[oflannabhra]

I have an Apple Music subscription and use Apple Music (the app) daily.

In this article, I hear a lot of "I". IMO, the big challenge with Apple Music is all the legacy that a) personal libraries, b) iTunes Match, and c) iTunes purchases all bring to the new streaming paradigm. Those are problems Apple has to solve, and can't just discard. Apple's customers have plowed tons of $$$ to "own" their libraries, and Apple is doing the right thing to bring them along.

That complexity explains the difference between "hearting" a song/playlist/station and "plus'ing" one, or "clouding" one, amongst others.

I actually appreciate Apple's queue approach, which has a long history in iTunes. I love being able to insert or reorder songs without having to "recover" the previous state. That may not be everyone's cup of tea, or mental model, but it isn't bad design.

I do agree with the author that configurability of the tabs and the main buttons of the Now Playing screen would be handy. I know of several changes I'd make if able.

I do think that there are several good criticisms here, but when the first paragraph includes a lot of "I don't care about"s, that is a good sign to me that the author is not thinking about the design challenges holistically.

[samstevens]

Author here; I agree that I'm not considering other users in my rants. I'm not a designer, and don't have solutions that would help everyone that Apple is targeting with this product.

Part of the reason I'm unhappy with the options forced on me is the removal of my ability to customize the tabs. If Apple wants to push Radio, that's fine. Do I have to suffer navigational difficulties, when previously I could replace that button with "Albums" or "Songs", etc.?

With regards to queuing, I don't mind the way it's modeled. I reorder songs all the time; it's very useful. The actual act of dragging the songs is not very graceful at times--I'll fly by the next song in the list, or not move at all past the top of the screen. Like I said, after playing with Spotify and noticing similar issues, I think it's a Swift/iOS issue, not an Apple Music problem.

[StreamBright]

I agree with you on most points. For me, the most annoying is that the new version freezes a lot and it silently transcodes your ALAC to some lossy format.

[photojosh]

> The actual act of dragging the songs is not very graceful at times--I'll fly by the next song in the list, or not move at all past the top of the screen.

I've had the same problem, but you actually spelling it out here prompted me to try something new... and it actually works! Hold the song you want to reposition in the queue with a thumb and scroll the queue with the index finger from the other hand.

I only learned this technique recently from an article on how to more easily reorganise your home screen. So much better than dragging to the edge of the screen.

I guess the UI generalisation to this: there should be two ways to drag: either by dragging the item itself, or by holding it in place and using the other hand to drag the background underneath it.

[berdon]

You're using an Apple product - Apple is known for their tailored and single-path UX that they don't simply expect their users to love, they also don't care when they don't.

I'm not saying your complaints aren't valid or warranted - they're just not relevant to Apple unless their designers agree with you.

[otterley]

Apple does care about customer feedback, but by and large, they're not looking for it on HN or in random blogs. If you want to reach out to them, you can do so here: https://www.apple.com/feedback/

[KiDD]

The feedback actually goes directly to the engineers that work with the product you are leaving feedback for. It works, I swear!

[__m]

"We cannot respond to you personally [...] we will contact you directly."

[eitland]

Here's what I found:

> we are unable to respond to each submission individually. If you provide your email address, you agree that we may contact you to better understand the comments you submitted

Which makes perfect sense IMO.

[asdff]

that particular feature the author talks about has been around since the ipod era. then again, stripping previously ubiquitous functionality has been apple's m/o in the later half of this decade.

[okennedy]

At the same time, the UX has gotten dramatically worse for people who do manage their own music libraries as well. The entire UI has been restructured around music discovery... which is appropriate for Apple Music, but really gets in the way when trying to find a specific album or track (e.g., I need to click through about three screens just to get to the album list, and there's no way to set the default). It's trying to do too many things at the same time.

[CharlesW]

> …really gets in the way when trying to find a specific album or track…

When I launch Apple Music, I just tap Search and can constrain it to my library with one touch. I feel like I can get to any album in a few seconds.

What you're doing isn't wrong, of course, but it doesn't seem like the designed-for path.

[CodeSheikh]

When I select Search box I want it to default to Apple's search rather than my collection. For me that has been a pain point. Clearly from your case, various users respond differently to features.

[pwinnski]

It will default to whichever you used last, and it's a single tap to switch. I'm not sure how it could be better designed. Two different search buttons seems like a bad idea. Ignoring your last-used to always focus on Apple's preferred option seems like a bad idea.

Last-used with a single tap to switch seems ideal to me.

[krrrh]

Yeah, Apple Music is optimized for people with large music libraries where search is the only reasonable path especially on a small screen.

