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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

Apr 24, 2014 5:13 AM in response to PFox78

I am just joining this post and I am trying to get up to speed with it but there are obviously a long and detailed history of post to review. Please allow me to ask a question or two.


It is my observation that the Music App gives you several ways to explore your library. By Songs, By Album, By Artist, By Genre, etc... These options are selected by choosing an icon at the bottom of the app. What surprises me, however, is that no matter which icon you choose, the library continues to be sorted by artist. For example, within the song icon/option, the songs are all sorted alphabetically by artist NOT by song title. This seems really unfortunate because it there are times in which you may remember the song title and not the author or you may want to play all the songs you have with the same title (different versions, such as "I can't help falling in love with you.").


Has there been any discussion or insight on this particular problem?

Apr 24, 2014 2:36 PM in response to ShrewdWill

Yep, the Music app on my iPhone 5s lists all songs by alphabetical order.


One possibility is that you have "Group by Album Artist" turned on in the settings. (I don't know for sure if this would cause your problem -- I don't use the Album Artist info field.) You can find this in Settings>Music.


Otherwise, I agree with the previous post. Try turning your phone on and off to reset things. You could also try downloading some of the other music players from the App Store to see if they cause the same issue. As mentioned many times in this thread, Picky (which is $0.99, last I checked) is an excellent choice to overcome some of the usability issues with the iOS7 music app. It works and looks more like the iOS6 music app.

Apr 24, 2014 4:10 PM in response to Paul Duke1

Paul Duke1 wrote:



One possibility is that you have "Group by Album Artist" turned on in the settings. (I don't know for sure if this would cause your problem -- I don't use the Album Artist info field.) You can find this in Settings>Music.

I populate Album Artist for all songs and have this option turned on -- songs in the Songs menu are always sorted alphabetically whether it is on or off.

May 24, 2014 10:32 AM in response to PFox78

A new issue has occurred for me that I thought I should bring to everyone's attention. When I ask Siri to "shuffle all my music" or "shuffle music" or any other variation of that command, Siri assumes I want to bypass my Show All Music setting which I have set to OFF. Siri will proceed to shuffle and play the music that is installed on my phone...as well as stream the music from my iTunes cloud, which eats at my data plan. Now when Siri decides to stream any of these unwanted songs, they then appear one by one in my Apple Music app completely disregarding my Show All Music setting. (Luckily the 3rd party app Picky is not effected by this, only the Apple Music app.)


What's annoying is that you cannot delete/remove these "streamed" songs from the Apple Music app! They just stay there and clutter your music. What you have to do is turn the Show All Music setting from OFF to ON (like it did anything in the first place) which then gives you the option to download these songs. You then have to "download" the songs in question (as if they weren't there to begin with) and then set the Show All Music Setting back to OFF. It is only now that I can swipe and delete/remove these unwanted songs.


This is a similar issue to one of my previous complaints here regarding certain 3rd party apps that would disregard the Show All Music setting...and just like in this new issue, would stick any accidentally streamed songs into my Apple Music app, leaving me the fun task of having to go through that tedious process of deleting/removing them.


Anyway I have contacted apple support about this new issue and submitted a complaint and a request to address this issue in a future update...but have yet to see apple do anything with their Music app in the last couple of updates. All I have to say is thank you to the 3rd party developers that listen to our cries, especially the one who made Picky. Thanks Charles. (now add the option to view lyrics! heheh)

May 24, 2014 11:39 AM in response to frank135

Refering to my previous post.


Boy do I feel silly. Simply logging in and out again of your Apple ID within the iTunes & App Store settings removes any unintentionally added "streamed" songs from the Apple Music app. It seems as if just the song's info is stored on the phone, not the actual song itself. Anyone with my issue can just do this to remove these songs from cluttering your music collection in the Apple Music app.

Jun 4, 2014 5:06 PM in response to PFox78

Hey fellows,

How about composing a collective letter to Apple while there is still some time until the iOS 8 release? I am collecting music for about 20 years now and I don't use Music app anymore since I upgraded to iOS 7 for two reasons:


- Cannot reach Album by Artist anymore without scrolling through a huge list of all the songs - did this succesfully in iOS 6, now have to use 3d party app

- Cannot load shared music library from my Mac anymore as it takes 700 Gb - did this succesfully in iOS 6, now have to use 3d party app.


And this is frustrating as I came to having an all-Apple envirnomnent through using iPod/iPhone for all my music needs


I'm not a native speaker, so could anyone of you guys propose the message text that we could all sign and send?


Thanks!

Jun 5, 2014 7:24 PM in response to Foinhaven

I can't agree with you guys enough. The whole reason I got an iphone was to have all of my music with me. Since ios 7 I've also had to use picky like you guys. If you have more than two albums by an artist it's completely useless! It's horrible that you have to scroll through every album just to get to the album you want! I've been searching for news about the music app to see if apple has improved this awful situation in ios 8. Sadly I haven't seen anything about it. We shouldn't have to use third party apps for music that is unacceptable! Apple should at least let people customize this in the settings. Does ANYONE know how we can bring this to their attention? If this doesn't get fixed I might move to android this year. I really don't want to but apple has taken away the ONE THING I truly loved about the iphone. The apps are just a bonus to me personally. I hope this changes!!

Jun 5, 2014 11:54 PM in response to AxelF2

Replying to my own post (smile):


I would like to inform you, that turning of the sort by "album artist" on the iphone

"fixed" the "no content within genre"-issue.


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".


Anyhow this is a kind of workaround, not fixing the issue ...


Apple: Please surprise us with good features and intelligent sorting (e.g. music app under ios6).

(and not with the urge to report all kind of bugs and bad user interface ...)

iOS 7 Music App sorting issues

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