Round-Up of New, Missing, and Confusing Features in the iOS 10 Music App

When iOS 10 was released last week, a lot of people were disturbed by the new Music app. There are many changes, large and small, and many features that have been removed, altered, or hidden.

I’ve been writing a lot about this, and here’s a set of links to all the articles on this site about the iOS 10 Music app. If I post any new articles, I’ll add them to this list.

24 thoughts on “Round-Up of New, Missing, and Confusing Features in the iOS 10 Music App”

  1. Good list. Let me two:

    1. The length of the tracks is no longer displayed.

    2. Here’s an omission that has been bothering me since iOS 6 gave way to iOS 7.

    I use my phone in “senior citizen” mode (big text); and I listen to a lot of classical music (long titles). There is no room on the screen to display the full title. In iOS 6, tapping on the title would bring up a bubble that revealed the full title. It was convenient, so Apple took it out in iOS 7. I’ve been hoping they would bring it back, but no luck so far.

  2. Good list. Let me two:

    1. The length of the tracks is no longer displayed.

    2. Here’s an omission that has been bothering me since iOS 6 gave way to iOS 7.

    I use my phone in “senior citizen” mode (big text); and I listen to a lot of classical music (long titles). There is no room on the screen to display the full title. In iOS 6, tapping on the title would bring up a bubble that revealed the full title. It was convenient, so Apple took it out in iOS 7. I’ve been hoping they would bring it back, but no luck so far.

  3. I was pleased that one particular hard-to-explain bug in the stock Music app has been completely fixed in iOS 10. In some previous versions, when I examined music by Composer, boxed sets containing works by multiple composers showed the entire contents of the set. Now, it just shows the works by the selected composer, which is as it should be.
    However, I’ve noticed another possible bug that has me stymied. I was overjoyed to find the Work, Movement [Name], and Movement Number tags, and spent some time re-tagging 700 or so of my 11,000+ tracks (I refuse to say “songs”). These also display and work properly in the iOS 10 stock Music app, so far so good.
    However — every time I sync my iPhone (6) to my Mac mini (late 2012), after having disconnected the iPhone from the Mac for any length of time and then reconnecting it, it insists on re-syncing EVERY one of these changed tags, every time. Needless to say, this is an irritating time sink (sorry about that), and I’m hesitant to re-tag any more of my collection until it is thoroughly fixed.
    I’ve already tried taking all the music off my iPhone and putting it back on again, but the problem persists. I’m reluctant to do a full restore of my iPhone — there goes a day, and I can’t really spare one unless I’m SURE it will work.
    So, is it a bug, or no? Has anyone else had this problem? Am I stuck with syncing the same 700+ tracks every single time, forever? Apple has notoriously taken F*O*R*E*V*E*R to improve things for us classical music lovers, as they apparently consider us to be fourth-class citizens. Look how long it took them to support gapless playing, and to make the Composer tag usable in iTunes, and, of course, to add these Work, Movement, and Movement Number tags.

    • I saw this the first few times I synced my iPhone with 12.5.1, but it’s clear up now. If it doesn’t, the only thing I can suggest is to restore the iPhone. Or, perhaps, first try turning off music syncing, then turning it back on.

  4. I was pleased that one particular hard-to-explain bug in the stock Music app has been completely fixed in iOS 10. In some previous versions, when I examined music by Composer, boxed sets containing works by multiple composers showed the entire contents of the set. Now, it just shows the works by the selected composer, which is as it should be.
    However, I’ve noticed another possible bug that has me stymied. I was overjoyed to find the Work, Movement [Name], and Movement Number tags, and spent some time re-tagging 700 or so of my 11,000+ tracks (I refuse to say “songs”). These also display and work properly in the iOS 10 stock Music app, so far so good.
    However — every time I sync my iPhone (6) to my Mac mini (late 2012), after having disconnected the iPhone from the Mac for any length of time and then reconnecting it, it insists on re-syncing EVERY one of these changed tags, every time. Needless to say, this is an irritating time sink (sorry about that), and I’m hesitant to re-tag any more of my collection until it is thoroughly fixed.
    I’ve already tried taking all the music off my iPhone and putting it back on again, but the problem persists. I’m reluctant to do a full restore of my iPhone — there goes a day, and I can’t really spare one unless I’m SURE it will work.
    So, is it a bug, or no? Has anyone else had this problem? Am I stuck with syncing the same 700+ tracks every single time, forever? Apple has notoriously taken F*O*R*E*V*E*R to improve things for us classical music lovers, as they apparently consider us to be fourth-class citizens. Look how long it took them to support gapless playing, and to make the Composer tag usable in iTunes, and, of course, to add these Work, Movement, and Movement Number tags.

    • I saw this the first few times I synced my iPhone with 12.5.1, but it’s clear up now. If it doesn’t, the only thing I can suggest is to restore the iPhone. Or, perhaps, first try turning off music syncing, then turning it back on.

  5. Not really a feature-feature, but the mind-boggling ommission of album artworks as artist illustrations in Artist-view is still worth a mention.

