Apple Music Apple Music is terrible

[valkov9191]

Apple needs to change Apple Music radically. There is no point in explaining how much I like Apple and using each of their devices with great pleasure. But, I'm a musician, and as such, listening to music with great quality is of great importance to me. I used Apple Music before but then I used ordinary headphones and I didn't notice a huge difference in quality with Spotify, let's say, BUT, for Christmas I received as a gift wireless airless headphones from Audio Technica and after comparing the sound with Spotify (I know that Apple streams with 256 AAC m4a files, and Spotify with 320 kbps), Spotify finally won me over as a subscriber. I've always preferred Apple Music because it's Apple and because i love the old app (iOS 10.,11,12) lot more than Spotify. It's cleaner, the playlists are great too, BUT to start with the things that made me switch to Spotify
1. The fun of sound
I've already written about that
2. Ultra fast song finding
in spot search song search is like magic literally while in Apple Music ... a tragedy. I write one thing, it comes out quite another, it's not even predictible or it's just for the more famous artists to make the search easier
3. The transition between songs
This is something that completely changes listening to music for me. Spotify combines the songs in such a way, as if poured into just another, it's amazing.
4. Finding public (users) playlists
In Apple Music it's very, very scarce, I only get about 10 to say music I like.
5 Speed of Spotify
Their application is super convenient, light, smooth, while Apple Music is slow, cumbersome like turtle ,not to mention that some songs do not load the covers or this happens after 5 minutes of waiting.
6. Podcasts
Apple needs improvement there too. I think it's time to make one app for both music and podcasts, why do we need two such apps? In my opinion, Apple Music has a serious need for improvement, change of design, improvement of sound quality (2021 we are for God's sake) and the incorporation of Podcasts in the Music application.
That’s all i think. I will be offended from many Apple fans after this post, but I just wanted to share the opinion freely here. 😎

 

[Runs For Fun]

I agree with all of those points. I really want to like Apple Music and would love to use it because of all the integration but it's just terrible IMO. The interface is really bad. Why is that you still can't sort a playlist by different criteria? The public playlists on Spotify are unbeatable. I've found so many good songs though public playlists. Finding new music in general on Spotify is way easier because of their algorithm. Podcasts on Spotify though are terrible. I use Pocket Casts for podcasts. Apple definitely needs to improve Podcasts as well.

 

[valkov9191]

I hope we see new Apple Music in iOS 15 ??

 

[baypharm]

I guess this would explain why BestBuy was offering a free six month trial.

 

[zorinlynx]

I just tried out the 3-month trial today, and cancelled it literally within an hour. It's just useless. Searching for artists gets me blank pages on my Mac, I keep getting "An error occurred" messages, and it just feels... clunky.

So count me in as also sticking with Spotify. I'm going to continue my iTunes Match subscription for music that I own, but no Apple Music for me. Sad that after so long Apple hasn't gotten this right yet.

 

[soultripper]

Apple Music is utterly unusable on M1 MacBooks--constant freezing, mandatory flickering album artwork (notwithstanding a preferences checkbook that suggests otherwise), exit-able only via force quit. Steve Jobs must be rolling over in his grave.

 

[Tagbert]

Apple Music is utterly unusable on M1 MacBooks--constant freezing, mandatory flickering album artwork (notwithstanding a preferences checkbook that suggests otherwise), exit-able only via force quit. Steve Jobs must be rolling over in his grave.

When do those things happen? I have not noticed any of this problem on an M1 Air.

 

[Feyl]

My issues with Apple Music:

1. Better Sound
To me AM sounds better than Spotify, but I really want Hi-Fi quality option.

2. User Experience
More responsive interface would be great. Some songs won't play right away and the artwork is sometimes missing or is low quality. The design overall should be better but that's my problem with Apple's software in general. Love the library management though.

3. 3rd party support
I'd love to see AM on Playstation and many other places. Wouldn't hurt if they put some real work into the web player too. It's just too slow and bugy.

4. Podcasts integration
Nuff said. But it needs to be done properly, not like the current clunky podcasts app.

 

[Tagbert]

My issues with Apple Music:

1. Better Sound
To me AM sounds better than Spotify, but I really want Hi-Fi quality option.

2. User Experience
More responsive interface would be great. Some songs won't play right away and the artwork is sometimes missing or is low quality. The design overall should be better but that's my problem with Apple's software in general. Love the library management though.

3. 3rd party support
I'd love to see AM on Playstation and many other places. Wouldn't hurt if they put some real work into the web player too. It's just too slow and bugy.

