Ask HN: Why hasn't Apple implemented the most obvious UI improvement yet?

[elliott99]

So I'm scrolling down through the list of songs in my iTunes (sorted alphabetically, say) and I find a song I like by Led Zeppelin. Now I'm curious to see what other Led Zeppelin songs I have in my itunes Library that I can listen to. Instead of typing in the artist name in the search bar or finding it in the list of artists...WHY CAN'T WE JUST CLICK ON THE ARTIST NAME in the "observation" row and it is an automatic filter? Same goes for album title. This seems obvious to me. Does anyone else think iTunes lacks from a artist/album hyperlinkability/useful click-on-shitability?

Let me know, thanks.

[michaelpinto]

I think given where Apple is going I'd rather they focus on improving Siri. If you're attached to your iPhone it's much easier to say "Siri play me some other Led Zeppelin songs" than to sort through a laundry list on your desktop.

[elliott99]

I see your point, but if I did this on the subway to work, I'd get some pretty weird looks.

[michaelpinto]

Let me put it to you this way:

I build a time machine and we go 100 years back into the past and kidnap some locals from 1912 and bring them to 2012. We step out of our time machine on to the street and the first thing they see are insane people who are talking to themselves while clasping wires that dangle from their head. They also see people photographing their food like it's a member of the family. But I'm sure after a few hours they'd "get it".

I'm honestly amazed that so many people don't use smart phone for obvious things like getting directions. And we're talking about technology that's from a few years ago. So it's just a matter of context over time...

[ksherlock]

Not exactly what you're asking for, but when you select a song or hover over the name, there's an encircled right arrow after the song name. Click that for options to go to the artist or album.