Apple Music UI to go grayscale, add better support for lyrics - report

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  • Reply 21 of 41
    why-why- Posts: 305member
    why? whats wrong with colour?
    cnocbui
  • Reply 22 of 41
    robintoshrobintosh Posts: 21member
    Come on... OS X UI has been losing color every year. Last week I had to use a Mac running 10.6, it looked and felt great! iOS also lost it in 7.
  • Reply 23 of 41
    antonpabloantonpablo Posts: 90member
    larz2112 said:
    For instance, in the current Music app in iOS 9.3.1 where is the friggin' repeat song/playlist button? It used to be easy to find. Now I can't find it, or maybe it doesn't even exist anymore. Just one example of a UI element that used to be easy and intuitive to find and is now just a cause for frustration.
    Pull up the song that's playing and look below the volume bar. Tap on the third icon from the left to cycle between no repeat, repeat playlist/album, repeat song.
    Your instructions is exactly his point 
  • Reply 24 of 41
    patchythepiratepatchythepirate Posts: 1,254member
    Apple Music is a great value. I use it every day, and I recommend it to everyone I know. However, it has some significant problems, including basic functionality/interface problems that should have been corrected before the initial release:

    -Inexplicably, iTunes/Apple Music still has no sub-genres! Un-%&#@ing believable.
    -Apple/beats bizarrely assumes that it can categorize playlists by activities. This makes sense only for very limited circumstances, like "breaking up." But to have separate categories for cooking/BBQing/driving is both arrogant and stupid. It makes 3 (at least) completely false assumptions: 1) that it is even possible to make song suggestions based on similar/arbitrary activities, 2) that people are genre agnostic (the opposite is typically true; people have strong feelings on what they like to listen to at any given time), and 3) that people don't know what music they like.
    -There needs to be organization by subgenre, tempo, and quality. No one is just going to say "play music for cooking." But it would be great to say "play some uptempo EDM" (e.g. Deorro), or "play some chill drum and bass" (e.g. Etherwood), or "play some vocal trance."
    -The curation of the "new" and "for you" tabs isn't good. "for you" is always filled with suggestions for music geres that I NEVER listen to. Basically it's worthless, and certainly not 'for me.'
    -Overall organization is seems to lack coherency.
    -Search often does not work at all unless you tap the search icon from one of the home tabs. It's frustrating to have to navigate backwards to use search.
    -Trying to look at an album from a song is difficult, and would often just go to a blank page (this actually seems to be mostly resolved now).
    -You can't go to the recently added music and start playing songs. Each song or album has to be added to "up next" individually.
    -Not enough promotion/hype. It's hard to enjoy any social aspects of the music (eg share music, feel connected to others) when no one I know is using it (except the few family and one friend I personally convinced)
    -Connect is worthless. There's no incentive to use it. It would be amazing if you were able to create your own connect page that people could visit, where you can share playlists and other things. A huge benefit of this is what I see fitness instructors do all the time, which is share their spotify profile with their clients.

    Apple Music seems completely antithetical to Apple's overall product ethos, which is, 'get out of the way and let the user and content shine through.'

    Good things:
    -Siri is great to have with Apple Music, typically (it runs into problems given Siri's serious limitations (eg If I say "play NPR radio," instead of playing my local (or national) NPR station, it starts playing "MPR News Minnesota;" I'm nowhere near Minnesota).
    -Great value
    -Beats One is a great station
    -Radio song suggestions have improved tremendously
    -much improved facebook sharing
    -nice aesthetic, music controls, album art display
    edited May 2016
  • Reply 25 of 41
    fastasleepfastasleep Posts: 6,408member
    Can't innovate anymore, my ass!

    I'm calling it - MacOS is going to look like System 6. Time is a flat circle. 
  • Reply 26 of 41
    Connect needs a better share feature between friends or contacts that allows for browsing custom playlists of songs made by friends. I hate the curated stuff by Apple staff, and sometimes the DJ mixes are so old that I question what on earth they were smoking when they put them together.
  • Reply 27 of 41
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    larz2112 said:
    Over the past few years, with both iOS and Mac OS X the UI design has slowly but surely been getting worse.
    I disagree. Photos is 10x better than iPhone for example. I also think Safari has never looked or worked better.

    Similar to how people addicted to gambling tend to remember wins far more, you tend to focus on what you don't like versus looking with a balanced view. Yes, some things are worse, but many things are better.

    iOS irks me in a few ways though. Spotlight needs to find a home. It should go back to home screen 0 or not, pick a place for it and stick to it. And the delay after the icons land on the home screen before I'm allowed swipe to another home screen still annoys the shit out of me since it has been the case since the launch of iOS 7 beta 1 almost 3 years ago!!!!
    edited May 2016
  • Reply 28 of 41
    entropysentropys Posts: 4,152member
    ireland said:
    larz2112 said:
    Over the past few years, with both iOS and Mac OS X the UI design has slowly but surely been getting worse.
    I disagree. Photos is 10x better than iPhone for example. I also think Safari has never looked or worked better.