4. Podcasts integration
Nuff said. But it needs to be done properly, not like the current clunky podcasts app.

What is the benefit of integrating podcasts into a music app?

I’m either looking for music or looking for podcasts, never both or a mix. How you interact with podcasts is different than music. There are chapters and jumping forward backward. There is chapter artwork for illustrations. How you get them is different, too.

I realize that Spotify does it because they only have the one app but I see no benefit to the users.

 

[Feyl]

What is the benefit of integrating podcasts into a music app?

For me personally I don't like having lots of apps and it would seems like a more comfortable solution. Like the iTunes used to be until they separated into more apps. There could be a separate podcasts tab at the bottom and it would change to music once you are in the podcasts and vice versa.

 

[Merackon]

I agree for the most part, and the platforms that have better elements are not limited to Spotify sadly. I have had a lot of luck with Tidal recently in dramatically diversifying the range of modern music in my library. The same can't be said for Apple Music.

The Music app on the iPhone that I don't see getting fixed any time soon (the seemingly constant requirement to change the UI on a yearly basis for one). I wouldn't necessarily agree on the quality front, if music sounds bad on one it usually sounds bad when I test it on the other.

However...it is one of the only ones that allows me to upload all of the custom songs or 'ungettable' tracks: YouTube covers, soundtracks, special editions, purchases from other platforms, etc. and have them cloud synced to all my devices. Spotify doesn't really stand head and shoulders above Apple Music enough to justify the effort in switching everything and having to run multiple suites in parallel to listen to my godforsaken music.

It sucks and really hope that Apple continues to improve it - but I would argue that it has got leaps and bounds better over the time it has been around in many ways. If this year's macOS update continues to align the macOS and iOS app clients that I hope that solves some of the shameful performance issues with music across the platforms.

With the last couple of years of resounding success for Apple in their audio product ranges, and maybe the chance of them acquiring Sennheiser (highly unlikely I know) Apple Music becomes close enough (I doubt it will ever tick all the boxes for users) to Spotify to present itself as a better option. If the 'discover' comes close to Spotify's ability to recommend then I would be happy, other features like synchronised library position across devices would be a no brainer considering the already monstrous cloud libraries that a lot of users have.

 

[BMox81]

I agree that with Apple allowing you to upload your own content and have it sync across your devices is a fantastic feature. I’d probably go down the iTunes Match route if it wasn’t for the fact that the Apple One sub is such good value for my family.

Apple Music is fine for the most part but it lacks the personal touch for me.

Whereas the playlists are much better (for my musical tastes) on Spotify and Spotify Connect is so so good as it allows playback on all devices and not just Apple ones. I like it that much that I’ve got an additional premium sub to Spotify for myself...

I’m also one of those people that does like the all in one approach with Music and Podcasts in the one app (although the lack of RSS/Patreon feeds is a big miss).

 

[grandM]

My Apple Music trial is about to expire. I will cancel it. It does not seem to grasp my music taste. The ML on it must not be that clever. It repeats music, even the music I explicitly did not like. I hope Spotify is better.

 

[Expos of 1969]

My Apple Music trial is about to expire. I will cancel it. It does not seem to grasp my music taste. The ML on it must not be that clever. It repeats music, even the music I explicitly did not like. I hope Spotify is better.

Spotify is better. Apple Music should be much better in many ways but Tim doesn't give a damn...

 

[Venderious]

Fully agree. The podcasts and music should definitely be in one app.

 

[mrsmith1]

I’m happy to keep podcasts and music separate. I use the Overcast app for my podcasts and Apple music. I like Apple music but don’t care for the Apple podcast app.

 

[Lvivske]

The app is terrible. iTunes was considerably better. I just finally was forced to switch from iTunes to Music (been using a work around since Music debuted) and am horrified with how bad Music still is.

As an app, for MacOS, it's amateur hour ******** that really needs to be sorted out. This is like a barely functioning beta. Hell, the web beta isnt any worse.

So frustrated right now. How does apple dedicate millions into a service and not have a team of developers working to make it presentable? This is a $2 trillion dollar company and their music app gets worse over time? wtf

 

[AlaskaMoose]

I don't now about "Apple Music" since I don't use it. But I dislike the way "Music' works compared to iTunes, and this is as follows: When I launch Music for the first time, the Music window appears and I can't play my library playlists until I select "Continue", and then look for my music Library or Playlists. Something else, lest say that my wife is watching a Netflix show through the Apple TV in the living room and I decide to launch Music from my laptop in the dining room. In this case Music switches to Airplay on the receiver and plays Apple Music through the Apple TV and Yamaha receiver. This in turn disables Netflix and shows the Apple Music player on the TV It does that automatically.

