- You cannot shift+click select to easily add playlists into a folder.
- Any podcasts you follow cannot be moved into folders to tidy things up. They just clutter the sidebar.
- You have to click on a tiny arrow to expand a folder. Clicking on the folder navigates inside the folder.
The fact that podcasts are in the same Spotify mega-app is terrible too. And the podcast experience is a complete mess.
I listened to an interview with the head of Spotify product, and he talked about how great it was to have everything in this mega app. I just feel the opposite of everything he said.
It's one of the most popular services in the world, but has one of the worst user experiences of all the apps I use.
And they actually think they are doing a good job at it.
This is really common. It's a sign that the value isn't derived from the software itself, but what the software enables you to do. It doesn't need to be good. People pay to access Spotify's library of music and podcasts, despite the UI.
When you run a startup having people hungry to use your MVP despite it's flaws is a classic signal that you're on to something valuable. I could list hundreds of shockingly bad apps that have awful user experiences that I've happily used over the last 40 years because they all did something I really wanted or needed to do. Almost every 'enterprise' app is a total mess from a UI perspective - but they make a fortune because the value that users get from them make it worth putting up with.
People think a beautiful UI is something that every app needs, but really every app just needs to do something useful. None of them need a good UI until there's a competitor with an equivalent service that has a better UI. Only then does the UI actually matter, because it becomes something users will use to choose which service they buy.
For things I am (and maybe most normal users?) interested in, it works really nice: choose a song, listen to it, listen to the bands other songs, listen to their "radio" with similar songs, find new interesting bands, repeat.
I switch between listening on my phone, my computer, other computers, and my google home devices all day. With Spotify, I can choose which device to choose to from anywhere, and I can also control it from anywhere. I can play music from my laptop, then change songs from my phone, then send it to my google home speakers whenever I'd like.
Tidal didn't have that. Didn't even have google home integration. Didn't even have a desktop app on Linux. I switched back in less than a day. As annoying as Spotify's app can be sometimes, it's the service that works across all my devices, and can switch between all my devices.
How do you use Spotify to discover new music? What am I doing wrong?
Anyway it’s a complicated subject. I read somewhere nobody wants the same out of their music app and that’s why most of the time they end up being weird pieces of software in order to try and satisfy everybody.
Also, their AI DJ makes no sense. The worst part about radio is the DJ saying nonsense between songs, and they added AI to say nonsense between songs. I was just looking for a way for it to play songs I’d probably like based on other songs/artists I like. With Apple I’d simply tell Siri, “play good music” and it would play a radio station with my name on it (without an interrupting fake DJ).
Yup, sounds exactly like what a DJ does. I was driving, waiting at a traffic light, watching the minutes go by. 8 minutes. DJ still kept blabbing. Every radio station I turned to, there was a DJ saying nonsense. There's more DJ nonsense than music. That's the point I downloaded Joox, which I later switched to Spotify, and then later to YouTube Music.
I guess at some point, people listen to so much music that they want to hear a commentary or alternate view on that music. Spotify is probably at that maturity level where its listeners don't even want music anymore.
If it was actually giving me some backstory or saying something interesting, I'd get it as a feature. Like VH1's pop up videos. That wasn't what was going on.
I didn't know Spotify did this. Who on earth would want to listen to that nonsense by choice? That's like making a recipe app that removes all the random pointless SEO filler from before each recipe, but then uses AI to add it back in.
If you've got a broad music taste I'd recommend using the song radio for a song which fits the profile of what you're looking for. I've found it much more effective for building playlists of new music then some of their other discovery tools.
Thanks. Being new to Spotify, I wasn't sure what key words I was looking for in the UI to trigger this kind of thing. I see where to do that now.
"Start a Jam" sounded like it would be it, but after looking it up, that wasn't what I wanted at all.
So that could be one reason it takes longer to buffer.
Apple Music isn’t perfect, but it has a more focused UI that makes it easier to find music.
I wish Spotify/Deezer/Apple had an SDK like libspotify used to be so that one could just write a simpler & faster client.
https://github.com/Spotifyd/spotifyd
Fun fact, AFAICT the fastest growing major podcast platform is re-uploads of podcasts to youtube. Which makes no sense on most mobile platforms, but at least the visibility of entries to the public will be high.
Why? I watch a lot of podcasts on youtube, it's interesting to see the interaction, so the visual component is not a negative.
In fact, the vast majority of podcasts I've heard aren't audio-only. The only one audio-only ones I've listened to are the old Opie and Anthony show uploads.
The other one, I was not able to "teach" the algorithm what I like even after 3 months.
FWIW, Tidal isn't all it's hyped up to be either; they also do some dumb stuff. But it's a solid competitor that at least isn't Spotify.