Apple Music: I don't want you on my iPhone.

[Eug]

I just wish I could eliminate Apple Music from my phone completely. I just want a damn music player that plays what I have on the phone, and doesn't show me anything else unless I ask for it. I don't want to see my purchases listed if I haven't sync'd them to the phone, and I sure as hell don't want some random recommendations. Stop it already Apple, and give us our sleek and simple and intuitive Music interface that we had in iOS 7, which you have so cruelly taken from us.

Beats I hate you. Apple Music subscriptions I hate you. Please GTFO.

Right now I have turned off Apple Music in Music (how's that for confusing naming?) and deleted the songs list and turned off my Apple ID in Music, yet Music still has this stupid Connect feature and lists cloud purchases I don't want to see, including songs I bought for my wife's cousin's kid when she was 11 years-old.

What a fsckin' waste of valuable screen space.

The sad part is Music in iOS 10 is actually better than it was iOS 9. In iOS 9 it was a total abomination. In iOS 10 it's just bad.

Now to get something close to what I want I have to go to a submenu to select what I only have on the phone, and have a ugly grey bar across the screen saying "Showing only music on this iPhone" all the time.

I get it. Jimmy Iovine is a big wig in the music industry. But quite frankly I don't think he should be anywhere near Music (the app). Is he responsible for the interface? Because IMO it's just a big fail, and whomever is managing this and signing off on this really should be demoted. I just don't understand how something that was slowly maturing nicely in iOS has gone so fsckin' downhill in such a short period of time. Oh wait, I can. It all came with Apple Music's forced integration. And I'm not saying integrating Apple Music is a bad thing. Far from it. But forcing it in and then degrading the rest of the Music app for no apparent reason makes no sense at all.

BTW, I don't mind too much having the headphone jack removed, but having Music degenerate into a big pile of poo is heartbreaking.

 

[IronWing]

How is Apple supposed to sell you music again and again if you already own it?

 

[Eug]

Anyone know of any apps that replicate the iOS 7 Music app experience, and are compatible with both AAC and MP3, and can access the music libraries that Music uses?

Or do all the third party music player apps for iOS require separate music storage?

 

[Crono]

This is why I'm not an iPhone user and never have been (though I've had an iPod Touch and a few iPads as secondary devices). Too many irritations that are hard for the end user to change or fix.

I just got my first Samsung device (7" Galaxy Tab A tablet, white, $119 at Best Buy when I bought it on Friday) and at least with it I could flash a ROM with root and remove all the Samsung (and some Google) apps, pop in a microSD card, and heavily customize everything with a launcher, Xposed mods, change system font, etc. Decent device now, even with low specs.

Though I just noticed guest account is on by default and don't see an obvious way to disable it...

 

[Eug]

Every internet opinion deserves a bad car analogy.

I'll say that the Music app with Apple Music integration is essentially this:

 

[Red Storm]

I just use Google Play Music. Not ideal, but better than Apple's offerings IMHO.

 

[ControlD]

I just use Google Play Music. Not ideal, but better than Apple's offerings IMHO.

That's what I use as well, but if Eug has complaints about Apple Music's interface I can't believe Play Music will be acceptable. I love the service, but the interface is terrible. And in typical Google fashion it gets worse with every update.

 

[Eug]

BTW, one of those albums that I can't get rid of is that free U2 album that Apple forced on us years ago. Other ones that show up are the free songs I downloaded when they were free iTunes promotions. None of these are actually on my phone or in my playlists but nonetheless they dominate the home screen of Music, as "Recently Added" music. I can't for the life of me figure out how to turn this off.

It's also too bad I can no longer see a collage of the covers of the albums I've got on my phone by turning to landscape mode. Now I just get a sideways app.

And WTF is with the new ginormous fonts? I appreciate large fonts and actually bought my 7 Plus for the larger screen but the font size in iOS Music is ridiculous for its purpose. It also looks totally out of place vs. the rest of the GUI.

It's like their design team lead doesn't actually use this app. I'm no designer, but I am commenting as an actual user, and these just seem to me like rookie mistakes in a 2nd rate 3rd party App Store app.

 

[nerp]

I just don't listen to music on my phone. I work from home, don't commute and my car has an SD card slot I have 64GB of music on and I can swap SD cards. I don't jog or anything. I listen to podcasts on my iPhone and that's it. I agree that the music app is atrocious and Apple has made it impossible to manage your own music. I think the industry is apparently on a mission to eliminate music as files people hold and instead make everyone rely on subscription services.

The sad thing is all the recommended music they throw at me is horrible music I'd never buy.

 

[Commodus]

I do think that Apple is still overbearing in its bid to make you subscribe to Apple Music, but as a subscriber I think iOS 10 made it better... it's more straightforward, inconsistent style notwithstanding.

