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iOS 7 Music App sorting issues

Hello there,


I'm starting this discussion to express my displeasure with some changes in the Music app that have removed some key functionalities that I had come to rely upon.


First of all, there are some artists in my library with many albums. In iOS 6, accessing those artist's albums was easy. You would click on the artist tab, go to the artist and it would show a list of the albums. Then, you could choose an album and go right to those songs. In iOS 7, this has completely changed. Now, there's no longer an albums view under artists. You have to scroll song by song to get to the newer releases.


For instance, I'm a huge fan of Pearl Jam and have 60 albums of theirs (9 studio, the rest all live records). Now, to get to the latest, I have to spend 30 seconds scrolling all the way down the list. That's not efficient at all. The way it was before — you get a list of albums once you click on the artist, then click on an album to get the songs — should never have been changed.


Second, I consider myself a power user and sort all my albums using the "sort album" tag in iTunes. Previously, that carried over both over syncing and iTunes Match. Now, it ignores it completely. Even my old, trusty iPod Classic still pays attention to this!


I understand that most people don't set their sort order, but for those of us who do — and have spent tons of time doing it — why is this no longer the case?


I spoke with a senior technician yesterday and let him know of these issues. He documented them and is sending them directly to a programming engineer at Apple. I have his name, phone number and contact info and intend to follow up.


He agreed that iOS 7 should be adding functionality — not taking it away! The other thing the senior technician said to me is that the more people call and complain about something, the greater the chance that it will be rectified.


I did so in a very calm, respectful manner and he was very receptive to my concerns. SO, is anyone else frustrated about this? IF so, please post here!


Also, my suggestion to anyone else who feels disappointed in this removed functionality is to call in to Apple Care support and express your concerns in much the same way i did.


That way, if we make our collective voices heard, they'll reintroduce the functionalities we had in the first place.

Posted on Sep 20, 2013 8:22 AM

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Posted on Sep 20, 2013 8:34 AM

I have scheduled a call with a technician for this afternoon, and will discuss my concerns as well. Let's hope that if enough people raise the issue, it will be addressed. I will post a follow up once I've spoken with Apple.

445 replies

Oct 26, 2013 1:49 PM in response to Jimscriv

Jimscriv wrote:


Bravo on the new update to Picky!


It has now overtaken Ecoute as my preferred alternative to the car crash of the default ios7 music app.


Well done. Now a really serious contender.


(If only you could now change that horrid icon ... )


Thanks, I'm glad to hear it! But I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on the icon 🙂.



DirkSchaefer wrote:


thank you for Picky, it. really makes life with iOS7 begrabe.

There is just one small issue I'd like to adress: if you use the shuffle play mode, without selecting/filtering any Album or Artist, Picky apparently plays Songs that are no longer on the phone. I add/remove music from time to time on my 4s(16GB) and Picky plays songs I removed months ago and which it does actually not show in the song list. Not a big issue, but you may want to take a look.


Hi Dirk – that's a weird one. I'll try to look into it and see what's going on. Does it ever happen when shuffling with the system app?



halo9 wrote:


I too have a lot of classical music and have tried this for you to confirm.

It does not work in the native app in IOS 7.0.3, same goes for Lagu. I also use the Picky app and that does not have the feature either. Seems like the only way to see it is to actually play the track and wait, which isn't very helpful.


Good thing is the developer of Picky, Charles is on this forum quite a bit and listens to the feedback people give. He might be able to confirm if this is still possible in the new IOS.


BTW, new update is great Charles.



Hi halo9, glad to hear you like the update. Having a way to view long track titles is a good idea, I think I'll try to incorporate some kind of tap-and-hold functionality for viewing them in my next update 🙂.



– Charles

Oct 27, 2013 10:29 PM in response to lessthanuthink

Hi Charles - just wanted to say thanks for Picky. I'm just another music lover massively let down by the iOS 7 app (I've just sent feedback to Apple), and just downloaded yours. Well done! And it's very, very cool that you seem to be very responsive to suggestions.


I'd offer a small one: I know that most here seem to prefer alphabetical sorting of albums within each artist, but the chronological sorting is about the only thing that Apple got right here, in my opinion. I say, why not both? An option to choose between sorting albums alphabetically or by year would be amazing. It would be the last thing to win me over full time ; )


Thanks again for your time and effort!!

Oct 28, 2013 9:20 AM in response to PFox78

Gotta be honest - when I updated iOS 7, this was the first thing I noticed. How in the world could they have taken away the album list under artists. One artist has like 40 albums, it's absurd that I have to scroll through all of them to find one album (or worse, one song), and then when the album was over, it just kept on playing. I'm glad that I found this thread - it shows I'm not alone and I was able to voice my complaint to Apple. I also just downloaded Picky, and although I haven't used it yet, it already looks better than Apple's garbage. Thanks all!

Oct 28, 2013 3:25 PM in response to PFox78

I'm with all of you. I also love iOS 7 but HATE the new Music app. The horrible ANDROID looking wall of album artwork BS that pops up in landscape? REALLY? WHY? i want to see what that song is that's playing on shuffle, oh ok, wait let me turn the phone around and look oh wait that doesn't work either... this is horrible why take functionality away? You can no longer delete albums on the phone. I have had to to through each song, song by song to delete albums.... same with mystery playlists i've never asked to move over that magically appeared ... i've had to go through song by song swipe delete this is horrible design... i don't care what that brittish dude says... NOT INTUITIVE NOT GENIUS NOT SIMPLE.. it's a fail.. shame on apple.. i'm done switching to the hideous android at least that could give me options to try and get a music app that will do what i need it to do.

Oct 29, 2013 8:25 AM in response to lessthanuthink

I totally agree. Apple has definitely messed up this Music-Update. Scrolling through all songs of 20 Dream Theater-Albums is no fun. And compared to other ones in this post, 20 Albums is not even a lot. And then the landscape view... This is just ridiculous (I still don’t understand the sorting).


A big thank you Charles for your Album-List-View in Picky. But of course, like everybody, I also have some (personal) suggestions regarding Picky. If not possible -> bad luck. If possible -> an even BIGGER thank you.



- When playing a song (e.g. in “Now Playing”) in Apples Music-App, on the top right an an Song-List-Icon is visible. This is missing in Picky


- If above can be added to Picky, then it would also be great to have the Forward-, Reverse- and Play/Pause-Button and the “Music-Slider” available in this Song-List-View

iOS 7 Music App sorting issues

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