iOS 7: Browsing in Artist, album shuffle isn't limited to album

Yep. The Artists view no longer respects album boundaries for play and shuffle, and there is no way to limit the playback to a single album when you enter it through Artists. You can use Search or the Albums view instead, which is no help for people who like to browse Artists as they always have. There is also no way to show a simple list of albums. Now we get the new hybrid albums/songs list, which makes us scroll through potentially hundreds of songs to go album to album. Please go to Apple's feedback page, report this, and ask them to fix it pronto. Vote early, vote often!

I noticed this right away, and concluded with the same reasoning you did, that the small icon implies it'll shuffle just that album. It does not. My buddy works at an apple store and I hopped on facetime with him to show my screen as I did it. He tested his 5 times, and the shuffle stayed within the context of the given album, suggesting his does work as intended. Smells like a bug!

It really seems like whoever broke the Remote app back in January got turned loose on the Music app for iOS 7. It boggles my mind that Apple thinks music collections should work this way. See my January post on the Remote App, which BTW hasn't been improved a lick in this regard:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4713729

As for your buddy, my guess is that he either entered the album through the Albums view, or he used Artists view and chose an Artist with only one album. If possible, double-check these things, and also see if he can play just one album out of many without shuffling, without the Music app starting the next album when the first one is finished. I stumbled across a way to do that, and it's a truly nonsensical procedure.

1. Go to Artists view, select an Artist with several albums, and start the last song in the first album.
2. Now press the Next button. The next album will begin playing. The same thing happens if you move the scrub bar near the end of the song and let it play out, which more closely simulates the traditional notion of "playing an album". Playback should stop, but it moves on to the next album. (Pressing Next is easier than fiddling with the scrub bar, which is why I mentioned it.)
3. To demonstrate the bug, do (1) again, but this time, press the menu button in the upper right of the Now Playing screen, which will take you a view of the single album with all its tracks, plus a Rating button in the upper left and a Done button in the upper right.
4. Now play the next to last song, and then press Done. You're returned to Now Playing.
5. Now press the Next button twice. Playback will stop, and instead of the next album being played as in (2), you're returned to the Artists view, which is what I would want to happen in (1)-(2), and which is how it used to work.

While this is a nonsensical inconsistency, this is a workaround which allows you to play a single album through Artists view. It doesn't help with shuffling though, because pressing Shuffle in Artists view can take you to a different album right away, and there is no shuffle button in that single album view in (3). Just now, pressing Shuffle in Now Playing and then doing (3) (starting with the menu button) and (4) has thoroughly confused the Music app. I can still navigate around it and choose songs, and it will take me to Now Playing, where I can use the Next and Back buttons to move from song to song, but the songs will not play, and the scrub will not advance. After doing this for 30 seconds, the Music app has hung. Now there's some bugs!

Same problem here, no way to shuffle within an album unless I enter the album under the album list. Is this intentional or a bug? If it is intentional I think it is both weird and bad.

I really hate this new 'feature'. I should be able to play an album, and just an album, and I should be able to get to the album via the artist page. Have left this feedback to Apple and do hope they fix this in a next release.

Thank you! Please fix this, have many albums under same artist and don't like scrolling through them to play a single album.

SimonBiddle wrote:

I really hate this new 'feature'. I should be able to play an album, and just an album, and I should be able to get to the album via the artist page. Have left this feedback to Apple and do hope they fix this in a next release.

To follow up on my earlier post:

The Music app no longer respects album boundaries when you enter an album through Artists view. It treats all the albums under that artist as belonging to an implicit playlist. When you shuffle, all songs on all albums for that artist are shuffled and play. When you try to play an album, it doesn't stop when the album is over; playback continues with the next album. Here is a workaround, but please complain about the new behavior and ask Apple to fix it here:

http://www.apple.com/feedback

The workaround:

1. Go to Artists view, select an Artist with several albums, and start playing a song in the album you want to play. For example, at the top of Now Playing, I see "1 of 216" for a 13 track album, with the 216 being the total number of tracks for that artist.

2. Press the menu button in the upper right of the Now Playing screen, which will take you to a view of the single album with all its tracks, plus a Rating button in the upper left and a Done button in the upper right.

3. Press a different song, and immediately afterwards, press the song you want to start on.

4. Press Done. You're returned to Now Playing. I now see "1 of 13" for my 13 track album, and the playback is indeed confined to this one album. I can even press the Shuffle button to shuffle and play just the songs on this album. When the album is finished, I'm returned to the Artists view.

Yes Jon, that's the only way around it that I've found as well.

I've left feedback as well complaining about this change.

Thanks jon8979, have left feedback with apple now.

I know this...but it just too annoying, cause the the shuffle button on the top of each album works on iTunes player on my Mac...hope it will be fixed soon...Thanks man!

Yup, this is terrible. Yet another example of Apple taking a UI element that worked great and made sense and ruining it for no reason at all.

Keep submitting feedback!

D

It is now very difficult to find the last "Dream Theater" when I open the dream theater "artist" folder, and I see the songs with that new "floating album" at the top that is changing. I must now scroll every song of every dream theater album from 1989 to 2013. Now, I hit play on the first song, I see "213 of 218" ?!?!?

I must hit the "list" button (up right), start playing song 2, and after restart playing song 1. Now I will be able to listen to that album and only it. It's very annoying.

It would be nice of the "shuffle" button on the album start shuffling that album, and also if we get a "play" button to play only that album, not the whole collection.

It's amazing this issue isn't fixed. Please keep submitting feedback everyone. I wish the music app would be back to the functionality it had 6 months ago. ios 7 music app is absolutely embarrassing that it's now march 2014 and still the shuffle button is messed up as described above

This has now been fixed with the latest iOS

Very happy.

While Shuffle has been fixed, the obvious counterpart "Play" button is still missing, and to play just the one album, you have to employ the method I described a few messages up. The one improvement there is that in step (3), you can press the same song; it doesn't have to be a different one. And of course, instead of providing sorting choices, they arbitrarily reversed the album sort order from increasing date to decreasing date. And there's still no way to collapse the hybrid album/song view to just albums.

It's still quite the mess.