Amazon Music: Songs & Podcasts 12+

User interface was designed by Fred Flintstone.... it’s clumsy, byzantine, and poorly organized. Any “user friendly” interface is easy to discern to the point where it becomes almost intuitive. Suffers from glitchy behavior when the phone is performing other tasks and operations which is frustrating.... it interferes with a pleasurable listening experience. My phone is a brand new flagship from Samsung so we can’t blame these glitches on older equipment.

On the plus side, when the music is playing the sound quality is amazing and has true fidelity I believe as to how the artist intended it to sound! The available selections are nothing short of phenomenal, widespread, and eclectic! Although I would like to see more selections offered from the big swing bands that flourished during and after WWII, like “Sing, Sing, Sing” from the BBC’s Big Band Orchestra for example. Not remastered originals but modern performances of that style & genre.

In short, the entire user interface needs to be elegant and its design philosophy should be driven by “organized simplicity”…. But you guys are off to a really good start!

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.

It’s really nice as far as no commercials and the look of the app/graphics itself but it’s not truly ideal as far as personalization. I’m not one that has time to constantly search songs or create playlists. I personally like to listen to the radio commercial free. However, there aren’t many radio options on this streaming service as far as mixes. Example, there’s no hip-hop and r&b mixed stations or stations that play r&b and hip hop hits, I guess unless you go to a particular artists station; that’s really a lot of constant work of constantly changing back and forth. I feel like this app caters more towards pop and indie as far as (hits). Also, when you do particularly find stations that you like you can’t save them to a certain section, it only allows for you to pull songs from the station to create a set playlist. You can like songs but, as far as I noticed you can only listen to your liked songs but it doesn’t create stations that are similar to the songs you’ve liked. I listen to a wide variety of music so if I’d listen to my liked songs it can go from classical, jazz, hip hop, oldies, etc., so extremely all over the place. I normally don’t write app reviews but I was extremely disappointed and frustrated to the point that I felt the need to share this. I should’ve did a trial before actually paying the subscription.