[pwinnski]

If you don't want the Apple Music stuff, you can go to Settings -> Music -> Show Apple Music and turn it off.

I'm not sure what screen you're normally on, but I just picked up my phone and launched Apple Music. It put me, as it normally does, on the Library tab, where 'Albums' is right there, third from the top.

[_bxg1]

Yeah, as an Apple Music user with no iTunes history, I'd say that the mobile app - like most of iOS - is a bit confusing at first but generally pleasant to use once you acclimate.

The Mac app, on the other hand, has clearly received less attention. I've encountered several bugs, and right-clicking a track within the Apple Music app to see an option titled "Show in Apple Music" betrays a distinctly un-Apple-like level of holistic consideration. As a technical user I know what it means is "Show in the Apple Music streaming content instead of my library", but it's an incredibly bad look for a company that historically has prided itself on UX consideration. The desktop app is still "fine". It gets the job done. It's just surprising to see this sort of thing in the flagship app of the largest tech company in the world's much-heralded "services" push.

[Rebelgecko]

I may be one of the few people using Apple Music on Android, but unfortunately that app is incredibly buggy too. If you're connected to WiFi but not connected to the internet, it takes 60 seconds after you hit play for a song to actually start. Presumably there's some network call that takes 60 seconds to timeout, but it's really frustrating to make the UI nonresponsive in the meantime.

[deergomoo]

The Mac Apple Music app is just rebranded iTunes with a lot of the kitchen-sink stuff removed. It even has the weird modal preference window that none of Apple’s other applications have.

[tomc1985]

I don't understand how putting personal music libraries into a "downloaded music" ghetto ticks any more than the bare minimum requirement of 'bringing them along'.

My personal music collection should be front and center.

[lloeki]

The library management (with and without Apple Music), digital locker, and queue system are the three core features I can't move to another music app-slash-service. And I've tried all of them, many, many times. I especially find Spotify infuriating, the library is so completely unusable they might as well remove it and turn the app into a giant search box.

[FridgeSeal]

Spotify’s “stack-like” music queue is the most infuriating thing ever; god forbid I want to skip backwards and hear some songs again...

[stuaxo]

The worst feature about spotify is searching for a song to play, and then getting only songs with similar names until you do something else.

[zymhan]

Why did Apple have to sacrifice the old Music app, that was designed around a traditional library of files, to make the Apple Music app?

It used to be that an iPhone was also an iPod. An iPhone now, especially with Apple Music, is nowhere close to that experience.

[api]

> Apple's customers have plowed tons of $$$ to "own" their libraries, and Apple is doing the right thing to bring them along.

This is why I stuck with Apple Music. I was hearing rumors that they'd eliminate music purchases in which case I was going to dump them.

[Hamuko]

>all the legacy that a) personal libraries

Since when did a personal library become legacy?

[prostheticvamp]

My nieces are mid-teens. They had CDs played to them for lullabies and the like when they were little. By the time they were old enough to want to play their own music, it came in the form of YouTube or streaming.

They’ve never ripped a CD, or bought an individual track for download. Two of them have no idea what a “file” is. The third thinks a “file” is some bygone shibboleth known only by dorks like their uncle.

They all have iPhones, of course. Two are on MacBooks. One has the airpods. None would be caught dead with a model more than one behind the current.

I’m willing to gamble they are more representative of apple’s target demo than you or I are.

[Hamuko]

>I’m willing to gamble they are more representative of apple’s target demo than you or I are.

How many Apple products can your nieces buy with their salary?

[prostheticvamp]

Between the three of them, one.

Between their ability to wheedle devices out of their parents, every goddamned device.

[pwinnski]

Since, oh, 2006? That's when Spotify launched.

Legacy is, by definition, that which existed before. Unless you're starting your library right now, in the age of streaming, your library is legacy.

[frosted-flakes]

What if you don't do streaming? Then your personal library is not legacy, is it?

[pwinnski]

Think about this in another context: my company still supports a Legacy product, as well as an entirely-new product. We actually call the older product "Legacy" when talking to customers. If those customers have never used the "new" product, is it still Legacy?

Of course it is. It's legacy from the perspective of the company, and the developers at the company. Legacy doesn't mean "bad," it just means "not the latest/current thing."

[Hamuko]

By this definition, my life is legacy.

[sjg007]

I just want the old app back.

[nikisweeting]

Yeah I'd literally pay $20 to have the iOS 7 or 6 music app.

[thirdsun]

You are aware that there are several alternative music app replacements that focus on local libraries? Cs Music Player is probably the most popular one of them: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cs-music-player/id924491991

[nikisweeting]

Yes, was a Cesium user for years, but 3rd party apps don't let you search the Apple music store unfortunately.