Star rating in music app in iOS 10 is gone?

It sounded like you got offended by my use of special. Really? I didn't say you were special-k ;-) Anyway, could be you guys in the U.K. have a different variant/version, whatever. Here's what I have:

As for iTunes on my desktop, I have around 2or3 Tb of music and get a spinning beach ball for about 20-30 seconds (sometimes for a few minutes) whenever I try to do anything in it. So it just ***** up my time and is impossible to organize unless I have a 3 day weekend to kill.

Hey everyone. Mixed feelings from me. So glad I can rate my music again on my iPhone. Star ratings as an option to turn on and off is fine. Then people who don't want them, don't have to have them. I'm very concerned that they may decide to remove them again in the future. If iTunes looses the metadata then there's nothing I/we can do. That would be so very upsetting.

In terms of user experience, I much preferred the previous way of rating. Touching on the album art bringing up the stars that you had rated or greyed out ones if you hadn't rated it yet. Much quicker to check. I'm going to suggest they bring that back in http://www.apple.com/feedback/.

In terms of how this discussion has gone a little haywire, I'd like to insert my 2c about that. I'm scared and worried about some of the things happening with iOS and iTunes. I will still say though, Smart playlists, Apple Music and my iPhone are still such great tools. While things like the stars getting removed can be seen as us losing control, I have such amazing control with playlists and metadata in iTunes and the sync to my phone. It's still the best I've used.

Let's hope Apple continues to listen. I mean hey, they added the star ratings back in. 🙂

Feedback I submitted about Apple Music:

Thanks so much for adding ratings back. Opt in or out in settings is great. The user experience has degraded when you turn it on and rate a song. The previous way was far superior, it was activated by touching on the album art bringing up the stars that you had rated or greyed out ones if you hadn't rated it yet. Much quicker to check and required fewer button presses. The current one is options > rate song... > touch the number of stars > done. That's 4 touches instead of 2.

Feedback I submitted about iTunes:

I have heard that recent iTunes beta versions have removed star ratings. Please don't remove this. A lot of people still love this feature. I understand that you may think this is reducing complexity and therefore making it easier to use. If that's the case, then just add it as an option to turn on or off. Thanks.

StarRatingFan wrote:

If Apple is reading this please put star ratings back. If Apple isn't reading this, well, we tried to help - enjoy spiralling into oblivion.

No, Apple is not reading here for suggestions. However, they provide a really great way for you to let them know what you think, what you'd like to see changed and what you don't like:

http://www.apple.com/feedback

86kiloherz wrote:

So, for Apple disciple's sake, please bring those beloved features back. Many people would be so grateful!!

Apple is not reading here. Use the feedback link:

http://www.apple.com/feedback

And Apple is a for-profit company, not a religion.

Glad it is in there (again) - not sure why they turned it off by default; one would think looking at a person's library and seeing they USED the ratings, then the app would turn it on. Maybe the iOS upgrade process isn't capable of making such setting changes (though it should be).

I use the ratings extensively - 3,4,5 stars for songs I like (pop/mellow, rock, hard/metal/favorites), then 2 stars means theres a glitch (CD rip issue) where I need to re-rip the CD track, and 1 means no way, remove it from the library next time I'm sitting at iTunes on the PC.

I only recently updated my iOS devices. I like to hold off as long as I can to avoid BS like this. I also have been rating music on the same basis as you for years and am extremely frustrated that we can no longer on our devices. Why can't Apple just leave well enough alone. Seems like each release they take a step back. Remember they did away with "find duplicates" a few years ago. We also now have to stare at this huge waste of space on desktop/ITunes - like a big banner. I just don't get these techies. They should try to think like users/consumers.

Remember who is in charge now... Prior Compaq and IBM... Apple is being morphed into these ideologies because that's all he knows.

Simple, functional, logical, has no value any more, like it used to. The things we've hated about the PC/Microsoft world that we smiled about when we bought an Apple are slowly being integrated into Apple systems..

I'd still like to know when Move & Scale will work again on iOS devices.... like it did in iOS 6 and prior. The motto seems to be... "see how much we can break".

