Rant: I Loathe Apple Music

A Love Hate Relationship.

I've been ranting (read: annoying) friends about Apple Music for years and I think it's only right that my first rant is about this service. The things I love about it are, “I love it because Apple Music is the only service doing this.” But on the other hand, the things I hate about it make me want to punch a two-foot thick wall.

I might do a rant on Spotify, but I'm more unlikely to use them because they love to shove podcasts and now audiobooks down your throat and the company’s upcoming Hi-Fi service seems to be… never coming. If I get enough interest, I might tear Spotify, too.

Anyways, if you see this post that means that I was able to get my thoughts together in a cohesive manner. If not, then I definitely went rambling but oh well. (Fun fact: I re-wrote this article about half a dozen times and every time had a different result. This just happens to be the best one.)

What I Love

Let's start here. Apple Music actually has a lot to love, even for an audio enthusiast like myself. And, for the most part, the things I love about music are unique to Apple Music and aren’t (easily) replicable from other services.

Library Management

This comes with one big asterisk, and that's the new favorites feature that just came out with iOS 17.1 and the other equivalent updates.

One of the things I've learned to love from Spotify, Tidal, and Qobuz is that if you add a song to your library... that's just it. It adds the song. Apple Music before this update would not only add the song to your library but add an entry for that album and artist. Even if it's the only song you have from that artist. It still does this, but now has a top level filter for favorites. I can finally choose to only see my favorite albums and artists.

Combine that with the existence of an actual song library and I’m sold. Spotify requires you to add stuff to a "Favorite Songs" playlist (meaning you need to favorite a song if you want to add it to your library). And services such as Tidal have you heart the song, which feeds the algorithm. I like that you can independently add songs to your library and favorite them to feed the algorithm.

Catalog

If you've only ever used Apple Music or Spotify, this will sound really weird to you. But the unfortunate reality is that services such as YouTube Music, Tidal, Deezer, and Qobuz all have substantially smaller music libraries than Apple and Spotify. There is so much pain in listening to a song on YouTube and not being able to find it on Tidal or Qobuz.

For me, I think Apple Music has a better catalog than Spotify. And that’s mostly thanks to the iTunes Store and Apple’s dominance in that space early on. For the most part, anything that’s on the iTunes Store is available on Apple Music (movie and TV soundtracks withstanding).

I listen to a lot of cover bands and artists and those can be a bit tricky to find on Spotify and other services.

New Releases

The new release system on Spotify and Apple Music are rock solid. As a music lover, being able to play a new album or single as soon as it's available is very important to me.

Apple Music and Spotify get it right. If it's a midnight release, it's playable at 12:00:01. No hassle. I've been a Tidal user for a little while now, and new releases don't usually become available until 15-30 minutes later. Sometimes longer. Deezer and YouTube Music are the same way. Qobuz is about three hours behind, meaning new releases are available at midnight Pacific time. (I've reported this to their customer support team several times over the past several years and it's still not fixed.)

It got so bad that when a new album is released, I immediately hop on Apple Music to play the first few tracks, and then switch back to Tidal once it’s actually available.

It's Just A Music App

This one's a direct jab at Spotify, Amazon, and Deezer. I don't want podcasts or audiobooks in my music app. I wouldn't have such a visceral reaction to it if there were toggles to disable these sections in their respective apps or from search. I just want a damn music app.

But nope, they insist on shoving this content down your throat. I have separate apps for podcasts and audiobooks and don't want them in my music app. Apple Music understands this. They have separate podcast and audiobook apps (even though I don't use either). It’s really that easy.

Smart Album Layout

I like the fact that when you search for an album, it shows one listing (unless there's a deluxe) for Lossless, Hi-Res Lossless, and Spatial Audio/Dolby Atmos. This is a God send as a Tidal and former Qobuz user where there are separate listings for CD quality, Hi-Res, and Spatial Audio. It's absurd. One single listing is enough with an "Other Versions" section at the bottom like Apple Music is enough. Most people don't care.

