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Comment by vlucas | Hacker News Reader

> First things first, why do I get a tab bar with 5 icons, and I only ever use 2 of them? I don’t care about “For You”, “Browse” and I certainly don’t give a rat’s ass about ”Radio”.

You lost me on the opening sentence. I didn't even bother to read the rest of the article. I was expecting this to be based some some valid objective reasons why the app sucks, not personal preferences.

I use Spotify, and have found the "Radio" feature really handy to find new music that is similar to music I already like - especially when creating a new radio station from a custom playlist I made or artist I like.

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Actually the radio is the biggest gripe I have with Spotify. They globally aggregate everything you've ever liked, so if you have tastes in multiple genres it's basically impossible to get your indie rock stations to stop playing EG trance or house music without also telling Spotify that no you actually don't like the dance music you also play sometimes.

The curated playlists are much better mainly because their radio algorithms are absolutely terrible.

How do you start the radio? If you start it from a song of the genre you want to listen to now, or a playlist containing mostly that genre, it won't mix in random stuff you've liked before. I get very nice mood/genre radios just by starting them from some song I liked currently.

Usually from a song or playlist, and no matter where I've started it it will start mixing stuff in that isn't remotely similar. Unless it's trance or house.

You expected a page entitled "iOS 13's Music App Sucks" to be objective, of all things?

Not completely objective, but to have at least well-reasoned arguments, yes.

A subsequent sentence mentioned no longer being able to customize the tab bar, which was his real complaint.

Except he can disable Apple Music in settings, eliminating the tabs he hates.

It would be prudent to not be judgemental off of one sentence, particularly because the author was discussing something else.

Apple music has a station (radio) feature, which you can start from a song or album. It functions similarly to spotify's radio feature and is not what the author was talking about.

Apple's "radio" tab, not feature, shows you an advertisement for Beats 1 taking up half of the screen, then "recently played" taking up 30% of the screen, then things like "upcoming shows" and "broadcast radio". After a lot of scrolling, there is an alphabetical list of genres. I find almost all of this fairly irrelevant (I already have a podcasts app, as does apple), and the one thing I would expect to see ("Recommended for you") is absent. Is it so hard to give me some recommended stations before all of that other stuff?

Compare this to spotify's homepage which shows me music categories I actually listen to, and six daily playlists made for me which all reference different categories I listen to and make playlists of.

Compare these screenshots of apple music's radio tab [0] and spotify's homepage [1]. Spotify at least attempts to show me relevant content, unlike apple. So in ~6 months of usage I haven't used either of those tabs.

The author also makes actual points in the next sentence and the rest of the article.

edit: apple music does have "For you" tab, I had a brainfart when writing this. I originally compared it to the middle tab, which is "Browse" I think? (둘러보기 in Korean).

[0]: https://i.imgur.com/Pa6PKdM.jpg

[1]: https://i.imgur.com/DRCSOw5.jpg

I'm looking at the radio tab in Apple Music right now, and it is not exactly what you're describing. The first row is shows from Beats 1, which might be what you mean, but the next row is "Recently Played" radio stations, which will include both stations you start from songs/albums (a la Spotify) as well as any of the dozens of Apple Music's genre-based radio stations: mine currently has "Chill" (ambient electronica, "Classical Holiday" (Christmas), "1990s Rock" (self-explanatory), and "The Rippingtons" (based on that jazz group). The next sections include other shows, broadcast radio like NPR and CBS News, snd radio by genre.

tl;dr: the Apple Music Radio tab is radio all the way down, either stations or shows. It's exactly what it says on the tin.

The For You tab, by contrast, seems to be very similar to the way you describe Spotify's home page, doesn't it? Mixes which are based on your preferences along with your recently played songs and albums.

The article's author doesn't want to ever use For You or Radio, evidently, which is fine, although I think it misses out on one of the primary reasons to use a streaming music service (discovery).

Ah I was on the wrong tab, not sure what the middle one is called in English. Not that it makes a huge difference, as the radio tab is also pretty useless. It does show recent stations that I listened to, but also a whole bunch of irrelevant stuff that, again, doesn't appear to take any of my preferences into account.

You have to scroll far down to get past random podcasts and artist shows, and the genres list is just an alphabetical list of genres... Is it so hard to show me stations that I might enjoy, at the top of the tab? I listen to classical, classic rock, prog rock, and jazz. I would expect to see a "You might enjoy" section with a) those music categories, or b) artists from those music categories ("Bill Evans Trio" radio, etc).

Compared to spotify, these two tabs are basically useless. I may as well search for a song/album and make my own stations, which I already do. At least when I pay for spotify I don't have random advertisements like beats1 taking up space before recommendations / what I actually would like to see.

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