom of the app via an edit function. My preference was to have the Artist tab first, then the Albums tab, the songs tab, and then Playlists. I would typically tap on the Artist tab, select the album from an artist I wanted to listen to, tap the first track and it would pop me straight into the playback window, with all the controls I needed handy. Elegant, simple.

This simple workflow has been trashed in the latest Music app. Instead of being able to quickly switch between artist views, album views and song views by tapping on a tab at the bottom of the old Music interface, you now have to tap on a new menu that is located at the top of either the selected artist, album or song view. If you happen to scroll down that particular view and decide that you now want to switch to an album view from an artist view, you now have to manually scroll all the way back up to the top of the list view. That in itself is incredibly clunky and cumbersome. The new menu view that you are presented with, which replaces the simple tabs found at the bottom of each view in the old Music app, is just plain ugly and unnecessarily complex.

Further, when you tap on a track to play, instead of popping straight into the the playback view, this is now a further step away, buried at the bottom of the screen in a thin pull up tab called the mini-viewer. The target area for either tapping on this playback tab or pulling it up is unnecessarily narrow, and also makes it very easy to inadvertently hit one of the tabs at the bottom of the display. Perhaps an even worse UI crime is that to dismiss the playback view with all of its playback controls, you need to either tap on the down arrow or swipe down, like some other music apps that adopt a similar approach, like Google Play Music. This totally flies in the face of the "swipe-to-go-back" system-wide UI control that is one of the highlights of iOS.

Other UI oddities include the "Recently added" portion at the top of the "My Music" tab. Swiping on it doesn't show other recently added albums, but takes you to the "Playlist" view. It's far from obvious, but if you want to see the rest of the recently added tracks, you actually need to tap on the label "Recently added" itself to see a list view that scrolls down, not across as it might in the iTunes app for iOS. These types of inconsistencies are frustrating to say the least.

The Apple Music services under the "For You," "New," "Radio," and "Connect" tabs are fun and interesting. However, forcing this functionality into the old Music app was a bad decision, and it left Apple's UI designers with a very difficult task with trying to make the whole thing work seamlessly within what was once a simple and easy-to-use mobile app. If merging the two products was aimed at pushing users into an Apple Music subscription and making the platform more "sticky," it has had the completely opposite effect on me. I don't want to use the Music app as it is. In fact, I want to use anything but the Music app.

The only solution I can see is Apple doing what it probably should have done in the first place: make the Apple Music subscription service its own app, as the Beats Music app was, separate to its Music playback app. In this scenario, integrating Apple Music offline downloads could still also be possible. It would be a whole lot better than what is currently on offer.

Apple products (software or hardware) should be the very definition of elegance and ease of use. The current Music app is anything but.

-- Sanjiv Sathiah
( Last edited by NewsPoster; Aug 3, 2015 at 09:55 AM. )
     
ADeweyan
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Aug 2, 2015, 10:15 AM
 
I think that Apple has begun to confuse minimal design with simple design. Removing features and restructuring interfaces to provide focus and become easier to use makes for a simple design -- this is what Apple has been incredible at doing for decades. Removing features and restructuring interfaces so they look clean is a different exercise that prioritizes the look over the function and as often as not makes it harder to use the device. Unfortunately, the latest work from Apple has started down the path of prioritizing minimal aesthetic over simple operation.
     
btbeme
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Aug 2, 2015, 12:27 PM
 
Simply stated, when a user has to wonder how to use a mobile app, that app is poorly executed. Mobile should be easy and instantly intuitive. Whatever the opposite of intuitive is, that is what the Apple Music app is. I detest it. I can't use it.
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PJL500
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Aug 2, 2015, 01:13 PM
 
Even though you refer to it in the headline and throughout the article there is no Apple Music App. Try swiping down on the home screen and typing that in. No hits. Type in Music and yes you will get the Music App that's been around since iOS 5 (2011) and indeed it did have a had a big upgrade recently to contain what Apple calls Apple Music.
Agree with just about everything you say when it's about the newly upgraded Music App.

The Music App and iTunes for Mac remind me of an old hospital building that needs to be demolished and rebuilt but the owners are inclined to renovate - compounding the inherent problems.
     