Read through the whole discussion and then upgrade your device. This is back in the latest iOS, you just have to turn it on in Settings first and then you can rate your music again.

As for Find Duplicates, I can still do that in the desktop iTunes. I can't recall if they removed it and put it back or just moved it to a different location (in the current iTunes, you go to File->Library->Show Duplicate Items. But maybe I'm missing the point you were referring to.

This is no different than when Apple removed the ability to browse images in finder with the arrow keys. Who does that? Who decides that it's not important to be able to move through images with navigation keys?

I honestly feel like these issues begin as oversights and then become "decisions" when the backlash begins (job security for the engineer that dropped the ball)...

This wouldn't surprise me. I'm sure many of us can relate to jobs in which the "heroes" of certain crisis are the ones who either created the issue or should have known better and avoided it in the first place. But they get the glory for cleaning up after the fallout. Sometimes I wonder if it's deliberate.

That is an interesting insight, enyamed. Mistakes which turn into policy to cover their tails and not admit the mistake. In other situations like the Move & Scale issue, there was an App, which was immediately released. We could speculate all day about why Apple breaks a feature and then allows Apps which fix it, instead of fixing it themselves. Wouldn't you want to fix a mistake rather than have a bunch of Apps in the store which give you "work around fixes".

Why was the Keep in Dock selection changed to an additional drop down menu. Simple is being removed and extra steps and complication is being added. One of the most unpleasant things historically about using a PC computer is the hundreds of settings. The OS isn't that bad yet but the iOS is more options than features.

Apple needs to take the feedback suggestions more seriously and fix all these issues... both the broken items and the frustrating items. The company has simply gotten too big and lower management has become ineffective in catching errors and wrong moves before release.

Nope, your special or something. I've read that all over the place "just go to settings and turn it on...." For common folk, there is no option for turning it on..... Anyway, no. No love here. Why remove star rating in the first place (even if there was an option, why????)? Kind of a lame move. New gen programmers think they are making it awesome. Never heard "if it ain't broke don't fix it".... BTW iTunes on the desktop is STILL broken!! Really 10yrs later and it can't handle large DBs? BOoooo Apple!!

My friend is on 10.2.1 as well and his screenshot looks exactly like yours. I did some digging and apparently this is an uncommon issue, but it is happening to others. I found this one page with a potential workaround, so try this to see if it will enable the Star Ratings for you:

Get Show Star Ratings Option

If you do not have a song that already has a star rating, you will not see the ‘Show Star Ratings’ switch. Here lies the problem. When iOS 10 was released, the Music app seems to have removed the ratings data completely. When you synced your phone via iTunes, the ratings were purged from it as well.

To fix the problem, you must add a star rating to a song in iTunes on your desktop. Select any song from your library in iTunes on your computer. Right-click it and select ‘Get Info’ from the context menu. This will open the window you see below. Rate the song, and then connect your iPhone to your PC or Mac. Allow it sync and create a back up.

Now on your iPhone, go to Settings>Music and the Show Star Ratings switch will now be visible. Turn it On, and you can rate songs from the Music app.

If that doesn't work, here is another option as a workaround to enable it (scroll down to the section called Plumbing the Mystery):

https://www.macobserver.com/tips/quick-tip/users-dont-star-ratings-ios-10-2-here s-workaround/

Hopefully one of these options work for you!

fewpix wrote:

To fix the problem, you must add a star rating to a song in iTunes on your desktop.

You don't have to go to iTunes on your computer to add a star rating. You can, in fact, do it from the phone. You need to use Siri. While the song is playing, invoke Siri and say something like "Rate this song 4 stars". I don't know that it will trigger the return of the switch as updating to iOS 10 didn't remove my star ratings and I have the switch. However, as it should take all of two minutes to try, it's worth the experiment.

Best of luck.

Shhaaaaaaazam! The trick with Seri worked and added star rating option under settings for music (FYI to others use the exact phrase suggested "rate this song _ stars" to rate the song). Thank you sir, Appreciate the assistance with that!!