Not only is it a single listing on Apple Music, but it’s a dynamic listing as well. If you have Atmos-enabled equipment, it’ll play that. If you don’t (or have Atmos turned off) it’ll play Hi-Res. So on and so forth, if you have Hi-Res turned off, it’ll play Lossless. And if you have everything turned off, it’ll play basic AAC.

Outside of the various labels, I also like that if you only have a few tracks on an album, there's a convenient "View Complete Album" button at the bottom to let you view the full album.

Lyrics, Animated Artwork, and Music Videos

These might sound insignificant to most people. But they make the experience that much better for me. These features absolutely set Apple Music apart from the rest.

Apple is thousands of miles ahead in the lyrics department. It's not even close. It's more than just time-synced lyrics. It's word-by-word, karaoke-style lyrics (on supported tracks, but it’s getting better every day). It's being able to decipher between the main and featured artists.

Tidal has long supported animated album covers, but it's nowhere near Apple's scale. I can count on one hand how many animated album covers I've seen on Tidal. That’s in stark contrast to Apple Music, where I’ve lost count of how many I’ve seen. The difference is staggering. Spotify has its canvas feature. But in my personal opinion, Apple's live album art is so much better. It stays faithful to the original artwork.

Music videos are pretty self-explanatory. Rather than having to go out to YouTube, you can have the music experience within the Apple Music experience.

Local Files Support

Apple Music is pretty much the only service that lets you merge what you have locally with the streaming catalog. With its Match service, it'll either try and match what you have with what Apple has, or upload it for you.

This makes it available on every device that supports Apple Music. It may be a niche feature, but local file support is the reason why I can only use Apple Music or Roon with either Tidal or Qobuz.

New Features and Third-Party Support

Since Apple controls both the software and hardware, Apple Music adopts new features as soon as they're available. It's nice being fully invested in the Apple ecosystem sometimes. Apple Music is available on every device I own.

There aren't many third-party apps available for devices such as the Apple Watch or Apple TV (or many available for other smartwatches and smart TVs), let alone good ones that more or less have full functionality. However, Apple Music’s first-party apps on Apple’s platforms are quite good and sometimes have exclusive features such as being able to search the entire Apple Music catalog on your Apple Watch. (Spotify and Tidal’s watch apps can’t do this.)

Likewise, Apple Music (& Spotify) get the most support from developers. Want to pre-save/add? Most artists only have buttons for Apple and Spotify. A silly little app that tells you that your music taste sucks? Apple or Spotify. Shazam? Yep. The list goes on. And on devices that don't support Apple Music natively? There's almost always AirPlay 2 support.

What I Hate

But not everything is rainbows and daisies. With every up, there’s gotta be a down. For every right, there’s a wrong. Okay, that’s enough banter. Everything I hate about Apple Music are things that unlock my inner rage. It makes me go, “Does anyone actually use the Apple Music app?”

Queue

What the actual hell? Why is Apple Music's queue system so bad and broken?

One thing I love about Roon is that you can go into an album, and tell it "play only this track" when nothing is playing. Sonos does this as well with its “Play Now” button. You also can't easily clear the queue. It requires setting up a shortcut on your iPhone or iPad. And even then, when you clear the queue, why doesn't it clear the currently playing song? With Apple Music, there's currently no way to completely reset your queue on iOS. The last playing song will always be there no matter what.

It's especially dumb since Apple Music on the Mac’s clear queue button clears everything. You click clear and it clears the currently playing song and anything that's coming up. Please for the love of everything good and well, let me clear the queue in the same way on iOS.

On a similar note, it's quite frustrating that on a Mac, Apple Music doesn't remember your queue position when you have to kill the app or restart your Mac. Do either and you're back at square 0. Apple Music on iOS remembers where you are whether you kill the app, restart your phone, or run a software update. That inconsistency is so infuriating. Either you remember it or you don’t.

In the year 2023, you'd expect something as basic as your play position to be remembered. The same goes for Apple TV and HomePod. Have to apply a software update or restart them? It won't remember what you were playing last. I’m not sure if this is the case on Android or Windows, but the inconsistency across Apple’s own platforms is frustrating.

