This is such a major PIA. iTunes has often led the way with good features, but Apple's own other devices not only lag behind, but sometimes never get there. Case in point? Album Artist. A standout feature in iTunes that in conjunction with Artist, Sort Artist, Sort Album Artist and Compilation flag allows anyone to group albums together how they like. Let's face it, no-one can predict how every user wants to sort their music collection, so provide the tools and let them get on with it. Brilliant.
iTunes has long had the ability to prioritise Album Artist over Artist, but in their infinite wisdom Apple don't always follow through to all their products. However, I'm very pleased to se that the Music app on the iPhone now handles this in the same way. I guess I should check whether they're brought the TV into line yet, but I'm so incensed that they haven't bothered with the iPod (Classic anyway) that I can't be bothered to faff with the TV to find out if Apple have stopped being so dense about this.
Obviously Apple developers are not stupid, but they do seem to suffer from a mental block when it comes to intelligent user interfaces sometimes. Obviously they think using the Album Artist and allowing the user to prioritise that tag for sorting is a good thing, as indeed it is. So why only implement it on some of their products? This is what I find so frustrating. They get a good idea and don't follow through. At least if they were consistently stupid and made bad products we could look elsewhere, but what we have are some great products that are supposed to work (in our Apple Digital Home) with their other products, but don't.
There really is no excuse for this inconsistency. When collecting data from some sort of database, as does the iPod when displaying lists of its music, there is some small piece of code that specifies in which order to display the list. Probably one word of code. How hard could it be for Apple to change 'Artist' for 'Album Artist'? Even to provide the user with the choice wouldn't be rocket science. So why don't they fix this? It just makes no sense to me. My Classic is full and I need to spend a lot of time and effort into ensuring everything is sorted correctly or I cannot find things and it frustrates me enormously that they simply do nothing about this obvious lack.
Another gripe is how they display a list of all an artist's tracks. Until recently most of the devices would list them in alphabetical order and no-one can convince me that makes any sense. Why would anyone want to listen to all of an artist's tracks in alphabetical order. Sorted by Album first (whatever sort order used for the albums) and then by track number. This is the only sort order that makes any sense really. However, I appreciate others may want it more random and happily they can use that option if they want, but I cannot imagine anyone choosing to listen in alphabetical order. Fortunately, this has mostly been rectified and the iPod Classic in fact does it right, but the iPhone. Ha. Yes they sort by Album then track number, but in reverse order, so if you want to play everything, it plays them in backwards order. This sort of crass stupidity simply drives me nuts. The ONLY way to cater for all tastes is to provide the user with the choice. I don't care if they want to sort all of an artist's tracks alphabetically, or in backwards order - as long as I have the option to change it to what makes sense to me.
The net result of Apple's thoughtlessness is that using Artist and Album Artist to achieve lists sorted how you want is impossible on all devices. I can have it correct in iTunes and the iPhone, but then it's wrong on the iPod (Classic) and vice versa. This a truly deplorable situation, yet so simply solved. Apple should be ashamed of themselves.
