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PFox78 Author

Level 1

44 points

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

Top-ranking reply

pd18

Level 1

0 points

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.

View in context

445 replies

hhh222

Level 1

4 points

Feb 8, 2014 7:53 AM in response to PFox78

Got a new Ipad and after seeing how music is now handled, it's going back. Love a lot of the upgrades from the original ipad but managing music is my priority.

Feb 13, 2014 6:40 AM in response to PFox78

Same same ! thousand artists and not easy to go directly and quickly... Give us the choice of how we want to use the device !!!

AxelF2

Level 1

0 points

Feb 19, 2014 11:58 AM in response to dadoum11

I totally agree to you.

The Choice of albums and titles over genres to totally skrewed up in iOS 7.x.x.

--> I stay on iOS6 until this gets fixed

Mar 2, 2014 8:27 PM in response to Paul Duke1

Maybe the death of Steve Jobs had an even bigger impact than we imagined. Jobs was obsessed with ergonomics and intuitive simplicity - an Apple hallmark under Jobs.

My biggest complaints:

1) the old 'Genius' feature is gone. That was the one where you can be listening to a Tom Petty song, hit the Genius button, and it would automatically playlist of songs of similar style from the songs available. It was a single button. They replaced that with the Create/Create Station from Song function, which A) creates a permenant "station" (i don't want that, I just want to listen to similar songs for now and forget about it), and B), it's designed to try to sell you more songs from ITunes.

2) The control panel disappears routinely and I have no idea how to get it back. I hit the Music icon, and I'm in the ITunes Radio menu. I don't see the Artist/Album/Song menu at the bottom, so I see no way to find my music library.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I've always been good at figuring out computers and software in a few seconds. Put the ITunes Radio on a seperate app. Keep the music app clean and simple.

jsdwww

Level 1

4 points

Mar 9, 2014 1:39 AM in response to zornie

Hi, not sure if this was mentioned already (I didn't read all the posts), but you can find the alphabetically sorted album (and song etc.) list view of an artist by going to Artist, Albums or any of the main views and then search for the artist via the searchbox at the top (scroll upwards to make it visible). It's not as convenient as before maybe, but it gets the job done quite easily imho.

jsdwww

Level 1

4 points

Mar 9, 2014 3:06 AM in response to Paul Duke1

Hi, the Genre view is still (or again?) available in the Music app. In default setting its under More (...). You can however put it on the bottom row of the app by clicking Change (or an equivalent; I'm on the Dutch app) at More (...). This will show all available views in red (also the current start views at the bottom - which are greyed-out in the alphabetically ordered central area), and you can move them like you would the apps and folders. For example: to make Genre the first view in the bottom row, you drag it from the central area to the bottom left, over the one that is there (Radio by default). This will swap the two views. The Radio view is now red in the central area and Genre is at the bottom left. Click Save and you're done (Radio view will now be available via ...). Hope this helps somewhat.

Mar 10, 2014 2:00 PM in response to Dreadnought1906

Dreadnought1906 wrote:

My biggest complaints:

1) the old 'Genius' feature is gone.

No it's not. Perhaps you turned Genius off in your iTunes library (a requirement to use it on your device).

Dreadnought1906 wrote:

2) The control panel disappears routinely and I have no idea how to get it back.

Control Panel is accessed by swiping up from the bottom of your display, but I'm not sure that's what you're really looking for?

Dreadnought1906 wrote:

I don't see the Artist/Album/Song menu at the bottom, so I see no way to find my music library.

The Artist/Album/ etc. choices should there at the bottom of the Music app screen, but if you don't see them then maybe Reset your iPhone. Also, if you don't want to see Radio then tap "More" at the bottom-right, then "Edit" at the top-right, then drag the Radio button out of the bottom tray and up into the list of "More" choices.

pegaudet

Level 1

4 points

Mar 10, 2014 2:41 PM in response to rockmyplimsoul

Perhaps you turned Genius off in your iTunes library (a requirement to use it on your device).

Slight off topic, but speaking of genuis and devices, is it possible to have it turned on in itunes, but off (as in, device has no such genius capability) on the ios device?

The genuis database is ridiculously big in my case and the sync is awfully painful... I might use it at home from time to time, but on my phone, never.

I turned it off in itunes for the very issue of sync time and space taken up for the genius data.

