I got a free trial of Apple Music with my PlayStation so I decided to give it a try as someone who doesn’t own any Apple devices and is not at all a part of that ecosystem.
First impressions: the app is fiiiine but feels dated and kind of like a weird mix of outdated iOS and outdated Android UI. Layout-wise it’s pretty good though. I don’t love the now-playing screen and its extreme focus on lyrics. I am not doing karaoke on my phone!!
@cassidy The problem I had with using Apple TV service without any Apple devices/not part of their ecosystem is that someone kept trying to get into my account. Apple detected this and would lock it for security reasons, stopping the Apple TV app from working. It was trivial to unlock, but tiresome having to keep doing it. I had SMS-based 2FA configured the whole time, which is the only option they offered without owning an iPhone.
I opened a support ticket and even spoke to someone on the phone, but having taken all the details they didn't follow up. I deleted my Apple account.
I know you're focusing on UX here, but there's another angle to using their services without owning their hardware.
@tehstu oof yeah good point.
I’m importing my YouTube Music library/playlists to see how the radio and discovery on Apple Music compares. I have mixed opinions of YouTube Music here: their curated stations are usually nice for discovery for me, but I haven’t really ever loved their radio. I’ve heard Apple Music is better; we’ll see!
So far casting is actually… reliable though?? Like YouTube Music just craps itself trying to cast to speaker groups in my house, but Apple Music works perfectly so far.
Oh, that weird quote button at the bottom left is for the lyrics view (WOULD A TEXT LABEL HAVE KILLED YOU?), and it seems to persist the state when leaving and coming back. I greatly prefer the simpler art/controls layout here.
Scrolling through lists in this app is jittery/janky 🙃
Idk what framework or UI library they’re using but it feels very non-native or at least poorly optimized.
@cassidy So. Having just recently released a Music app for GNOME/Jellyfin called Gelly, I can tell you that Lyrics are 100% a thing. I never bothered with lyrics before, and I definitely wasn't considering adding them to Gelly. And then came the feature requests.
I think Gelly has 2 reviews on Flathub and both of them are requesting lyrics. People love lyrics! And after adding the feature I have to say it's pretty fun. The implementation was fun too.
@Fingel I’m not opposed to them existing! I like having them. It just feels weird for the Now Playing screen to default to them so prominently.
@cassidy I swapped to it when Joe Rogan got all that money from Spotify and I haven't found it to be that different. To send the music you need speakers that work with AirPlay, our surround sound ones do and it works pretty well
@abban we have Google Cast speakers around still and on Android that works great! I was somewhat surprised Apple actually implemented Google Cast support tbh and it seems they did a good job.