Deezy
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Aug 2, 2015, 02:23 PM
 
It mostly works, but I have three complaints:
1) The cover up the album artwork with cellular signals, carrier info, WiFi icon, etc. Album art is consider a part of the art of the music, and there is no reason Apple can't fit the full unobstructed album cover on the huge screen of my 6+.
2) The down arrow over the album cover is just plain wrong. It doesn't need to be there, but if anything, it should be a left arrow indicating "go back one screen". Down arrows are used to indicate a popup menu for additional features, not a return to previous menu.
3) Apple has decided, for some ungodly artist reason, to cover up all of the white space below the album art. But, they do not cover it in a solid color nor a true reflection of the original album art--- no, they choose to add a random artistic set of colors based on the album art. Not only is it not a true reflection of the album art, it adjusts with each songs album cover, so you get a different blob of color for each song that plays. Thank you, Apple, for a total lack of consistency here.

In a nutshell, the UI stinks and I can't believe Jony signed off on that mess.
     
aSevie
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Aug 2, 2015, 03:05 PM
 
Raymond Loewy shot some kittens the day he saw Apple Music. Johhny Ives should have any and every award for Industrial Design revoked, Apple UI has become an embarrassment to form follows function. What an asshat.
     
panjandrum
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Aug 2, 2015, 03:59 PM
 
I agree with the article and with the posts. I don't think I've ever seen a UI worse than the one Apple included with the new Music app. It's an absolute travesty. Under the oh-so-wonderful guiding light of Ives Apple has gone from making some of the best UIs in the world, to making the absolute worst. If you are willing to jailbreak you can take back your Music app functionality using an app called Mousai (without which I wouldn't be using Music on my iPhone or iPad any more at all). It allows you to remove the vast majority of clutter. Regardless, as soon as I saw the new UI I pulled my old 80gb iPod out of retirement and am just going to move back to that for my music use anyway. I'm tired of having to fight the new Apple just to be able to perform basic, simple functions with ease.
     
wireboy
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Aug 2, 2015, 06:25 PM
 
I agree completely. As I have said in other posts, Apple has completely lost their way. A former shining beacon in the realm of user experience, it is rapidly becoming the best source for examples of how not to do it. Very sad. ADeweyan concisely summarized one of Apple's primary flaws. I suspect it may come from giving a hardware designer, however brilliant, ultimate control over software design. ALWAYS a bad idea.
     
Jeff75
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Aug 3, 2015, 06:15 AM
 
You are a bunch of whiners. It's fine. It's better than fine - it's much improved with new functionality.

The fact that there are only 7 other comments on this board instead of hundreds is evidence that the vast majority of people are A-OK with the enhanced iOS music app.
MBP 17" Core i7 matte screen; iPad 16Gb 3G
     
pairof9s
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Aug 3, 2015, 11:02 AM
 
Agree w/ most here (sorry, Jeff75...few comments on one site is pale to the Apple Forums alit w/ similar criticism).

I'd only add a possible alternative that I've used for the past year (even w/ the old Music app)...that is CarTunes. As implied, it helps w/ music selection on your iPhone while driving by providing large areas in which to view and select your music. It works in conjunction with the Music app; whatever is being played on one is also shown on the other. It has issues, but nothing close to the calamity that is Apple's new Music app.
     
sacrums1
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Aug 3, 2015, 12:01 PM
 
Its not that bad, of course, it has room to improve. Everytime Apple puts something out, most people expect it to be perfect. lol. The most important thing I think it should improve is sound quality, i.e. at least CD quality? Music should come first, right? Spotify has the best UI, but with an empty music soul. Overall, I think Apple Music is better than everything else out there, if you don't care for sound quality.. Especially, I can use Siri with it.
     
panjandrum
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Aug 3, 2015, 03:12 PM
 
@Jeff75. "The majority thinks..." is not an argument any Mac fan should ever use... Think about it...... Now, the article above very clearly spells-out what is wrong with the new Music app, and why it is wrong. It's up to you to come up with a reason that a cluttered, inconsistent, difficult-to-see, and difficult-to-use interface which continually spits-up junk I'm not interested in is somehow "better" than the previous version. Maybe you are correct. Possibly Apple's been doing it wrong all these years, and is suddenly doing it right. (In which case, we should have all been using Microsoft products since, oh, forever really.) But it's up to you to show us, objectively, why that's the case. If you can prove that the new interface is better, then I suggest you immediately begin designing cars interiors. My ultimate dream is to have a car where, to turn on the left turn-signal you pull a lever to the left, but to use the right turn signal you rotate a small button on the side of the seat clockwise. Oh, and that button should move around randomly so I have to search for it each time. And it should be really, really tiny so it's hard to find. And it should be almost the exact same color as the seat material, so I can't see it even if I bothered to look. Also, I want one accelerator pedal for speed between 0 and 13mph, and a separate pedal, operated by left pinky finder, that is responsible for speeds above 13mph. Most importantly, I want controls that I need to use on a routine basis to be tiny, hard to find, hard to see, and frequently removed from the dashboard and replaced with other stuff, so that I have to dismiss tons of junk that's useless to me, over and over and over again. Dang, that's sounds great. Maybe Ives should be designing car UI too!
     
