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Comment by ProfessorLayton | Hacker News Reader

This is sorely needed. Every iOS update has introduced bugs and UX gremlins that have been dragging Apple's software quality through the mud.

Chief among them is Apple Music, since it is a huge part of Apple's service initiative.

- Their latest update now wastes space to tell me it isn't playing anything!

- Often times just refuses to work. No error, no graceful recover. Just silence. https://imgur.com/a/VrO1Y

- Airdrop seems to only work if I have a cable near me. When I really need it, it fails miserably and I end up using dropbox or even emailing things to myself.

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I don't encounter many bugs, but I'm considering getting android because Apple's feature/UX choices are beyond insane today. There are two features they're missing, that I feel should have been one of the first few added.

1. You can't view a list of chapters in iTunes, like in Audiobooks from say, Audible. Awful. I mean, I hate to be unkind, but are they seriously this inept to not include a chapter list that you can view and jump to? 2. You can't keep the screen on while on a call, like say a conference call, where you might want to remain muted until you want to speak. Awful x100,000,000.

My next phone I'll take a long look at Android.

The problem here is that the “top 2 features that should have been in place from day 1 and represent an insane usability gap” are different for every user. So if they try and add all the weird corner case niche features, it’ll be the standard unopinionated bloatware that most software is.

FWIW, I’ve never played an audiobook in iTunes (Audible), and I hadn’t ever noticed the screen locking during calls thing. TouchID is so fast that it never bothers me, I guess.

>So if they try and add all the weird corner case niche features, it’ll be the standard unopinionated bloatware that most software is.

While I agree with the sentiment behind the argument, these days the pendulum is swinging far too much in the other direction.

Sure, this choice is always a tradeoff.

But today, so many applications and websites are being optimized for the one single most important use case at total expense for everything else. Making the software a true lowest common denominator, but seriously reducing actual usefulness.

Just look at the example: I don't have hard numbers, but I'd wager that "Show table of contents for an audiobook" is only a "weird corner case niche feature" for a very wide definition of the phrase (i.e. "everything below my main feature").

Android does the same thing regarding screen on during calls.

I do believe Windows Phone does that perfectly, if it's any help...

Are you sure you got the last update? Because Apple music has been a PITA for me too (especially that I use it with my car bluetooth) and I had the same issues you mentioned here.

However, all the issues were fixed in the last update and so far it is pretty solid. No complaints. (iOS v11.2.5)

It still mostly doesn't show lyrics any more for songs that definitely have lyrics attached that were visible in previous versions.

> all the issues were fixed in the last update

Eh, no. I have playlists I made years ago. I click on them, crash. Probably some of the items are not available in Music, as they were from my personal iTunes library, but do I care? Nope. It just ensures I will never pay for this sub-standard service.

To be honest, I'm not sure why you think your experience is the truth out there. I have found that when it comes to Apple hardware/software, the experience can differ greatly from a person to another by cheer luck.

For example, I had no wifi issues with my MBP Late 2014. However, I remember lots of people raged about my particular edition's Wifi. It just happened that my particular laptop was fine while a significant batch was affected.

I had a horrible iPhone experience before the last update. The crashes were daily, the bluetooth dropped a lot, car integration was working 1/3 of the time and the interface was sluggish.

As of the last update, many (maybe most) of the issues were fixed. There is still a bit of sluggishness of Chrome and the very occasional crashes. But nothing for me to rage about.

Are you calling me a lier? That’s not very nice of you.

I have two different iPhones (6s and 7) and an iPad Pro, all of them behaving in the same identical way with respect to these playlists, which used to be fine in pre-Music iTunes. I don’t care if I’m the only person in the world experiencing this bug, but I can assure you that I do see it consistently. Being an extremely light user of the app, I expect there will be lots and lots of heavier users out there with much worse tales to tell.

I have found that when it comes to Apple hardware/software, the experience can differ greatly from a person to another by cheer luck.

Isn’t this the crux of the issue? You spend big money on an iPhone/Mac and you’re left crossing your fingers as to whether it will work.

My I-devices have worked flawlessly to date, but I understand the frustration.

ITunes on windows has just become unusable to me. Right now when I open it it gets caught in an inifinite loop of login prompts, even if the credentials are correct. It has never been good but right now it is just utterly broken. And every new update brings new catastrophes to the point that I delay them as much as I can.

iTunes on windows and Apple music on Android made me cancel my subscription and switch to google play music. I was amused that Apple software was so bad across two different systems.

I open iTunes like maybe twice a year. Last night I opened it and only logged in once.

I plugged in an old iPad 3 the hadn’t charged in 9 months or so and I discovered one thing. The password it was asking for to access the iPad wasn’t my current iCloud password. It was the iCloud password I used to setup the iPad. A little frustrating when I didn’t remember it but once I removed the device from find my iPhone everything worked.

Yea, I hear you. For me, Apple Music randomly pauses my music when it is on bluetooth or ipod dock every 60-90s. Googling it revealed that I am not alone and this issue has been going on since the introduction of Apple Music app. Every release I try again, but no fix so far.

Speculating here, but I suspect that it's an app in the "background" that is causing the issue.

As much as I like Sonos, it exhibits bad behavior with its background task that requests priority audio. If I have the app even running (even in the background, but haven't force quit it), it will interrupt the stereo in my car if I'm trying to listen to terrestrial radio and keep forcing CarPlay to open until I force quit the app.

That could be, but no other music app (Spotify, TuneIn, Tidal or Flacbox) have this issue for me.

I have this problem on mbp + airpods, beyond frustrating.

When Android was rolling out feature X it seemed Apple had to rev in order to also have feature X.

Maybe things have calmed down now that both platforms have X, Y, and Z.

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