Apple Music: My 2023 Wish List
Spotify was my default music app in 2022, but these five Apple Music tweaks would (maybe) even things up.
My music listening drifts a fair amount between Spotify and Apple Music, but my Spotify Wrapped and Apple Music Replay ’22 surprised me with just how little drifting I actually did this year.
I listened to Spotify four times more than I did Apple Music despite keeping both on the main screen of my iPhone and churning in and out of Spotify Premium multiple times during the year.
I see a handful of reasons Spotify got more of my attention:
Spotify’s playlists are just better, which I wrote about recently in I Can’t Quit Spotify, But It Needs a Redesign. I find more songs I like on Spotify, so I listen to Spotify more. Simple as that.
Having both music and podcasts on Spotify makes Spotify stickier for me than toggling back and forth between Apple Music and Apple Podcasts. (Audiobooks on Spotify could eventually take that a step further.)
Spotify has a bad user experience as far as navigation and selection goes, but Apple Music’s user experience is so much worse. All five of my Apple Music suggestions for 2023 are fairly minor usability tweaks that would make a major overall improvement.
1. Tell Me What’s New
One of the best features on Spotify is the little bell at the top of the main screen that takes you the “What’s New” screen. (“The latest releases from artists, podcasts, and shows you follow.”)
Apple Music’s “Listen Now” and “Browse” tabs kinda tell you what’s new, but Spotify’s little bell gives you a reverse-chronological feed of new albums and singles from the artists you follow.
I’d like to see Apple Music add row to the top of the “Listen Now” tab called “Brand New” that would show new albums and singles from artists I follow plus Apple Music playlists I follow that have recently updated.
2. Make the Shows in the ‘Radio’ Tab Play Like Podcasts
Apple Music’s “Radio” tab is a fantastic — and (for me) under-used — trove of music programming that falls into two main categories:
Stations. For listening to the streaming-audio equivalent of radio stations, Apple Music has its flagship Apple Music 1 station, dozens of ad-free, skippable-track genre stations, and livestreams of popular local stations.
Shows. The “Radio” tab has daily and weekly hosted shows like Elton John’s Rocket Hour (pop), The Matt Wilkinson Show (alternative), and Ebro Darden’s The Ebro Show (hip-hop).
The “Radio” tab is arranged in horizontal rows the same as the “Listen Now” and “Browse” tabs, and the rows — Recently Played, Global Shows, etc. — are easy enough to navigate and play.
What’s frustrating to the point of madness is that all of the stations and shows within the “Radio” tab are playable only as streams; you can’t save them, you can’t download them, you can’t transfer them to your Apple Watch, and you can’t even resume them if you leave the Apple Music app for very long.
I’d really, really like to see Apple make the shows in the “Radio” tab function more like podcasts — which is essentially what they are — so that I could follow particular shows, download episodes to my Apple Watch, pause an episode and pick it up again two days later, etc.
3. Make the Search Tab More Dynamic
The “Search” tab is the easiest way to get to genre pages like Hits, Country, DJ Mixes, and Music Videos. For the longest time, the page was completely static — no matter what genres you played the most, the genres stayed in the same order — but has started to float my most played genres to the top.
I’d love to see Apple Music continue to use my search and play data to make the “Search” tab even more useful — disappear the genres I don’t listen to at all, add tiles for the radio stations I frequently play, add tiles for the playlists I frequently play, etc.
4. Add a ‘Hide Song’ Option Like Spotify
The killer feature of Spotify — and by far the one I’d most like to see Apple Music steal — is “Hide Song.” On any track in Spotify, you can click on the dot-dot-dot next to the title, select “Hide Song,” and you will never, ever, ever hear that song again.
Dear Apple Music: This would get you 75% of the way to winning me back.
5. Tighten Up Transfers to Apple Watch
Apple Watch will only refresh additions or changes you make to Apple Music playlists when the Apple Watch is on the charger.
With Spotify and Audible, you can push additions and changes to playlists directly to your Apple Watch whether it’s on the charger or not. It’s faster on the charger, but it’s fast enough from your iPhone if you’re just adding a few tracks to a playlist before a run.
Apple Music should be able to do the same.