Apparently, there is a deficit of Gen-X programmers (or App supervisors? or executives?) working on music streaming Apps, because whoever the key decision makers are don’t get how these Apps are supposed to work. As a consequence, your music streaming App is broken.
Somehow said decision makers (every one of them) missed Peak Filesharing, that halcyon moment in time when all Gen-Xers accidentally accumulated libraries of hundreds to thousands of songs (I mean, this just happened one day – please don’t ask for details) and were forced, by dint of hard lived experience, to learn everything there is to know about managing large music libraries and their associated playlists.
In any case, we would offer this hard-won knowledge to the world, if they would have it. We’re nearly all streaming now, and we could all use it. So here goes:
1. Playlist Memory
- Every playlist needs to remember its status, persistently, so that when I go back to that playlist after a hiatus / podcast listen / YouTube interlude, the music picks up where I left off. This the only appropriate default behavior for play this playlist.
- To reiterate: What is needed here is per-playlist memory. I don’t care if it’s been two years since I was last listening to the playlist, if I play this playlist today I want, as default, to begin where I left off two years ago.
- This means remembering the existing shuffle order if the playlist was shuffled, and continuing playback from where it left off. Don’t reshuffle the playlist, and don’t play the (ordered or shuffled) playlist from the beginning. Play it from where I left off.
- Specifically: On the request to play this playlist, begin with the last song played, if the song was only played in part, or begin with the next song in the playlist if the previous song was played to within 10 seconds of completion.
- Anyone who wishes to play this playlist from the beginning can click on the first song. Anyone who wishes to play this playlist from this particular song can click on that particular song.
2. App Memory and App Startup
- The App should always pick up where I left off, by playlist and song (or radio/streaming station, or podcast, etc). I don’t care if I have installed a new OS and rebooted my phone / computer since the App was last running. Cache my status on the home servers if you have to, but please, remember where I was. (I’m looking at you Apple Music!)
- Cache at least one or two songs ahead in the playlist so that music always starts right away. News flash for Apple Music: I often start streaming music as I’m pulling out of my garage when the WiFi is weak and fading fast and the cellular connection is poor. This should not prevent me from listening to music!
3. Song and Playlist Notes
- Playlists need per-playlist and per-song notes and comments. (Playlist notes are now offered on Apple Music.) This is useful for shared playlists, to explain (when necessary) why each particular song was selected, to show off our arcane knowledge, and to point out clever relationships between songs; and for private playlists, to keep a record of why each song was considered important or relevant, if alternative songs were considered and not included, or thoguhts on what songs might be included in the future.
4. Playlist Sorting and Playlist Tags
- We need more options for sorting and tagging playlists. Having “Alphabetical by name” as the only reliable full-library sort option is tiresome, and completely unworkable for large libraries – which now means all of us.
- Consider: Style, Mood, Era (average year of release, earliest year of release), Creation Date, Creation Location, Last Edited Date, Last Played Date, Last Played by Location. That’s just a few suggestions to get your dev teams going.
5. Radio-Safe and Explicit Modes
- It should be possible to play through any Playlist using either radio-safe or explicit versions of all the songs on the Playlist. Make it a toggle! This is important for those of us with children, parents, or (Gen-X again!) both.
- What would be even better would be to have the radio-safe mode switch automatically depending on whether the App is streaming to headphones / pods (Explicit) or to a speaker (Radio-Safe).
Everyone on board with these? Fantastic – can’t wait to start streaming all this glorious music properly.
-po
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