The new Love(d) field

This is a good example of the awkwardness you get when you have two similar yet still different set of requirements mashed together in one package.

Now I am assuming that this new field has been introduced primarily for the purpose of Apple Music, so people can register tracks they hear that they like much as you do using a star in Spotify. That makes perfect sense within Apple Music, but rather less sense within traditional iTunes itself where, let's remember, it has been inserted by default into every main playlist view.

Firstly you could say that its an unnecessary duplication of functionality. If I wanted to see all the tracks I Love then I can simply create a playlist showing me all 5-star tracks. The exiting stars system allows more nuance too rather than the rather binary Yes or No. If I was being magnanimous I might say that it could be useful for people who haven't filled in their ratings yet, but it doesn't alter the fact that it's still duplication.

But what is really annoying about this new system is that you can apply the Loved option to albums too. Now that actually sounded like it might be useful as there is no current system that allows you to quickly create a playlist featuring just your favourite albums overall (don't even begin to mention the utterly broken album stars). So I marked an album as a favourite along with two tracks from a different album. I created a playlist that said Love is True (as opposed to False) and the results show the two individual tracks but not the album. Thus I am not sure how I would even be able to track albums I marked as Loved.

So this is functionality that is flawed both on a design and an execution level. It's all a bit of a dog's dinner.

C.