As for music recommendations? At least as a sub, they're getting much better. Apple finally has algorithmic playlists (new music for you, plus favorites) that are updated every week à la Spotify, and are generally on the mark. And the generic "because you listened to" advice is both more accurate and more extensive (and it's no mean feat when you usually steer clear of the top 40). Apple is definitely playing catch-up, but it's doing so in mostly the right ways.

I just wish it could find a way to accommodate the "local music only" and Apple Music fans equally.

 

[Eug]

And in case anyone is wondering: Yes I pay for my music. However, I prefer buying CDs and then ripping the discs myself.

So out of the many, many thousands of tracks I have, only a small handful have been purchased from iTunes. Therein lies the "problem", but this was never a problem a few years ago.

Anyways, at this point I just wish I could turn off the Recently Added section, reduce the font size, and turn off Connect.

 

[TheStu]

So you've definitely gone into Settings > Music and flipped the following toggles?

Show Apple Music > Off
iCloud Music Library > Off

There used to be a way to edit what what done in that bottom section, (so as to remove Connect), but they have reshuffled the layout a lot.

 

[Eug]

So you've definitely gone into Settings > Music and flipped the following toggles?

Show Apple Music > Off
iCloud Music Library > Off

There used to be a way to edit what what done in that bottom section, (so as to remove Connect), but they have reshuffled the layout a lot.

Apple Music is off but there is no iCloud Music setting.

iOS 10.1 beta

 

[Kazukian]

Apple Music is off but there is no iCloud Music setting.

iOS 10.1 beta

Settings
Music
ICloud music library (toggle off)

 

[Eug]

 

[Kazukian]

I'm on the 10.1 public beta too... I think.

 

[Aikouka]

I'm a bit perplexed as to your issue. I never enabled Music Match, and therefore, it never shows up in Music. When I open the app, it goes straight to Library, where I can choose from Playlists, Artists, Albums, Songs, or Downloaded Music. After I use it, it starts up on whatever screen I left it on. I use a mix of MP3s and AAC music. Literally, it sounds like what I have is exactly what you want ?

 

[stayawayfromthey]

There's a fair number of apps like Ecoute that access the iTunes Music Library on your iPhone and have them set so that they only show local music. They may cost money (I'm pretty sure Ecoute does but I got it years ago) though. Nothing that really exactly replicates the pre-Apple Music Music app experience though.

 

[Eug]

I'm on the 10.1 public beta too... I think.

Interesting that you have that option and I don't, but even with that setting off, don't you still see your purchases on your phone?

 

[Aikouka]

Interesting that I don't have that option and I don't, but even with that setting off, don't you still see your purchases on your phone?

I don't have that option either. However, if you just select "Downloaded Music" in the top menu, it will only show you music that is on your phone. It even puts a banner at the top saying "Showing only music on this iPhone."

 

[Eug]

I don't know if iTunes doesn't like iOS 10.1 beta or what, but music syncing to my iPhone was all fscked up. I got multiple copies of the same playlist on the phone (with the playlist copies just having sequential numbers after the original name) and iTunes created the same playlist several times in its playlist list too. However, I could not play any of my purchased songs on the iPhone. Music would just skip over them. However, they were actually on the phone. When I tried to resync them to the phone it wouldn't work. When I tried to read the iPhone's playlist on the computer, any of the purchased songs had a grey circle made of dots around them.

Finally, I just unsync'd all my music off the phone, which erased all the songs off the phone... except it didn't. The purchased songs were still on the phone, and were not deleted by this process. So I had to delete them manually. And then I resync'd everything to the phone and now they work.

BTW, this seems like a pretty good reason not to buy from iTunes. Just buy the CDs and rip yourself you don't have to deal with all this crap. Unfortunately, several of the songs were simply unavailable locally on CD.

 

[Eug]

And why the hell did they hide that shuffle button? That's gotta be the stupidest placement of a shuffle button in iOS history. It makes perfect sense in iOS 4. In iOS 10, it makes absolutely no sense at all, and there is no indication on how to get to it either. No grey chevron, for example.

This has got to be a future case study on how not to design a UI. It's completely brain dead.

I don't have that option either. However, if you just select "Downloaded Music" in the top menu, it will only show you music that is on your phone. It even puts a banner at the top saying "Showing only music on this iPhone."

That grey banner is really stupid, and ugly. It's like Apple is telling us that we are idiots for not wanting Apple Music in our collective faces.

 

[Kazukian]

I hid the icon, just use Spotify and Pandora, use it on my laptop when I need to do a restore on a phone.

 

[dainthomas]

Can iPeople really only use one music player? Seems like a huge pain.

Other than a few album art issues, I've had no problems with Google Music.

 

[Anubis]

Can iPeople really only use one music player? Seems like a huge pain.

Other than a few album art issues, I've had no problems with Google Music.

yea I use GM as well. no issues that matter, just the album art annoyance and some tagging things that can get wonky but can be worked around