Native Last.fm Support

The lack of Last.fm support is one of those things where I go, “Of course not, it’s Apple. What’d you expect?” Last.fm practically supports everything. Spotify, Tidal, Qobuz, Deezer, Roon. All of them. Some are better than others, but Last.fm practically supports everything. Except for Apple Music.

You can technically get Last.fm support with third-party apps. But that only goes so far. You can't get a third-party Apple Music app on the Apple Watch, Apple TV, HomePod, Android (although, you can get Last.fm going on Android), Google Home, or Amazon Alexa product.

And to take it a step further, devices such as the Apple Watch and Apple TV don't contribute to Apple's native play count. Even with "Use Listening History" enabled, it doesn't freaking work. Last.fm just works. Please, for the love of everything Apple, add native Last.fm support. I just want a central hub for all of my play counts.

Match Service

This is a great service and when it works, it's fantastic. But I hate that it's always on. Not every version Apple has is the "better" version. Sometimes I prefer a different mastering that Apple Music doesn’t have. Sorry, Apple won't let you do that. It's either Apple Music's version or you're stuck playing that song on your Mac.

There are also times when the matching service is flat out wrong. Say, I have an instrumental or live version of a song or album, Apple Music will sometimes replace that with the studio version.

Please, stop. This could all be solved by a simple "prefer local copy" button or something. Sure, make the current implementation the default. But give the user control over stuff that they personally own.

Poor Mac/Windows Experience

I don't understand how the desktop experience for Apple Music is so bad. Everything feels tacked on and not well taken care of.

In the song list view? This looks like the same iTunes layout from 20 years ago. If you accidentally highlight something, there's no way to unselect it. What's the point of highlighting a song anyway? Double clicking a track should just play it. What’s more infuriating is that the Apple Music experience within the app understands this. You click on a song and it highlights it. You click anywhere else? It unselects it.

Looking at an album? It looks clean, but the add a song/download button is hidden behind a hover state. There is absolutely no reason for this. Macs have screens that are at minimum, 11-inches and scales to as large as 32-inch monitors (and probably larger). You have the space. Show the the buttons.

Don’t get me started on lyrics and a proper full-window now playing screen. Tidal, Spotify, and every other third-party music service supports it on the Mac. The Apple Music iPad and Apple TV apps have fullscreen now playing views. I’d be more than happy if Apple Music copy and pastes that interface on the Mac.

Honestly, at this point, I'd be perfectly happy if Apple just let you use the Apple Music Mac app as a manager and the iPad's Apple Music app to do the rest. The interface is just so much better.

AirPlay 3/Apple Music Connect/Expanded API

From what I can gather, while Apple does give developers tools to create third-party applications, it's limited. For example, Apple Music won't let you actually play music. That's still controlled by the Apple Music app. So any third-party app will need the Apple Music app running in the background for it to play music. That means the queueing system is still controlled by Apple.

I'll say it. That's completely unreasonable. Even Spotify lets developers control the stream. That's why Spotify Connect is miles ahead of anything Apple has. There's a reason why Apple Music isn't on anything that isn't Sonos or Tesla. And even then, you can’t play Lossless streams through those systems. The API doesn’t support it.

We need AirPlay 3 or an Apple Music Connect-esk feature. Coming from the audiophile world, Apple Music is the only service not available on any network streamers. You have to rely on the lossy-AirPlay 2 protocol. Hell, I say Apple needs AirPlay 3 and Connect at the same time. Tidal Connect, Roon, and various network streamers can not only do Lossless streams but can play Lossless streams in a multi-room fashion. There’s no reason why Apple couldn’t do the same here.

Apple is in full control and dictates who has access. When in reality, they should have an expanded API that lets developers integrate Apple Music wherever they can.

Conclusion

I know this one's a bit long in length. Thank you for coming along for the ride. Apple Music has so much to love. It’s mostly a great service with a few cuts that cut deep for me.

Apple Music seems to be getting a lot of love and new features with the iOS 17 cycle. I can only hope that they can take that a step further and make it a better experience for both consumers and audiophiles/audio enthusiasts alike. I’m not even asking for them to start from the ground up. Far from it. Everything I’m asking for has been done before with other services, which means it’s technically possible. I’m just waiting for Apple to implement it.