(Comments apply to the desktop app for Mac/iOS) If you get your category tagging right and the app can consistently bring the user to the spot where they were before visiting an album page where the individual songs are located, you will have a world class app. Concerning the tagging, it is a total mess. If you have hundreds of albums there is no way to view the albums that reside within a specific genre. Also the assigning of albums to categories is almost arbitrary, not to mention there are sometimes multiple sub-categories that divide up a larger category. Concerning this latter, I am not opposed to this, but both the containing category and it’s component piece sub-categories have to make sense and applied completely throughout that genre and sub-genres. A very good example of the tagging problem is soundtracks. Even if we are only talking about the Soundtrack super category, only a minute fraction of the multiple hundreds of soundtracks that reside within “My Music” show up when I click the “Soundtracks” link on the app. The new wrinkle with this is that app on the desktop has just stopped playing music. I will need to debug this with hopes that it can be fixed.

Aside from the way the song selection is done or how it plays random songs during the playlist, the app is horrible. Sometimes it will get stuck on one song and you have to close the app and come back in (choosing a different playlist doesn’t matter). Or it will stop playing for no reason and you have to hit play again. Then there’s the hour or so time limit to ask you if you’d like to continue. You can’t continue from your watch or from the Lock Screen on the phone. You have to go into the app and press play. The timer even includes if you are on a call. If you have more than 50 songs in the playlist, it will only play the same 10-15 songs and then start randomly playing other songs. Although the random isn’t really random, either of your playlist or of songs outside the playlist. When it starts to play the random songs outside the playlist, 9/10 it will start with the same song. If it isn’t that one, it is usually it starts with the second song and then it will play the first one. Beyond that, I don’t know because I never get past the one or two random songs it chooses. I just change to one of my other playlists. The music is free with Prime within the limits, but it is a chore for sure. I doubt paying $10/mo for Unlimited would change the behavior of the app, but I’m not willing to try. I could buy lots of songs over time for $10/mo, which I need to make time for and just play songs that I own and can control.

After a song finishes it will not move on to the next song and just pause while on shuffle. I have to constantly remember to take the app off of repeat one song while on shuffle. If I unplug my phone from my truck to say go into the grocery or something even though the app hasn’t been closed and I get back to my truck and plug it into my phone it will automatically go on repeat. Fixable by taking it off repeat but it does it every time and it’s odd that the app thinks repeating the same song is a default. There has been 40 updates while experiencing these bugs. I honestly don’t think the updates do anything. And referring back to the top after a few minutes the app will pause after the end of a music and if I plug my phone back in it will default to repeat one. And also without fail after 5 songs exactly the song/artist will not match up with what’s being displayed on my phone screen. So there’s some things the need to work on. It’s quite irritating compounded by the fact there’s been at the minimum 40 or more updates in the years time these bugs have not been addressed. Music is my therapy and it’s starting to become a cause for therapy if they don’t get it together. They give you false hope with updates every week. I keep thinking this will be the one but no nada.