This happens whenever Music is updated along the OS. However, it never happens when using iTunes on a 2019 iMac I use for photo editing. This one runs under Mojave.

Summary: both Music and the Apple TV are too intrusive and aggressibly push their respective Apple contents (Apple movies ad such, and Apple Music).

 

[aperfectcircle]

Apple needs to change Apple Music radically. There is no point in explaining how much I like Apple and using each of their devices with great pleasure. But, I'm a musician, and as such, listening to music with great quality is of great importance to me. I used Apple Music before but then I used ordinary headphones and I didn't notice a huge difference in quality with Spotify, let's say, BUT, for Christmas I received as a gift wireless airless headphones from Audio Technica and after comparing the sound with Spotify (I know that Apple streams with 256 AAC m4a files, and Spotify with 320 kbps), Spotify finally won me over as a subscriber. I've always preferred Apple Music because it's Apple and because i love the old app (iOS 10.,11,12) lot more than Spotify. It's cleaner, the playlists are great too, BUT to start with the things that made me switch to Spotify
1. The fun of sound
I've already written about that
2. Ultra fast song finding
in spot search song search is like magic literally while in Apple Music ... a tragedy. I write one thing, it comes out quite another, it's not even predictible or it's just for the more famous artists to make the search easier
3. The transition between songs
This is something that completely changes listening to music for me. Spotify combines the songs in such a way, as if poured into just another, it's amazing.
4. Finding public (users) playlists
In Apple Music it's very, very scarce, I only get about 10 to say music I like.
5 Speed of Spotify
Their application is super convenient, light, smooth, while Apple Music is slow, cumbersome like turtle ,not to mention that some songs do not load the covers or this happens after 5 minutes of waiting.
6. Podcasts
Apple needs improvement there too. I think it's time to make one app for both music and podcasts, why do we need two such apps? In my opinion, Apple Music has a serious need for improvement, change of design, improvement of sound quality (2021 we are for God's sake) and the incorporation of Podcasts in the Music application.
That’s all i think. I will be offended from many Apple fans after this post, but I just wanted to share the opinion freely here. ?

So, I have to fundamentally disagree with your headline - that Apple Music is terrible.

Firstly, and this one I really really disagree with - sound quality. I have a $35k worth of home audio, and Apple Music absolutely blows away Spotify on audio quality. Spotify is louder, for sure, but AM is just far superior sounding (including when volume matched). There is simply greater separation and staging with AM compared to Spotify; bass is tighter, cleaner, vocals have more air, imaging is more nuanced. I've experienced this every time I've compared the two, and have had friends agree when listening.

Now, for your other gripes - yes, you have some good points. Search is terrible, it's slow compared to Spotify and Apple need to sort that out. I can't talk to the speed of using the app, as I find using AM on both my iPhone (12 Pro Max) and Apple TV 4K fine. I haven't noticed a difference in general navigation compared to Spotify, but I do agree on the search. I would further your point on search by not just calling out the speed, but the results that AM calls up. I can type in the title of a song and it just won't find it, but when I add the artist to the search query, oh there it goes! They need to sort search, and this is the biggest issue alongside the recommendation AI (if that matters to you).

Now, in terms of the overall user experience, I hate Spotify. I find AM just far superior. It enables me to curate a library of albums and songs, whilst also curating my own playlists (as well as adding the dynamic AM playlists). I can choose whether adding a song to a playlist also adds it to my library.

Why do I like this? Well I don't always want to simply put on a playlist. I like to listen to albums (I do have a vinyl setup as well, but sometimes I'm too lazy for that hassle), and browse my library when I'm listening. It's not all playlists, which seems to be how Spotify is designed.

I like the ease of use of AM. I'm playing a song, I can "right click" (long press, or click the 3-dot button) and add to my library, add to a playlist, go to the album that song is off, or go to the artist page. I find navigating AM just far easier and more logical than Spotify. I feel like Spotify is heavily skewed to playlists and search, and that's just not my preferred way of navigating and listening to music.

Now, don't get me wrong, there are plenty of issues with AM, but I would argue it delivers a different experience to Spotify. Not a terrible experience. Both have issues, and for me, AM just works better.

 

[grandM]

So, I have to fundamentally disagree with your headline - that Apple Music is terrible.