    Similar to how people addicted to gambling tend to remember wins far more, you tend to focus on what you don't like versus looking with a balanced view. Yes, some things are worse, but many things are better.

    i....
    well of course! If you are happy with a GUI element, it is just the stars aligning as expected.  The old 'it just works' paradigm.  
    The introduction of a poor GUI element, especially to a mac user who personally chose macs, despite it not being mainstream/cheaper/doesn't run that game, because among other things to them the GUI is an important consideration, becomes especially annoying as it not only makes things harder, it is personal because it reflects poorly on their choice.
  • Reply 29 of 41
    elijahgelijahg Posts: 2,753member
    I can't fathom why in an app that's designed primarily for listening to music, it's so damn hard to actually listen to the songs you want. When searching, you have to choose either Apple Music or "My Library". Why not merge both, prioritising what's on your device already?

    When search results are listed, you have to read whether each item in the listing is an artist, album or song. Because even if there's another song playing, tapping a song in the listing causes the current song to stop, and the new one to play. Other items in the same list look identical, but take you to the artist/album page. On seemingly random occasions it'll pop up a "Do you want to add to 'Up Next' or play immediately" dialog, but it can't be trusted; the majority of the time stopping the current track and going to the one you just clicked. Even defaulting to adding to Up Next would make things way simpler.

    The ellipsis (•••) they use everywhere seems to be a catch all button for things they couldn't cram elsewhere. I never remember any of the sub-functions within the ellipsis popup, and so have to go hunting around in the UI for the options every time. 

    It's impossible to play all songs by an artist.

    Real effort is required to go from the currently playing pane to an artist's other songs, or even to view other songs in the same album as what's currently playing. (I actually just discovered that tapping the song name on the currently playing screen takes you to the album, but that's completely unintuitive with no indication anywhere that'd happen...)

    The hitbox for the buttons on the "currently playing" bar is way too small, I often hit the wrong button because they're so close together.

    You can touch "RECENTLY ADDED" at the top of the my music screen, but there's no way to actually play all the songs in that playlist. I.e. the shuffle option is missing. Going to the Playlists tab then finding recently added does then provide a shuffle button.

    As someone else mentioned, the scrub bar is way too small, for no reason at all.

    larz2112 said:
    Over the past few years, with both iOS and Mac OS X the UI design has slowly but surely been getting worse. Things that used to be intuitive are no longer such. Things that used to take two clicks now take two clicks, a scroll, and one more click, etc. I'm sure there are some that love the latest UIs compared to previous, but I for one do not and don't have much faith that the current stable of Apple UI designers really know what they are doing.

    I completely agree, they've been hiding things for the sake of a clean design but at the cost of usability. The one that irks me most is changing the green maximise button to full screen, I never use full screen anyway (and don't know anyone who does) so why change the functionality? Oh yeah, so they could remove another button from the UI... At least provide a damn option to change it back!
    edited May 2016 tokyojimu
  • Reply 30 of 41
    kevin keekevin kee Posts: 1,289member
    bobschlob said:
    larz2112 said:
    Over the past few years, with both iOS and Mac OS X the UI design has slowly but surely been getting worse. Things that used to be intuitive are no longer such. Things that used to take two clicks now take two clicks, a scroll, and one more click, etc. I'm sure there are some that love the latest UIs compared to previous, but I for one do not and don't have much faith that the current stable of Apple UI designers really know what they are doing.
    There was a time I would have b-slapped you for making such a comment. But not any longer. It is, sadly too true.
    Thus, UI is always changing. Every time more functions are added, everything will be shifted: more clicks and more scrolls. To make everything just one click is impossible if not downright ugly. Priority is subjective so some compromises must be made. Hence, more clicks and more scrolls for some and one click only for another. Long story short, it's always: "can't they make everybody happy?"
    edited May 2016
  • Reply 31 of 41
    maclvr03maclvr03 Posts: 198member
    larz2112 said:
    Over the past few years, with both iOS and Mac OS X the UI design has slowly but surely been getting worse. Things that used to be intuitive are no longer such. Things that used to take two clicks now take two clicks, a scroll, and one more click, etc. I'm sure there are some that love the latest UIs compared to previous, but I for one do not and don't have much faith that the current stable of Apple UI designers really know what they are doing.
    Not everybody is colour blind. To me more greyness will just mean more indistinguishable grey blobs where I will have to read the explaining text with them, like in the Finder. Very bad........

