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iOS 7: iPad Music Album Bug

I just recently updated my iPad to iOS 7. I love it so far. However I am having an issue that is really frustrating me. I have noticed that a few of my albums aren't being sorted by their track number and so several of them are disorganized. I have several albums that are complilations mostly soundtracks to movies that have different artists. I am noticing that quite a bit of them not being sorted in order of the track but by the order of the artist. It is really annoying me and I can't think of any way to fix this. This problem isn't on my iPod which also has iOS 7 just my iPad. Most of the albums that are messed up are complilation albums that have various artists so they don't have a main album artist. Also, I have noticed that when I am in the album tab all the album on my iPad all the albums are sorted by the artist not the album title. So the first album that appears on my iPad is an a-ha album not Nick Cave's Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus. In iOS 6 there was an option to sort albums by their title or by artist but there isn't in iOS 7. Anyone else experiencing this problem? I know it sounds a little confusing.

Albums are sorted by the album title not artist.

Titanic album with tracks in order.

See how albums are sorted by the artist unlike on my iPod by the album title itself.

Songs aren't in order by track. Ugh.

iPad, iOS 7

Posted on Sep 20, 2013 10:25 AM

Top-ranking reply

TruTexGuy

Level 1

6 points

Posted on Sep 21, 2013 12:20 AM

I'm in complete agreement that the Albums view on the iPad for iOS 7 is in need of serious rehab; i.e., the single criteria for ordering the Albums view should be the album name. Compilations, various artists, unknown artists, etc. are extraneous attributes.

iTunes itself proves out this point in the Albums view of iTunes 11 with the movie soundtrack, "The Insider." In the Albums view of iTunes 11, this album appears alphabetically within the I's. The album artist is blank, and each song displays the artist performing that song. No songs are unattributed to a specific artist.

On my iPad with iOS 7, the Albums view supposedly sorts by artist first. However "The Insider" appears at the top of the albums list with Unknown Artist in the center column.* Two issues are exposed in this result: Albums should be sorted by album name even if the iPad's Music app has not duplicated the "Various Artists" tag or doesn't have logic to sort Compilations. At the very least, albums with Unknown Artist should appear in the U's alphabetically.

Finally, in any view displaying tracks for a single album, the track listing should remain in tact numerically and the artist of the track should be displayed as in iTunes 11 on the Mac. Instead, the Artist view of, "The Insider" displays the following, and this album cannot be played in track order because the tracks are not sorted numerically in any view:

View in context

23 replies

Nov 23, 2013 3:08 PM in response to AndyL1966

thanks!!!!! This worked!

Dec 5, 2013 1:50 AM in response to alexanderjb91

Apple,

Please give those of us who just purchased the mini2 the option of going to the ios6 interface for music. The ios 7 is TERRIBLE. I like ALL the songs listed with the option of by ARTIST!

Jan 6, 2014 2:22 AM in response to jpivarski

Nice trick!! It worked!!

Jan 7, 2014 6:43 PM in response to jpivarski

It's good that people share workarounds, so thanks for the suggestions.

I spent an age fixing iTunes (artwork, compilations etc) manually - a glutton for trivial but lengthily pursuits, only to achieve a messed up version on my iPad. There's no way I'm doing this manually or doing a reset. Much easier to use some other app.

Frankly, it is a relatively simple app and given the 000's of propellor heads at Apple you could expect them to throw a few of the better ones at the app and get it right. Giving users meaningful options of ways to browse and select music would be handy and pretty easy to deliver.

I switched from MS quite a few years back because of the 'noddy' software those guys were pushing out to a captive user base. I can't imagine apple will ever get that bad, but they need to wake up and start to think seriously about the quality of their software, particularly for the most used apps on their most popular platforms.

I wonder whether apple's app development is in house or whether they have progressively outsourced over the last few years??

C.C.Kang

Level 1

4 points

Feb 18, 2014 6:57 AM in response to AndyL1966

The method AndyL1966 provide (A setting reset (Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset All Settings)) works for me. My track orders are correct right now. Although I have to set all passwords and many configures, but it worth to do. Thank you Andy~

skybozo

Level 1

0 points

Dec 7, 2014 5:13 PM in response to alexanderjb91

I am so relieved to find out I'm not the only one with this problem. In iTunes on my PC, all of my music is well-organized, but on my iPad, which I sync with my PC, about two dozen albums (out of about 200) show each song as a single album. Worse, I can't play those albums as a collection; I have to select each of the songs individually. Really aggravating, especially since an iPod I also own shows the albums as whole, complete albums, just as iTunes on my PC shows them. What happened to the iPad software?

Oct 13, 2016 5:47 PM in response to AndyL1966

I wish I could report success, but it's still acting the same for me. :-(

Oct 13, 2016 5:55 PM in response to alexanderjb91

I just discovered the fix and it's easy. Select Settings and scroll down to the section where Music is listed. When you tap the arrow, you'll see the settings for music, where you get the option to sort Songs and Albums by title or artist.

iOS 7: iPad Music Album Bug