Firstly, and this one I really really disagree with - sound quality. I have a $35k worth of home audio, and Apple Music absolutely blows away Spotify on audio quality. Spotify is louder, for sure, but AM is just far superior sounding (including when volume matched). There is simply greater separation and staging with AM compared to Spotify; bass is tighter, cleaner, vocals have more air, imaging is more nuanced. I've experienced this every time I've compared the two, and have had friends agree when listening.

Now, for your other gripes - yes, you have some good points. Search is terrible, it's slow compared to Spotify and Apple need to sort that out. I can't talk to the speed of using the app, as I find using AM on both my iPhone (12 Pro Max) and Apple TV 4K fine. I haven't noticed a difference in general navigation compared to Spotify, but I do agree on the search. I would further your point on search by not just calling out the speed, but the results that AM calls up. I can type in the title of a song and it just won't find it, but when I add the artist to the search query, oh there it goes! They need to sort search, and this is the biggest issue alongside the recommendation AI (if that matters to you).

Now, in terms of the overall user experience, I hate Spotify. I find AM just far superior. It enables me to curate a library of albums and songs, whilst also curating my own playlists (as well as adding the dynamic AM playlists). I can choose whether adding a song to a playlist also adds it to my library.

Why do I like this? Well I don't always want to simply put on a playlist. I like to listen to albums (I do have a vinyl setup as well, but sometimes I'm too lazy for that hassle), and browse my library when I'm listening. It's not all playlists, which seems to be how Spotify is designed.

I like the ease of use of AM. I'm playing a song, I can "right click" (long press, or click the 3-dot button) and add to my library, add to a playlist, go to the album that song is off, or go to the artist page. I find navigating AM just far easier and more logical than Spotify. I feel like Spotify is heavily skewed to playlists and search, and that's just not my preferred way of navigating and listening to music.

Now, don't get me wrong, there are plenty of issues with AM, but I would argue it delivers a different experience to Spotify. Not a terrible experience. Both have issues, and for me, AM just works better.

I agree with your remark on sound quality. You highly underestimate the importance of AI. Sure I've bought CDs from 1 artist. Sure I've listened to the same collection album over and over again. Even know I am conditioned song A will be followed by B (yes there was a shuffle option).

Just as my youth those days are gone. In 2021 I expect AI to surprise me over and over again with music I dig. Apple is a tech company, AI is tech.

 

[Lvivske]

what happened to genius playlists? that still a thing? i see "update genius" is a button to click but apparently does nothing, and "made for you" is just an empty page for me

 

[grandM]

what happened to genius playlists? that still a thing? i see "update genius" is a button to click but apparently does nothing, and "made for you" is just an empty page for me

In my case AM offered a playlist made for me. I wore down the skip button.

 

[Redster]

How many years was iTunes in existence? Apple Music is no better. How on Earth anybody wants, uses, or understands these things is beyond me. I plug an iPod in a Mac, I look for songs to buy and download, and after that... complete utter chaos. Where exactly are my songs? What list am I looking at anyway? How come I see the titles but it won't let me play them? How come I plug the iPod into the Mac and I see 20 song titles, but when I plug headphones into the iPod and press play, I only ever hear 10 of them? I thought I copied then all.. Wait What? How did they get on there twice???

It has taken the most basic concept: buy song, download file, copy file to my player - and turned it into a byzantine nightmare.

 

[vipdrummer]

My beef with Apple Music is after I load Apple Music songs on my iPhone some of them will not download even after I tap on the 'download' icon. As a result when I try to play them on my bluetooth system in my car I get an error message to use with either internet or cellular data to play them. Why are some songs 'greyed' out and while others will play with no problem.

 

[norbinhouston]

How many years was iTunes in existence? Apple Music is no better. How on Earth anybody wants, uses, or understands these things is beyond me. I plug an iPod in a Mac, I look for songs to buy and download, and after that... complete utter chaos. Where exactly are my songs? What list am I looking at anyway? How come I see the titles but it won't let me play them? How come I plug the iPod into the Mac and I see 20 song titles, but when I plug headphones into the iPod and press play, I only ever hear 10 of them? I thought I copied then all.. Wait What? How did they get on there twice???

It has taken the most basic concept: buy song, download file, copy file to my player - and turned it into a byzantine nightmare.

Looks like you're using 2 iTunes/Music accounts. What you're describing is an anti pirate feature so that you can't plug you iPod into a friend's computer and download their music for your use.