Over the last two decade , technology has reinvent much of what we do in our everyday lives , but the first major Fats Domino to fall was in all likelihood the Second Advent of digital medicine . Next month will tick off twenty years since thelaunch of Apple ’s iTunes Store(fun fact : a natal day share with yours truly ) , which , though not the first way to obtain digital music online , was certainly the most far - reaching .
The digital euphony experience has certainly changed in the intervening year , particularly with the rise of cyclosis over the past decade , but when it comes to Apple ’s take on the act of listening to music , well , there are some things that frankly have n’t changedenough . It sometimes feels like Apple believes that digital euphony is a lick job , with the company sit down back and dust off its helping hand , but there are definitely places where the music hearing experience could be improved .
Not so gently down the stream
In 2019 , Apple split off its venerable iTunes app on the Mac into three disjoined apps : Music , boob tube , and Podcasts . While some look back at the iTunes era with nostalgia , I ’m not go to candy it : iTunes had become a hot plenty . In hypothesis , splitting these off into disparate apps related to specific types of sensitive was a good approximation : people do n’t want to watch TV shows or listen to podcasts in the same fashion that they listen to music .
In the implementation , however , the macOS Music app is basically the former iTunes app with Apple Music ’s streaming functionality bolted on . While being able to include both tracks from your personal library and Apple Music in one merged port has its benefits , especially when it comes to ease of use , it can sometimes feel like Apple ’s performing some clever conjuring trick . For example , one of my big frustrations is discovering that a specific track from an record album that I ’ve added to my library is unavailable because of cyclosis rights . Why just a specific course ? It ’s almost always unreadable – but it does put bear to the idea that euphony in your library is actuallyinyour library .
Foundry
That ’s just one model of where this melding does n’t always work ; there are plenty of others , including correspond an explicit version of a Song dynasty to a sporting version ( or frailty versa ) , ending up with split albums because of metadata problem , and just evidently getting the faulty interlingual rendition of a song ( hold up instead of studio , for lesson ) . Critics of the Music app will no doubt have many other points to tote up on here , and this could easy pass into a slice entirely on its defect , but let ’s tattle about a couple of other gross issues .
Look ma, no handoff!
I ’m going to shamelessly crib this one from my friend and workfellow Joe Rosensteel , who recentlypenned an splendid clause on the many job with the Music app : why has n’t Apple implemented Handoff for music ?
If you ’ve bury what Handoff is , it ’s one of Apple ’s Continuity features ( a haul - all name for an more and more expansive rooms of functionality ) , which are hypothecate to make it easy to move a task between your Apple machine . If you ’ve ever started writing an email on your iPad and then turned to your Mac and seen a second Mail icon in the Dock , that ’s Handoff . ( Frankly , sometimes I ca n’t get it to go away , especially with apps from my Apple Watch . )
But there subsist no similar functionality for medicine . If I hesitate a birdsong I ’m playing on my Mac and want to peck it up on my iPhone – an parallel of which was perform inthe very first ad for the iPod in 2001 , I have to found the Music app on my phone , rule the track , and skip ahead to where it was on the Mac . Apple ’s Podcasts app has this rightfulness – sync the playhead position across gadget , or at least get user opt into that syncing . The closest Apple has gotten is letting you transfer music from a telephone to a HomePod by contribute them closely together .
This leads us to another swelled issue .
The AirPlay’s not the thing
AirPlay is a messiness . It ’s not even a red-hot mass ; it ’s just a mess . A few eld ago , around the time that Apple launched the first HomePod , the troupe changed the way AirPlay bring – sort of . Formerly , all AirPlay speakers were care for in much the same agency : as basically an outside speaker for music playing from your twist , whether it was a Mac , iPhone , iPad , etc . It behaved more or less as though you switched from listen on headphones to listening on a build up - in speaker .
However , when the HomePods launch , with their ability to play euphony themselves without another gadget , Apple decided to treat them differently in AirPlay . or else , when you commence represent medicine on your gimmick and then AirPlay it to a HomePod , itshiftsthe currently playing track to the HomePod ’s own internal playlist , as though you ’ve used Siri to say the speaker to act as a call .
IDG
This has caused me no death of thwarting , especially when I start listen to an record album on my phone , AirPlay it to my HomePod mini , and then go back to my phone only to get word that it ’s still on the same rail it was when I first AirPlayed it .
Now , or else of AirPlaying , youcancontrol playback directly on a HomePod by using the AirPlay menu on an iOS machine and scroll all the way down to Control Other Speakers & TVs … but then you ’re basically kicked into a version of the Music app thatlooks incisively the sameas the Music app , but does n’t permit you do all the same thing . ( I , for example , can never start wager a different call on the HomePod using this port . )
Meanwhile , all non - HomePod smart loudspeaker system still maintain the old method of being deal as external speakers . The room this work is , of row , complicated , but whatever the response is , it is n’t this . Here ’s hoping iOS 17 play some much - ask revision to the manner AirPlay plant — or , more accurately , does n’t .