     Totally agree with all that. I still HATE the fact that Apple "grayscaled"  (a few versions ago) all the icons when you click on your hard drive, i.e. Application icon, Music, Movies, I just don't understand it. And then your "tags" are at the bottom which are colored.

    At least give us an option to see it how we wanna see it. 
    edited May 2016
  • Reply 32 of 41
    maclvr03maclvr03 Posts: 198member
    robintosh said:
    Come on... OS X UI has been losing color every year. Last week I had to use a Mac running 10.6, it looked and felt great! iOS also lost it in 7.
    Seems to be since Johnny Ive took over as head of UI design as well. He should stick to the design of the hardware and stay out of the software. 
    cnocbuitokyojimu
  • Reply 33 of 41
    koopkoop Posts: 337member
    The effects of Forestall not running the show anymore are starting to bleed into the UI. Steve kept him around for a reason.
    cnocbui
  • Reply 34 of 41
    bestkeptsecretbestkeptsecret Posts: 4,265member
    So they're getting rid of the pinkish-red then.
  • Reply 35 of 41
    bestkeptsecretbestkeptsecret Posts: 4,265member
    koop said:
    The effects of Forestall not running the show anymore are starting to bleed into the UI. Steve kept him around for a reason.

    And Tim fired him for a reason.
  • Reply 36 of 41
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,334member
    mr o said:
    Fine grain fingertip control is what I want. This is what I LOVE about the Soundcloud app. It lets me jump right into the groove. And it works like a breeze for long DJ sets as well.

    Apple could reinstate the fine grain control they used to have with the iPod by replacing its clumsy slider with a virtual scroll wheel. It'd be a great use of 3D touch.



    >:x
    I totally agree. I absolutely hate the teeny tiny slider. The best volume control for Apple Music/iTunes is the Apple Watch with the digital crown. There's no reason why a screen based scroll wheel style control cannot be implemented for volume control and scrolling through lists. The other major UI issue with the tiny controls is when you gave your iPod or iPhone in a dock or even just sitting on a countertop it's very easy to hit the wrong teeny tiny control due to parallax effect. For a company whose mantra is built around simplicity, one their core flagship applications is obviously not living up to their own standards. 
    edited May 2016
  • Reply 37 of 41
    rogifan_newrogifan_new Posts: 4,297member
    Hmm...I seem to remember before iOS 7 launched the rumors were the redesign was going to be black and white. My guess is this isn't literally only black and white with no colors, rather the color will come from album art and other graphics. I have no problem losing the pink in the app. While I did kind of like the way the colors would change based on the album art I hated that the bottom toolbar always stayed white with the pink icons. Biggest thing the redesign needs IMO is bigger controls and a better slider. Also do something like Spotify where you can swipe left and right on the mini player to get to the next/previous song.

    I don't agree with John Gruber and others who say music app should be separate from Apple Music. At least not on iOS devices (iTunes is a whole other matter). I don't want to have to go to one app for music I own and another for the music I'm renting. I want to seamlessly listen to either without having to think about whether I own the song/album or not. In fact I wish there was a way to buy music via the music app without having to be booted to the iTunes app. 
  • Reply 38 of 41
    cnocbuicnocbui Posts: 3,613member
    ceek74 said:
    All I want is an easily accessible and adjustable EQ. Holy F!!! Apple's products are so advanced that there's 22 EQ presets but not even a simple 3 or 5-band EQ built-in!!?? Oh, and please fix the "have to force-close the music app to show only downloaded music that's on my phone, every single time" bug.
    Windows Phone OS gives you a 7 band equaliser.
  • Reply 39 of 41
    cnocbuicnocbui Posts: 3,613member
    why- said:
    why? whats wrong with colour?
    Absolutely, this flat, near illegible thinness and monotonous toned OS direction I find very dull.  Luckily I don't have to use it. 



    edited May 2016
  • Reply 40 of 41
    hittrj01hittrj01 Posts: 753member
    Pull up the song that's playing and look below the volume bar. Tap on the third icon from the left to cycle between no repeat, repeat playlist/album, repeat song.
    Your instructions is exactly his point 
    These are literally the same instructions you would give for any music app (Spotify, Google Music, Rdio before it died, etc.) Also, it's the exact same as it was back when the "glory days" of the iPod app on older iOS (or iPhone OS) versions was still around. Other than complaining to simply complain, I don't understand where people are getting this hatred for the music app. Open up Spotify, especially after they instituted the navbar, and show me any meaningful differences in the UI that make it easier to navigate.
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