I’ve been using Apple Music since it launched nearly four years ago – even after I subsequently switched to Android devices. While I love its music library, and appreciate the curated dashboards, its Android app has frustrated me constantly.
Apple boasts constantly about the quality of its hardware and software, so naturally, I expected the company’s first major app on Android to deliver a stellar experience. But even after all this time, the nicest thing I can say about Apple Music on Android is that I have a love-hate relationship with it. Let me count the ways.
The Android app has been painfully slow as compared to Apple’s Music’s iOS counterpart, even after being on the platform this long. In 2019, this is unacceptable. I even shot a short video to compare the load times between the iOS app on an iPhone XS, and the Android app on a Google Pixel 3 XL. Here, take a look at how much slower the latter is on a top-end device from 2018:
Let’s move on to downloading tracks. This is understandably slow when you’re on a poor connection, but sometimes, the download section itself doesn’t load.
Now, let’s say the app loads up fine and dandy. Try grabbing a track or album to enjoy offline, and you’ll often notice that your selection isn’t even queued for download. Apparently, I’m not alone here:
@AppleSupport Hi. I’ve an issue with my Apple Music download functionality for the past month and a bit. I can listen to all music online but songs won’t download onto the device. This is after 3 software updates and countless “possible solutions” found online.
— Sebastian (@c_bastian09) January 23, 2019
@AppleMusic so my apple music for android keeps messing up ?? it crashes, doesn't let me add or download songs ????? pic.twitter.com/Q6TJ2jmWsO
— Yavs ?? (@Yav3liux) January 29, 2019
Apple music app for Android doesn't download songs for offline playback. Contacted Apple support. Even they are unable to resolve it. ?? Interns at Apple are alloted to develop the Android app it seems.
— Rakesh (@rakeshkhabiya) January 23, 2019
Next, when the company launched Apple Music for Android in 2015, it was nearly identical to the iOS app. But it took Apple while to issue its next big update in 2017, almost a year after the redesigned app rolled out to iPhones and macOS.
While Apple released smaller updates and features like the ability to search music by lyrics and a playlist of songs your friends are listening to, it released a new experience for Apple users with iOS 12 back in last September. The Android app, meanwhile, got the updated design just two weeks ago.
Apart from the issues stated above, the app is prone to crashing and simply becoming unresponsive. There are other odd bugs too. For some reason, the previous version of the Android app didn’t let you grab screenshots of the interface – which is particularly bothersome when you consider there isn’t another way to share Apple Music tracks to Instagram Stories.
@AppleMusic why can't I screenshot on my Android phone? pic.twitter.com/j0VAt9Eu8J
— Jacob A. Powers (@P0WERJAC) January 27, 2019
The worst part of having Apple Music is not being allowed to screenshot and share the songs I'm listening to on social media
-an Android user AKA me
— Savage Opress (@strawza) January 15, 2019
Other people have faced issues like the wrong song being played, songs in playlists playing out of sequence,, and personalized playlists failing to update. While some of these bugs seem minor, they can add up to an unpleasant experience. Boy, I can’t wait for Spotify to arrive in India.
Recently, Apple said that it wants to earn more money from services, with Apple Music being one of its key earners in this space. But a shoddy app is hardly the best way to bring more users on board. It’s 2019, Apple. Get your shit together.
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