Just look at this: https://www.apple.com/v/ios/ios-17/a/images/overview/music/p...
The only thing it has going for it is general ecosystem integration (and lossless), which still is the deciding factor for me unfortunately, despite the qualms above.
As you mentioned, it's full of bugs. Bugs happen, but they seem to have gotten out of control lately.
Top issues:
- 3/5 tabs use lazy load and anything less than great cellular/wifi means waiting to see anything.
- Speaking of cell/wifi, it really shows that this app was designed in a lab under perfect conditions. Music just... stops if the connection is weak when streaming. Was it another bug? My airpods? My car's bluetooth? Who knows, and who needs feedback anyway.
- Listen now tab can show a grand total of one (!!) full item before needing to scroll. On my phone with 1,483,776 pixels. It's also sorted in an arbitrary order that I cannot change.
- The Browse and Radio tabs are not at all personalized to me, so I don't have much to say about them and are mainly ignored.
- My library tab, my mainly used tab, is littered with album views of "Recently Added" in favor of adding a bunch of taps to things I actually want to listen to (Playlists> Playlist Name> Song/Play button) requires 3 taps.
- The album view in Recently Added makes no sense outside of downloading complete albums, which seems exceedingly rare. The music topping the charts is a bunch of singles and maybe EPs, not full albums. Even if one is not into pop music, adding music from a newly discovered artist, it's probably not a full album, rather a song or maybe a few tops. On top of this, it requires two taps or a long hold gesture to play it!
- Search is weirdly segmented for no reason, and is a step backwards from what Apple already solved with Spotlight. I always want results from my music first, and Apple Music second. A "no results" screen is useless for me, just show me Apple Music results, don't add yet another tap. Oh and search has Browse categories of course.
I could go on for a lot longer, but these issues grate me every day. Everything just requires too many taps or scrolling to get what I want.
All said, I’d say it’s a UX disaster.
Unfortunately, the poor design extends even to Apple TV. My favorite - the “Now Playing” screen doesn’t have a visible Play/Pause button. Seriously.
But I also bought the Marvis Pro iOS app. It’s like $10 or something. It’s fantastic and the developer is incredibly active/responsive online. Worth checking out if you’re unfamiliar
The reason to make it harder to navigate your own library is so you don't navigate your library at all and just put on a channel. Amazon did this also, to favor their subscriptions. It is now frustratingly difficult to play your music. Searches return results not in your library, even when you were searching... your library.
It's the same reason Google and Bing are so much worse than they once were. The apps aren't serving the users, they're serving the customers (shareholders and advertisers).
I am floored by just how untrue this statement is