Mike Wuerthele
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Aug 3, 2015, 03:25 PM
 
Jeff, explain to us why you think the new app is better than the old, other than arguments like "the community believes." Now's your chance for your own soapbox.
     
MitchIves
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Aug 3, 2015, 04:40 PM
 
I think that we should probably admit that this is the natural extension of "we have an agenda" thinking. This isn't new... if Apple decides that they have a better idea or something else they want to push, then what you want doesn't really matter. This started when they unilaterally decided that nobody needed to author discs or use Blu-Ray. Nobody asked us what we wanted... they wanted us all on the "digital download" bandwagon. Discussion over. When they dropped FCP X on us, they didn't bother to ask us if we needed any of the long list of prior features that we no longer had. iMovie had features that FCP X didn't. Really? It's taken them years to get some of them back in there, after universal objections... and they still have more to do. For me, the iTunes music app has been slowly becoming less user friendly and more obtuse. So this author's article comes as no surprise to many of us. The good news is that while the Apple experience is in a downward slide, they can at least still focus on their social issues agenda... so we have that going for us...
     
elroth
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Aug 3, 2015, 08:16 PM
 
Even when Steve Jobs was still in charge, these kind of things started happening with Apple software: non-intuitive, non-fun, less functional changes.

But now it's gone to a level of incompetence that's hard to believe. I can only imagine Jobs trying out the software - he would shout out, "This sucks", and would send it back to redone, even if it delayed the product launch.

This is the biggest example yet of corporate thinking invading Apple - someone wants a streaming service, so they cobble one together, while totally screwing up software that works. This didn't happen overnight, though - every version of iTunes starting with iTunes 10 has been worse than the last one.
     
djbeta
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Aug 4, 2015, 12:12 PM
 
You guys are all slightly crazy. The app could use work, yes. Simplification to the UI, yes. But YOU try it. Before all your complaints, why don't you suggest what you're going to drop from the app and what you're going to leave in, and better yet, link to a prototype UI. Personally, I *LOVE* the fact that the new music app PLAYS BETTER MUSIC than Pandora and Spotify. How could you guys forget to mention that? Have you listened to the stations in the new Apple Music app? They're pretty awesome. They are kicking Pandora and Spotify's ass. The "For Me" function is also equally awesome. This is the best streaming music app on the planet right now, so give credit where it is due. It's unfortunate they didn't get the music matching thing done correctly via audio fingerprinting, however, I think this can and will be fixed, especially thanks to the huge amount of exposure Marco lent to the cause. The UI could be simplified, but like I said, suggest something!!! Open up Photoshop, post it, and let's see if we all agree. I doubt we will.
     
Sanjiv Sathiah
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Aug 4, 2015, 10:05 PM
 
I have no trouble at all with the features on offer with Apple Music within the iOS Music app. The big problem is that these come at the expense of usability.

The best mobile apps typically excel at doing one thing well. Apple knows this full well, of course.

The problem is that the overriding agenda in this case was pushing as many users as possible into subscribing to Apple Music. This is not the first time, as some have pointed out above, that Apple has allowed other agendas to affect the usability of its products.

As I, and others have outlined above, is that the danger here is it can be counterproductive.

If the aim is to make the platform and ecosystem even "stickier" by integrating Apple Music into the iOS Music app, its execution has resulted in negatively affecting key aspects of the overall experience. This can potentially drive users away from what made the platform great in the first place -- ease of use.

The late Steve Jobs, while not innocent of making missteps, sweated the details because every touch point, every interaction with software and hardware reflects on the brand, and should delight users.

What is on offer in Apple Music for iOS is great, but it is best left to a separate app, particularly as we are talking about a mobile platform. You ask users to design a better version of this app - I put it to you that this would be very, very difficult. Apple's own designers have failed to execute the design task - integrate Apple Music with the old Music app.

While not perfect, the Google Play Music UI is a better example of how to integrate an existing music library with a streaming and offline listening service.

The best solution to getting the UX back to where it was, is to make Apple Music a standalone app and revert to the Music app to the way it was.
( Last edited by Sanjiv Sathiah; Aug 5, 2015 at 01:40 AM. )
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