Hacker News Reader

Comment by pfarnsworth | Hacker News Reader

I want Apple Music to just play my fucking music. When I'm driving in my car, trying to manipulate the buttons, etc, is almost impossible and in a rage I turn it off. There is so much fucking swiping and hitting small buttons it's tremendously frustrating.

I usually listen to music in my car, as opposed to in the office, so I want big buttons and easy navigation. Does no one have an app that is designed specifically for car use?

View on HN

So true.

It's so painful to scrub the music playback since they make the controls so small and annoying.

I love old iPods with buttons since I don't have to look at the damn thing to change the song.

Now I hate that everything is a soulless touch screen that makes everything take so long.

Also, iTunes is so bloated. Wish Apple just had a stand alone music player that only has a single responsibility: play the damn music!!

As far as recommendation have you tried MacPaw's Listen app?

It tries to be what I recommended in terms of UX. The only caveat is that sometimes it occasionally crashes, but by and large, it works. However, I don't know if it can connect to Apple Music's streaming service. It works for music copied over to your iPhone / iPod.

https://macpaw.com/listen

I just wish I didn't to use a 3rd party app for something so basic, which Apple at one point had perfected, and then just muddied up over time.

Why they made the scrubber the size of a pinpoint is beyond me. Good thing I can see the artwork though, which I don't care about AT ALL because I'm LISTENING TO MUSIC

When I'm driving my car I try to use Siri to play certain artists, but even that experience is awful.

I'll say to shuffle some music from a band containing "Theory" in its name. Siri gets everything right except replaces "Theory" with "Siri" and then starts playing something completely different!

Shouldn't Siri + Apple Music look at my own library first to find close matches to a spoken query before going off and playing something I've never listened to before that isn't even in the genres I listen to most?

It's pretty horrific UX, to me at least.

I think of all the software I use, CarPlay + Apple Music + Siri has the highest "scream factor" (i.e. causing me to scream out loud with frustration.)

I switched to Cesium after experiencing Music randomly enabling repeat or shuffle with no intuitive way to disable. Turns out you need to swipe up "from the bottom" where "bottom" is somewhere 1/3 of the way up to see those options.

And please AUTO PLAY the last thing I was listening to when the phone connects to bluetooth or at least when the app opens.

If I'm listening to a radio station when I shut off my bluetooth device I want it to start playing again as soon as I connect to that device again (or open the app via a voice command).

I don't want to touch my phone and I don't have any car specific hardware.

Conversely, I've found Apple Music really wants to autoplay in my car, even though I haven't launched the app in years--only Spotify--and I have to stop it and sometimes relaunch Spotify to get back on track.

No joke, Apple Music also insists on playing me a mix of Tegan and Sara, Eminem, Nine Inch Nails, Tori Amos, and the comedy of David Cross, and nothing else.

Not only does it autoplay, it will partially download songs from many years ago on the first connect, so your car gets stuck repeating the same 20 seconds of that one song you liked a decade ago. It's infuriating.

Holy hell I thought I was the only person experiencing this. The song it's stuck on is the most obnoxious song ever too.

I have Adult Education by Hall and Oates. It's just terrible.

That's interesting. My BRZ has a terrible audio system, but the one thing it does really well is get music to auto-play.

Say I start my car and open the BT connection. My iPhone auto-plays music from Apple Music. Then I switch to AM radio, the iPhone pauses. Then I switch back to Bluetooth, and my iPhone starts playing again from where it paused.

Apple Music definitely has problems, but I haven't had this one myself.

I suspect Apple would like you to be using CarPlay rather than using an interface specifically not meant to be used while driving.

That's a great idea. However, CarPlay is only available if you have a late-model car, or if you replace your car stereo with a new one. Neither of these is cheap options, and replacing the car stereo may not even be possible if your car is too old to host one of these new units with the huge screen.

Further, having an interface that is problematic for driving is not problematic ONLY for driving. I use music services while exercising, either outside or on an indoor machine. I'm bouncing around, I don't want to stop, and it's hard to hit these tiny little UI elements while I'm moving. The UI for listening to music while exercising (or driving) is actually far inferior for most touch screens when compared to an old iPod with click wheel or even an old Sony Walkman cassette player.

Add in the fact that CarPlay on my late model car is incredibly glitchy. The situation is so bad that I wonder if I would be better off putting music on USB flash drives and plugging those into my car.

This stuff could definitely use some work, I agree. One tip I thought I'd share: the Music app has a widget that you can access on the lock screen which lets you play the most recent albums (or playlists, presumably, though I don't use them) with one tap. I find it quite handy.

The CarPlay interface for Apple Music is awful as well.

Well, I drive a 2007 Scion and Apple should have considered that a lot of people drive similar cars. Until then I'm happy to pay Spotify.

A CarPlay-ready Pioneer AVIC fits just fine in our '05 xB.

I can't afford nor do I want to really deal with the hassle of having Best Buy or whomever install a new head unit. The car comes with an Aux cable, which I've used reliably for like 5 years now with any phone I or my wife have ever had. I like it that way. The point I am trying to get at here is that I feel like Apple doesn't even remotely care about most use cases in UX anymore.

I often revert to pandora for this reason when driving... the BT integration allows me to go to the next song, whatever it is, and usually don't have to skip too many an hour.. while being able to thumbsdown something easier would be nice... a driving ui, where thumbs-down and next are easier would be nice.

I'm confused, the buttons in Apple Music are actually pretty big. Why are you having trouble hitting them?

Alternatively, have you tried using the Now Playing interface (part of Control Center) to play/pause/scrub/skip?

The control center is a whole mess too. Ever since they added the second screen/page to it, I never know what is gonna pop up when I swipe up from the bottom of the screen, since it just goes by last-accessed.

Even though it only takes a moment for my brain to register that it's the wrong screen, it still flusters me and isn't something I want to deal with when driving.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com