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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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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

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

Sep 25, 2013 8:39 AM in response to PFox78

Just chiming in. One of my primary means of listening to music was to shuffle and when it came to a song by an artist I liked but wanted to hear a different song, I could backup one menu level and the playlist would go to the point where that song occurred which would be with the album/artist. Now when I backup one menu level, it takes me to the very top of the playlist, so I have to manually page through to find a song. I don't know why that changed, it makes shuffle much less appealing to me. The solution needs to be much more functionality for sorting and manipulating all the various functions within songs, albums, playlists, etc. Not just for my issue, but for all the potentially ways we like to manipulate our listening experiences. Also, creating playlists from the iPad itself is a huge pain in the ***. Apparently you can only add individual songs at a time? I have 8000 songs in iTunes. Guess I'll only have the option of creating playlists from my computer.

Sep 25, 2013 11:04 AM in response to PFox78

Why not let the user decide how he wants to access the music tree? I have seen a lot of Android Music Players allowing to define, how the music gets presented. PlayerPro for example. Don´t understand me wrong. I am a big Apple fan, but sometimes it makes me a little bit helpless not beeing able to do a little bit of customization. I´d like to decide, if a would see covers, or just a simple list for each level of the music tree. I want to decide, if a see a album level, when accessing the interpret... I really hope, Apple will cerate a fix or additional functionality on that. It´s not just a Phone, it´s one of the best music players. Take it serious Apple!!! By the way, the Bluetooth music quality raised to a perfect level with ios 7. That was one of the best improvements. But that´s off the topic.

Sep 25, 2013 11:22 AM in response to MLadd

MLadd wrote:


After digging around, it seems the Settings -> Music -> Sort Albums by Artist is not working. This was on by default and after some testing, it looks like it's not working at all. FIngers crossed it will be in the next release. Along with the Play All for artist and Genre.

Do you mean "Group By Album Artist"? I believe that just means that if you have songs by various artists on the one album, say one by "SingerX" and one by "SingerX feat. RapperZ", it will put the whole album together under SingerX as long as you have that in each song's "Album Artist" ID3 Tag, rather than have it split the album by artist. I may be wrong, but I don't think there's anything broken there. But more toggle settings like that is what we're after.

Sep 25, 2013 11:28 AM in response to MLadd

MLadd wrote:


After digging around, it seems the Settings -> Music -> Sort Albums by Artist is not working.

I think you're referring to "Group by Album Artist", there is no "Sort Albums by Artist" setting on the iOS device, never has been. iTunes itself lets you change the sort order, but not the devices.


The "Group by Album Artist" setting is working fine, and its purpose is to either show or hide artists who only exist on a Compilation album. If you want to see all artists even if they only exist on one of your Compilation albums, turn this setting OFF. If you want to hide these artists in the Artist menu, turn it ON

Sep 25, 2013 11:45 AM in response to rockmyplimsoul

rockmyplimsoul wrote:


The "Group by Album Artist" setting is working fine, and its purpose is to either show or hide artists who only exist on a Compilation album. If you want to see all artists even if they only exist on one of your Compilation albums, turn this setting OFF. If you want to hide these artists in the Artist menu, turn it ON

Just to be clear, it's not tied to the Compilation tag which Apple supports as a separate feature, just the "compilation" concept. The "Group by Album Artist" feature will use the Album Artist tag if present regardless of the setting of the Compilation tag.

Sep 25, 2013 12:09 PM in response to jon8979

jon8979 wrote:

The "Group by Album Artist" feature will use the Album Artist tag if present regardless of the setting of the Compilation tag.

Thanks, I did not realize that ... I guess that's because that's how I'm using it. So if the Compilation flag is not part of the equation then that gives users some flexibility how this setting can be used (e.g. in cases where an Artist has various band names, or maybe guest artists, such that you can use the artist's primary name in the Album Artist field and not call the album a Compilation).

Sep 25, 2013 12:33 PM in response to rockmyplimsoul

Pretty much. I was very happy when Apple finally implemented Album Artist a couple of years ago in iOS, which lagged iTunes on the PC. Coming from other software, the Compilations tag was new to me, and rather than start using it, I used Mp3tag to copy the Artist tag to Comment, set Artist to Album Artist, and rolled like that for about a year. When Apple came around on the devices, I reversed the procedure. ISTR that setting the Compilations tag didn't help the Artists view on my Touch prior to the support for Album Artist; it would still show every Artist, which made the Artists view unbrowsable. So I just didn't see the value in the feature.


Now with iOS 7, Apple has invented a new way to make the Artists view unusable, the hybrid albums/songs view.

Sep 26, 2013 1:06 AM in response to PFox78

Wow. I am soooo glad I am not the only one that is extremely frustrated by the changes to the music app in iOS 7. It seriously has made me not want to use my phone for music anymore. I thought the previous ios 6 player was fine in terms of navigating. After searching around a bit, I found a free music player app called "Lagu" and it feels like I'm using the iOS 6 player again. Just got it and so far it has eased my anxiety by feeling like the old app. I know it may sound like I've come here to promote this, but I have no connections to this app and literally discovered it 20 mins ago. I'm honestly posting this to help out people like me that regularly use their music app but HATE the ios 7 change. If you want the closest thing (that I've found...please notify me if there is something better) to navigating your music like ios 6 then I'd say check it out.


Please apple, make some changes or maybe add an option or "theme" selection for the iPod app on the phone. Couldn't there be a "classic" option/theme that would allow navigation to resemble ios 6? By having that feature, both ios 7 lovers and haters would be pleased.


I have never been one to give feedback, but it amazes me how annoyed and disruptive some of the ios 7 changes have been. Double tapping to start and stop the music was sooo much better than having to swipe. Certain commands that I used to be able to do quickly take a few more steps and, while this is very much a first world problem complaint, it's one of those things where certain actions and features have been changed for the worst.


Ok, it's late and I don't feel like typing anymore. Maybe I'll come back and provide constructive feedback at a later date.


I recommend people to check out other music player apps if you're not liking iOS 7. I searched and found one that will work for me until apple *crosses fingers* tweaks the ios 7 player back to being usable.

Sep 26, 2013 1:47 AM in response to glg7

But Lagu (as far as I'm aware, like all non-Apple Music apps) can't access music in iTunes Match. It has to first be downloaded through the default app. I'm afraid this makes it useless for me. I'm forced to use the one app - where so much basic (repeat BASIC) functionality has been stripped out.


Does anyone know of an alternative app that CAN download direct from Match ?

Sep 26, 2013 6:28 AM in response to glg7

Agreed! So frustrating that they made such sweeping and dramatic changes.

Feel free to rant more on my review if you feel inclined:

http://thelearnsomethingnew.com/2013/09/22/ios-7-review-the-good-the-bad-and-the -ugly/


Have you submitted a bug report yet? If enough of us submit the issue as a bug it'll hopefully inspire action:

http://www.apple.com/feedback

iOS 7 Music App sorting issues

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