hi, don!
sorry to arrive late to your party 🙂
I have been using (and, honestly, sometimes suffering) AM from day one (that is almost a year and a half now);
the thing that gets to my nerves is when the app behaves erratically in the sense that it won't do what it is supposed to do (even when a confirmation message tells you it is supposedly doing so ); in AM 1.0 the worst part was adding a song to a custom playlist and never seeing it appear on that list; I ended up behaving like a paranoid and each time I added a song I checked back frantically to make sure the song was in fact saved, which sometimes did and sometimes (too often) didn't;
now, in AM 2.0, this seems to be less frequent, but other (quite worse) issues have been plaguing the app, e.g.:
> "play next" has been seriously crippled by design; it is not longer an option when you are listening to a default radio station, which was one of the best features on AM 1.0; besides, when you try to squeeze a song in a default playlist, the app will do all kinds of random things (but play your selection), like ignoring your instructions (and making the track disappear) or just stop playing; this "disappearing" glitch was also present in AM 1.0 (and made me totally mad) but now it's grown out of proportion (which makes me even madder);
> "previously played" songs or "song history" was another great feature in AM 1.0, and my single killer advantage over spotify, which seems to take pride in hiding from you the details of what you have just listened to; in AM 1.0, if you wanted to check which songs have been previously played, all you had to do was swipe up, and there they were: dozens of tracks that let you remember and act accordingly: repeat a track, research the artist or the album... those kinds of things music lovers like to spend hours doing; now it's gone, though, to be honest, I have found (in these forums) a workaround to get hold of at least the last 30 tracks, an alternative that totally deserves the title of "most convoluted iOS workaround ever": in the iMessages option, you enter a recipient, select the app store icon and then "music" and there they are (jonny ive, I'm sure you're reading this: does this comply with your idea of clean and neat design?);
there are a couple of other major/minor irritant malfunctions or terrible UX decisions, but for me these are the worst offenders; having said that, I intend to wait and see (I don't believe in miracles, but still...) what the future holds; the app has given me countless hours of joy; I have amassed two playlists: one holds 1.111 songs and the other is well over 250 now and I can tell you they are by far my biggest material treasure; the effort of exploring (worth dozens of hours each week) is compensated by the joy of discovery and each time a find an unexpected jewel is somehow like falling in love again; look, it's just happened: "one day" by KODALINE, never heard it before and it has given me such a rush...
as for playlists, it's easy: you just search for a song or an artist, and the app will return several options: songs, albums and... PLAYLISTS; you click on "see more" and there they are, several playlists related to your search for you to explore; then it's up to you to research each artist or song that gets you, and that will take you to new places and so on... if you love music, it's a kind of never-ending journey full of, yes, hard work and countless hours of listening, but also the emotion of finding the occasional diamond; it's like friends: you may have lots of acquaintances, but friends, you're lucky if you have one or two people you can really call friends; at least, with songs you don't have to stick to single digits 🙂
p.s.: my experience is 99% related to APPLE MUSIC on iOS;
