As you are no doubt aware, I am a happy Apple Music subscriber. In fact, ever since wrestling with moving to streaming music (and going serverless) back in 2017… Or was it 2016? Anyways, that’s not important. Ever since going to music streaming and using the (at the time) streaming options – Spotify, Groove Music (RIP) and now Apple Music, I have ideas on how each one can be improved.
I wrote extensively about how Groove Music could be improved, and then it was killed. I hope the same fate does not happen to Apple Music… But so far it looks like Apple is keeping this service around for the next long while. So, I have no fear about that.
Some people wonder why it is I don’t use Spotify, and instead go for other options. I mean, I get Spotify free with my mobile plan anyways, so why pay for essentially the same service? There are a few reasons, but the main ones are music discovery, which Spotify never did well when it came to anything that wasn’t the Top 40 or R&B of the day, and a Music Collection. Spotify only allows a collection of 10,000 tracks, and to get to them is getting more and more convoluted. The music service I want needs to offer the ability to have an artist’s discography in my collection.
And music runs through Apple’s blood in a way. From the iPod to the iPhone – music has always been a big focus. All the best tools to produce and master music are on Mac, while Windows still defaults to 16-bit sound…
Before we go into what Apple Music doesn’t do so well, let’s look at what it does really well.
What Apple Music Gets So Right
A Music Collection
Apple Music encourages you add songs to your collection, to build a up a digital library of artists, albums, and songs. For a music collector, or music curator, this is a stark contrast to Spotify’s idea that there is no collection and it’s all shuffled all the time.
Editing Metadata
This is a big one that no other service offers. You can edit the metadata of your collection of streaming media. If there is any info that is not right, you can change it in your collection, and it will sync to your library. This goes a long way to making it feel like this is your collection and not just streaming media.
Quality. Quality. Quality!
AAC 256 is just a better format than OGG at 320. This is known. Apple is all in AAC, while Spotify is in OGG. While the OGG format is smaller and more efficient, especially for streaming, if you have good headphones you can hear the difference. These days, no one is really worried about mobile data, so why not make sure you have the best quality all around. Now Apple Music is not exactly Tidal, with the FLAC streaming, but maybe one day we get that option.
Radio That Works
As I said before, Spotify’s Radio feature for me was absolutely terrible. It would start off with 5 songs in my collection, so of course I like them, and then move towards more popular songs within that genre. I could put on any normal FM radio station and gotten the same mix of…sameness. Apple Music starts off with a 70/30 split – 70% from your library, 30% from artists you may not have heard, or from albums not in your library – and then slowly morphs to 100% to unheard music. This is more natural for me, more of a listening journey. And there is even some slight A.I. behind it, considering the time of day and what you most recently “loved”.
Artist and Album Profiles
Got to an artist’s page or their latest album and you’ll be greeted with a write up from an editor. This is a nice little touch giving you a look behind the music. And Apple Music have recently started to lean into this in a big way – new albums often have an Apple Music editor sit down with the band and do a track-by-track deep dive into the album. For those that love everything around the artist and album in addition to the music, this little touch is great.
Music Videos
Artist Pages have a separate section just for music videos! And it’s possible to create a playlist with all the music videos from the artist’s you have added to your collection. No more hanging onto YouTube’s recommendation algorithm!
Mobile Interface
Now this is a divisive point. I know some who love the simplicity of the Music app on iPhone and some who hate it. I have seen what it looks like on iPad and I am firmly in the “strong dislike” camp there. But on iPhone – it’s so clean. Just look at it!
What Apple Music Gets Wrong
There is a lot to like from this service. But like anything in life, it’s not perfect. I mean, it uses iTunes on Windows of all things, the Music app on Mac OS is apparently no better, and there are no apps on Xbox…
iTunes on Windows? Seriously?
iTunes is stuck in 2004 – both in UI and performance. Almost nothing has changed since it debuted on Windows with the third gen iPod at the time. Everything you do is slow. Every section needs to load. And it still wants to start managing my iPhone when I plug it in. We haven’t needed to plug an iPhone into iTunes for at least 5 years now, yet no one gave iTunes that memo.
The reason it is so slow is that for some reason, Apple insists on using its own window rendering engine instead of the inbuilt Windows one. This means the entire UI is so, freaking, slow… It also means that it won’t and never will take advantage of all the new Windows 10 UI elements – such as Fluent Design, plugging into the volume control widget, or integrating with Windows Explorer.
Things have gotten better with iTunes now being packaged as a Windows app and available in the Microsoft Store, so it’s not as invasive as it once was when installed on your system. But this hasn’t helped much.