Mar 10, 2014 2:45 PM in response to pegaudet

Nope, all or nothing ... but would be a nice Setting to choose per-device.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

Mar 10, 2014 2:50 PM in response to PFox78

And back on topic ... unfortunately I don't see any positive changes in the Music UI under iOS 7.1 released today. About the only difference I can make out is that in the Artist menu the albums are sorted in descending release date instead of ascending dates. Still too many problems to list as compared to iOS 6 ...

dadoum11

Level 1

0 points

Mar 12, 2014 7:15 AM in response to rockmyplimsoul

Hello,

So I assume it is still impossible to browse Albums withing a genre ?

Like for instance Pop and then have the list of albums within the genre Pop, like G I R L, Random Access Memories...

Thank you for your answer.

Mar 12, 2014 8:02 AM in response to dadoum11

dadoum11 wrote:

So I assume it is still impossible to browse Albums withing a genre ?

The Genre menu brings up Artists, not Albums, so you can't browse by all albums within the genre.

But now when you select a Genre there is a Shuffle button at the top of the list of Artists so that you can shuffle all songs within the genre, which is an improvement (no more having to use Search results to shuffle all songs in the genre). I didn't see this at first, so one step forward ...

fLaPjAk

Level 1

0 points

Mar 13, 2014 2:13 AM in response to PFox78

I had my hopes up that this pile of crap app would be fixed in 7.1... Sadly no. My main complaint is that my songs which I spent hours sorting via genre (because that is how I listen to my music, genre -> shuffle) show up in 2, sometimes three genres. (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5497357)

One particular album which is hard coded as "Rap" in id3 tag shows up in both rap and hip-hop and a new hip-hip/rap genre. ***!

I use Lagu and will never switch to the music app from iOS 7... As most said its utter garbage.

If Lagu changes the way their software runs then I just switch to android; I hear the waters warm in that world, and a lot cheaper than this $1200 phone I have!

Mar 13, 2014 12:59 PM in response to fLaPjAk

Well, they did NOT fix the main thing that bugs me -- the Music App still reverts to iTunes Music Store tags (for songs bought from the iTMS) if you have changed them.

So for instance, if you bought songs from the iTMS and then changed the genre, they still show up in your Music App with the original tags -- ie, the original genre as listed in iTMS.

This is obviously part of Apple's attempt to push everyone to use iCloud.

I have a feeling somewhere there is a management consultant who looked at calls to Apple's help line and noticed that a lot of them are from people who accidentally changed some ID tag data, and then called to find out "why my song doesn't show up in the right place" or something like that. So this management consultant -- who is definitely not a music lover (probably only has Christmas CDs and a Motown collection an old girlfriend gave him to try to loosen him up -- it didn't work and she broke up with him I'm sure; now he's trying to impose his idea of order on the world) said, "easy, let's just make the ID tags revert to the iTMS original listings. That way, less confusion."

Of course, it's really bizarre to have songs show up in iTunes on your computer with one name, or album name, or genre, but show up on your iPhone with other info.

Plus I'll just say again that this REALLY doesn't work for something like classical music, where the official ID tags are just ridiculous... for instance the "album name" for 17 different pieces of music by 10 different composers might be "Argerich Collection 2 -- The Concerto Recordings". Thanks Apple, that really helps me find my music easily.

Well, again, as I've said before, the upshot of this for me is that I've gone back to buying CDs. Nothing from the iTMS.

And remember to go here and complain often: http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html

AxelF2

Level 1

0 points

Mar 13, 2014 1:58 PM in response to Paul Duke1

Hey, Paul.

I can really understand your complains.

The music app in my eyes is really buggy and not useable for bigger libraries.

e.g. in the genre overview for one specific genre it states x songs, y albums

and if you enter the genre it shows "no content". A real bug.

I suspect, no testing at all was done for this function.

And the best is, that album covers differ from itunes and the iphone for the same song ...

not very important, but not very nice anyway ..

As Apple didn't any improvement to the music app over from ios 7 ti ios 7.0.5

I changed to the app "lagu" which has the original ios6 user interface, with some more and only

a little bit less features (star ratings are not possible ..) but in the end I am quite happy with it.

What worries me, is that Apple's iphone functions are not working properly and the outlook to improvement looks bad.

"Workarounds":

podcast app --> downcast

music app --> lagu

One is asking why I am paying a premium price to that product if updates are detoriating main functions (functions that I use daily ....).

In the automobile world this would be a case for the attorney ...

more critical for Apple of course that love turns to indifference, in the worst case to hate for their products

iOS 7 Music App sorting issues