    70% of my music library is now covered in candy-colored microphones. Which makes it ridiculously difficult to browse and find artists when I’m out and about, as everything looks the same.

  6. Not really a feature-feature, but the mind-boggling ommission of album artworks as artist illustrations in Artist-view is still worth a mention.

    70% of my music library is now covered in candy-colored microphones. Which makes it ridiculously difficult to browse and find artists when I’m out and about, as everything looks the same.

  7. One thing I noticed that does not seem to be written about anywhere is the lack of a link back to an artist’s page in the Now Playing screen. When listening to a song, if you touch the album title, it flips over to the album’s page showing all the songs. There is what looks like a link (it is underlined) at the top of that album page with the Artist’s name — but it does not work! Clicking on the artist’s name there does nothing. In iOS 9, that link took you to the artists page with all their albums showing. In iOS 10, the only way to get to that artist’s page is to go back to the main menu and select “Artists” and then scroll down to the one you want and touch their name there. Is there any way to restore that short-cut link in the now playing page … or is that just another thing that Apple took away for no apparent reason?

  8. One thing I noticed that does not seem to be written about anywhere is the lack of a link back to an artist’s page in the Now Playing screen. When listening to a song, if you touch the album title, it flips over to the album’s page showing all the songs. There is what looks like a link (it is underlined) at the top of that album page with the Artist’s name — but it does not work! Clicking on the artist’s name there does nothing. In iOS 9, that link took you to the artists page with all their albums showing. In iOS 10, the only way to get to that artist’s page is to go back to the main menu and select “Artists” and then scroll down to the one you want and touch their name there. Is there any way to restore that short-cut link in the now playing page … or is that just another thing that Apple took away for no apparent reason?

  9. iOS 10 Music app – lyrics display

    Missing from this latest iOS 10 Music app version is the ability to display lyrics (text) that are contained in an individual song (file).

    For example, in iTunes, right click any song file, click on “get info”, and click on the lyrics tab, and then enter any text you wish. Next, sync this song with your iPhone and/or iPad, then play this same song on your iPhone or iPad using the iOS Music app. In all previous iOS versions (9 and earlier) of the Music app, simply tapping on the artwork graphic displayed whatever lyrics (text) that is present in the song record.

    In iOS 10, this feature is not (no longer) present.

    Was this feature overlooked? Or is there another way to display the lyrics text contained in a sing file while playing a song on an iPhone or iPad?

    Thanks in advance,
    -Gerard Konecny

  10. iOS 10 Music app – lyrics display

    Missing from this latest iOS 10 Music app version is the ability to display lyrics (text) that are contained in an individual song (file).

    For example, in iTunes, right click any song file, click on “get info”, and click on the lyrics tab, and then enter any text you wish. Next, sync this song with your iPhone and/or iPad, then play this same song on your iPhone or iPad using the iOS Music app. In all previous iOS versions (9 and earlier) of the Music app, simply tapping on the artwork graphic displayed whatever lyrics (text) that is present in the song record.

    In iOS 10, this feature is not (no longer) present.

    Was this feature overlooked? Or is there another way to display the lyrics text contained in a sing file while playing a song on an iPhone or iPad?

    Thanks in advance,
    -Gerard Konecny

  11. The new version of Apple Music does not display the Composer name for the currently playing song. The workaround is tapping the song name, which navigates you to the full album, that screen does list composer names for each song. The previous version of Apple Music displayed the composer (at least for classical music) on the Now Playing screen. Is there any way to restore this old behavior?

  12. The new version of Apple Music does not display the Composer name for the currently playing song. The workaround is tapping the song name, which navigates you to the full album, that screen does list composer names for each song. The previous version of Apple Music displayed the composer (at least for classical music) on the Now Playing screen. Is there any way to restore this old behavior?

  13. You can no longer filter playlists. Used to be option for apple music playlists,my playlists, or both.It’s gone.

  14. You can no longer filter playlists. Used to be option for apple music playlists,my playlists, or both.It’s gone.

  15. Can no loner add apple music playlists by just clicking plus.now either download tracks or save by naming. Impossible to.simply use apple music playlist name.

  16. Can no loner add apple music playlists by just clicking plus.now either download tracks or save by naming. Impossible to.simply use apple music playlist name.

  17. I always have a Top 40 playlist on my phone. I periodically edit the playlist directly on my phone to remove older songs. This was easy before iOS 10. When editing my playlist my only options are:
    1. Remove download (but the song still stays on the list which after awhile starts to look long and messy)
    2. Delete from library (just bc I don’t want a song on a particular playlist doesn’t mean I want to delete the song from my phone in it’s entirety)
    Any suggestions or tips?

  18. I always have a Top 40 playlist on my phone. I periodically edit the playlist directly on my phone to remove older songs. This was easy before iOS 10. When editing my playlist my only options are:
    1. Remove download (but the song still stays on the list which after awhile starts to look long and messy)
    2. Delete from library (just bc I don’t want a song on a particular playlist doesn’t mean I want to delete the song from my phone in it’s entirety)
    Any suggestions or tips?

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