So Apple Music knows all kinds of data about my listening habits. So like I genuinely don’t understand why when I opened the app this morning it wasn’t like hit ok to stream the new Taylor Swift album. I had to like click around for a second. No big deal In the grand scheme of it.
Like I feel like I have pretty predictable tastes I listen to mostly albums by a small number of song writers in a few styles but for some reason it’s very hit and miss and single driven even if that’s not a match for the way I listen to music. IT’s algorithmic radio isn’t bad but for having 20 years of data it seems pretty mediocre.
I used to have the same issue, and still do to a certain degree. But after listening to the auto play for a while now and loving or disliking songs, the auto play has seemed to have gotten better. From what I read Apple’s algorithm is just super slow to learn you.
I gave up on Apple Music after 3 years and moved back to Spotify a month ago.
Apple Music pros:
- really good UI (including light/dark mode)
- spatial & lossless audio
- included in Apple One subscription
Apple Music cons:
- no crossfade (still! In 2023!) - useless for parties
- thinks I want to listen to my Christmas playlist in June
- generally terrible music suggestion compared to Spotify
- no ‘playlist radio’ (again, compared to Spotify)
- music discovery massively sub-par compared to Spotify
no crossfade
It’s really dumb that it took them this long, especially since it’s been on the Android and macOS versions for SO long, but Apple actually has added crossfade to Apple Music in iOS 17 (which is in beta).
no ‘playlist radio’
I’m not 100% sure what you’re referring to but Apple Music definitely has a variety of radios you can access. If you Haptic Touch on a song you can tap the “create station” button and get similar songs to it. There’s also a personal station which plays music it thinks you would like in a mix of music you listen to. In addition to this, there’s an autoplay button which will play similar music to whatever you’re listening to (in the queue), such as music from a playlist. If you’re referring to a create station button on playlists, that would be nice for sure. I guess the only work around for that would be playing a playlist, turning on autoplay, and skipping the playlist which isn’t exactly a graceful solution.
But each to their own! Spotify has its perks
They actually introduced Crossfade in IOS 17, still amazed it took this long and the feature already being available on android. I’ve learned that I really have to train the algorithm by using the love and suggest less buttons. Apple knows how to build a good product but struggles to keep up.
Sponsor paid songs?
I just wish there was a way to reset all play history and recommendations. Keep the likes and playlists but clear everything else. No option for that as far as I can tell.
this. jesus, I can’t count how many times I have to dislike a song and hit a skip button, because Apple decided that I might like it. Like how the heck I may like some rap songs when my taste is around Electronic music.
It’s really hard to find some new songs and artists this way. I’m looking for new songs more often on Youtube mixes than in Apple Music suggestions.
The funny thing is I’ve kind of gone full circle and I’m back to reading more pop criticism. And I kind of suspect if I just said fuck it and bought CDs and ripped them myself Amazon would do better than any of these streaming services. I get pretty okay book recs from them.
Don’t forget your local library has CDs you can rip! I have just recently been rebuilding my itunes library with CDs.
My biggest gripe is that no matter how many times I tell Siri that I hate country music (and I hate it with a passion that burns hotter than the sun) she never learns. Every time I open the app there’s a suggestion for country top hits or whatever. I’ll listen to just about anything else but I HATE HATE HATE country music.
I just want the browse tab to at the very least understand the genres I like. Or even my age demographic.
Browse is completely programmed by Apple’s editorial team, there’s no awareness at all of who is looking at it. I just pretend it doesn’t exist because I am in no way interested in anything that is ever featured there.
Listen Now is where stuff that should appeal to you, personally, appears.
My “personal radio” on apple music is absolute garbage
One of those YMMV things, I think. My radio station is usually great.
Worth spending the time to try to train it. Mine is amazing.
