You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

💡 Did you know?

⏺ If you can't accept iCloud Terms and Conditions... Learn more >

⏺ If you don't see your iCloud notes in the Notes app... Learn more >

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

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

Reply
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

Oct 6, 2013 12:11 AM in response to PFox78

I created a user name just to add to this discussion- first post! I'm a musician...TONS of music, All the time. Apple products Rock. I'm the guy Raving about Apple products.

After this new update, the Music App seems like a grade school art project. I have so many artists that have multiple albums and not having them Alphabetical under the Artist name is Shocking!

If Steve was still with us, you know this would NOT be happening... They BETTER fix this...

Until they do, the ONLY thing I can think of is ERASING ALL of my "Year" Info in itunes for all of my Albums (The Albums list Alphabetically if there is no "Year Data") But I really don't want to do that and I should NOT have to.

The White White White is also straining on the eyes and it seems like the Touch Responsiveness is "Off" too.

I went looking for another player to fill my needs (Which, again, I should not have to do) and tried some of the suggestions...

"Panamp" & "Lagu" are really nice and are setup like the Old App...but they BOTH don't have Gapless Playback when listening to an Album. I listen to alot of Jam bands and their Live Albums have many Segue's from Song to Song. Think Pink Floyd "Dark Side Of The Moon"... Tracks going from one right into the next. The "Little-Tiny-Little" gap that occurs takes you right out of the musical moment.

I'm STUCK with Apple's player because of it's Gapless perfection. I sent my Complaint in and I hope everyone else does too.

Oct 6, 2013 10:34 AM in response to Daggy007

I downloaded Lagu, and the thing that isn't going to work for me is that Apple doesn't allow apps access to the iTunes data related to ratings, play counts, etc. It seems like a really great app in some other ways, so I might keep it on my phone and use it to look at my library to add to playlists in the native music app. If Apple could just add the features they used to offer they'd have a fine native app. I really hope they listen to all of us who have spoken up.

Oct 6, 2013 5:17 PM in response to PFox78

I have found another annoying issue with the new music app and that is when you use the seek feature. Especially when trying to find a spot in long songs and/or mixes. With the IOS6 version say on a track 3:30s long you could scroll through the track and pinpoint a spot with nearly second accuracy. On a 2hour track (I have lots of dj mixes) it lets you scroll in 5-8 second increments.


Now let's switch to IOS7. On the shorter track I can only scroll in 7-8 second increments. On the long 2 hour track I can only skip through it in approx 5min jumps! Trying to pinpoint a spot in a mix is nigh on impossible. I'm hating this player more and more by the day.

Oct 6, 2013 5:50 PM in response to PFox78

My trusty old 3GS has just become my new iPod Touch! Still on iOS 6, I'm now using it with Bluetooth headset for iTunes and any non-audible audiobooks I want to listen too. I can also turn off date and wifi settings and turn back the date to keep Overdrive audiobooks longer if I need to. I've also resurrected my old Nano. Not an elegant fix, but a fix. I tried Mario Adrian's Audiobooks app but it was no improvement over iTunes for audiobooks, thus $5.00 wasted. I've put Ecoute on my 5c for a better quality music player. So I think I'm done messing with this! After multiple feedback emails to Apple and two weekends spent dealing with this mess, I'm sick of it.

Oct 6, 2013 9:29 PM in response to PFox78

i read all the users solutions and wonder: is this what has become of this great music loving company

that is so famous for it's simple and intuitive user interface???


sad, so sad....


and this horrible music app works soooooo slow on iphone4...

it's so clear to me that somebody up there thought it would be a great idea to make my phone feel old

so i will upgrade to iphone5...


well, I guess somebody was wrong

I dont think i will buy any more from apple untill they give me back an ios that fit my machine