You could use the web version of the Music app, but the quality on that is artificially limited to a level that makes me ears cry. At least iTunes uses AAC256… And speaking of the desktop experience…
iTunes Locked at AAC256
When on a desktop (or laptop) and streaming music, one can safely assume that the internet is fast enough for good streaming, and the PC playing the music has half decent speakers or audio capabilities. Not Apple Music. It locks the streaming quality to AAC256, which is great but not best. Even if there was a slider to say, “I understand I will use heaps of internet, I just want my music played to me in lossless”. Heck – Apple even has their own lossless format – ALAC or Apple Lossless Audio Codec.
I’d love to stream my music collection in lossless. The fact that I don’t even get this option disappoints me.
Sort by Artist and Release Date
Not even the mobile app offers this simple sorting method. Simply put, show me the albums arranged first by artist, so we have Adema up first, and then sort their albums by release date, so we have Adema’s first album first in the list and not the one that starts with A…
This simple change will go a long way to making it feel like a comprehensive music collection.
I mean who doesn’t organize by Artist and then Release Date? Psychopaths, that’s who!
Play Artist in Chronical Order
Stemming from the above point, let me play an artist starting with their oldest album first, and moving through to their newest one. How hard could this be?
Instead, Apple Music insists you play artists alphabetically by album name. Whoever thought that was a good idea?
Notifications
Oh boy, this one really grinds my gears. Way more that it should. How hard would it be to send a push notification when an artist I follow on Apple Music releases new music? It shouldn’t be rocket science, right?
I mean it’s a simple question – does Kyle follow Eluveitie? If yes, send notification “New album coming Friday”. It boggles my mind how this has not yet been implemented. Keep me up to date with my music collection and I’ll never leave your music service…
The Social Aspect
I could pretty much quote myself from my Improving Groove Music post. In fact, I think I will.
Music is social!
You like to see what your friends are listening to. You like it when your friends recommend new music to you. After all, who knows your music tastes better than those who get subjected to it on long car rides? Exactly.
Music is a social experience, and we, as a tribe, like that. Music brings people together all the time. So we should be able to see what our friends are listening to. Spotify puts this on Facebook, but since Facebook is for the oldies, no one really cares…
Let me see what you are listening to in the app. Let my friends recommend and share playlists with me.
I want to connect with friends in Apple Music, I want to see what they are listening to right now, I want to be able to send recommendations to friends.
I understand Apple tried this with Ping and that was a colossal flop, but I think taking what Spotify has shown the world, Apple could build on this and bake it into Apple Music. Currently, all I see is what my friends have been listening to. It doesn’t tell me when, or how many times – super barebones.
New Music Mix / Playlists
Spotify gets this so right and Apple Music has improved in leaps and bounds in this aspect. Apple now has genre editors that curate playlists and are now catered and offered to you throughout the day depending on what Apple thinks you’re doing or where you are.
For example, I started seeing more Gym-style playlists, in the genre I enjoy being offered around 4 pm when I was going to gym around 5… So, this is getting better. All I want is a notification now – “Looks like you’re heading to gym, why not get amped with this high energy playlist?” Something so simple will make it feel like it’s a service that wants to be used.
The “For You” section is personalized playlist nirvana – it offers suggestions and playlists for activities, but I feel like something is still missing.
Browse and Radio is Not Personalized
Of all the tabs, both on Desktop and on Mobile, I never find myself using the Browse and Radio for the simple reason that Browse is always the Top 40 pop charts, and Radio is the same.
It shows me pictures of people I have never heard of, and would never listen to, and tells me they are the new hottest thing… Somehow, I don’t believe it. I simply do not care for pop music, or R&B or rap. Yet these are front and center on Browse and Radio.
Apple Music should be smart enough to personalize this for me. Give me a reason to spend more time in the app. Think Wikipedia articles – how you can go from one to another for hours on end, just following the breadcrumbs. Let Browse and Radio be the same thing. Show me what I am more likely to be interested in, rather than treating every single person like a Taylor Swift fan.
Sonos Integration
I know, I know. If I want integration, get a HomePod.
No. I like Sonos for a myriad of reasons, and I have Sonos equipment. I see no benefit in swapping to HomePod over Sonos.
All I want is the ability to control Sonos playback via the music app. Why you ask? Well it was only recently that Sonos got listening history. Before that – everything I listened to through Sonos was not counted as a play, and it really mucked up my stats!
Not only that, it was giving bad data to Apple about my usage. They would see me listening to songs via iTunes or Music app only, and so offer me new music based on that, instead of the majority of music listening via Sonos.
Right, that’s my list. A few things that Apple Music does right and some it does not. I still really like Apple Music, and I like the direction is gone in for the past few years.
I just hope with iOS14 on the horizon, they don’t forget to update Apple music to keep it up to spec.