Oct 7, 2013 2:27 AM in response to PFox78

Here's the latest. I was additionally frustrated with the new IOS when 80% of my album art disappeared when I had previously gone through painstaking steps to get it to update correctly. I made the huge mistake of trying to wipe and reinstall all of my music (7000 or so songs) over the weekend. I tried multiple restores including multiple restore points from old backups as well as starting out with the iphone as if new. In all situations I could not get the music to update on the iphone. I kept getting stuck at "waiting for items to update". I even went and deleted and reinstalled itunes. No joy. I finally gave up and I've decided to go with the Amazon music player, which is only about 2200 songs that I've bought directly from Amazon. I've already made up my mind to break free from Apple. I got stuck in the Apple upgrade process because I owned Macs, ipods, iphones and then ipads. The itunes/ipod experience alone over the past several years is very similar to the frustrations that led me away from windows in the first place. I've never understood why the whole itunes update process is so ridiculously proprietary and controlled. Why can't it be a simple folder system that you can easily transfer files back and forth and manipulate like you do on a pc? I'll be researching Android devices for my next phone purchase. Not having access to my music F**cking *****...

Oct 8, 2013 6:12 PM in response to PFox78

Just adding one more voice of discontent. Music lover here. Apple made my day with the iPod. Suddenly no more CDs to carry around. A chunk of the ol' discoteque right in the pocket. And now Apple is destroying the fun of listening to music one upgrade at a time.


The playlists here are by genre and loaded with 50 songs each. (Rhetorical question, does anybody else miss iTunes DJ? Of course you do!) Play 50 songs of one genre, time to listen to something else. And so goes the day, or it used to. On the iOS7, even with repeat off, the music app recycles the playlist and starts all over again.


Is it just me?


Thanks!

Oct 8, 2013 7:17 PM in response to lessthanuthink

Hi again,


I recently tried lessthanuthink's app, named Picky, and it' really good! In many ways, it's what Apple should've done with the music player: keep it simple, like iOS 6 but update its look to match iOS $0.99, so for less than a cup of coffee, you could have a player that' much better than the stock app.


The only thing I'll say is that it's for ppl who like to listen to albums or individual songs. It has no support for playlists, though.


Otherwise, please keep posting and send your feedback to Apple. Let's hope they rectify this colossal mistake for 7.1.

Oct 9, 2013 7:02 AM in response to PFox78

My understanding is that Apple does not give app developers the ability to access to update playcounts or last played times so for those of us who feel that information is important (I use it to make playlists and remind myself what I haven't listened to lately), we are kind of tied to the iPhone's native music all. I really hope I'm happier after 7.1...if they don't make any changes to the music all after 7.1 I'm not sure what I'll do.

Oct 9, 2013 8:28 AM in response to Susan Jurist

Well I have a band. We are constantly learning new material and I always download songs from itunes, then they are automatically put on my iphone 4's "music" icon. I created two icons in music, 1 is named songs to learn, the other is named Vital Signs ( our bands name ) The most frustrating thing is the music I put in Vital Signs. I have 48 songs and add more weekly, problem is it wont let me put them in alphabetical order any more. Its terrible, when we are at practice and I need to pull up a certain song so we can listen to it if we need to, I have to scroll throgh all 48 songs to find it. Can't figure out why in God's Name apple, the music guru's of the world, would let that happen. Whatever I guess. Just bugs the **** out of me!

Ack

Oct 9, 2013 11:54 AM in response to PFox78

Ok .. I have bought Picky too. Now that it has iTunes Match it is a very worthy contender. The Filter idea is clever (it can exclude artists with fewer than 2 songs, 3 songs , 4 songs etc) but for me it is still a complete pain that it doesn't simply have an option to obey the "Group by Album Artist" setting. With classical music there are single albums that end up with 20+ different "Artists" (ie mixed combinations of singers/musicians) and there is no sensible filter level that doesn't then exclude artists who have released albums with just 3 long tracks. User uploaded file


So Picky - my wish list:


Essential: (1) Offer "Group by Album artist" as a setting (An alternative to the filter?)

Would be nice: (2) Include Playlists - with both a song and "By album" option

Dream: (3) Allow queueing of songs in advance

iOS 7 Music App sorting issues

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.