Is Apple music seriously this bad???

[Billbrown1982]

I've been using Spotify since I got the car over 2 years ago now, but I just changed phone contracts and it comes with bundled Apple music so I figured, save me £10 on spotify and just switch to apple right?

Its....terrible....

Songs take ages to load, if they load at all. As soon as I leave my wifi area the player always craps out and I need to manually restart it and perhaps most irritating at all is whatever song it was playing when I parked up, it will switch to a station playing "similar" songs instead of just carrying on with my playlist.

Is it me?

 

[Kotrado]

Sound quite strange, I’ve used Apple Music for years on my iPhone, and the app on my Model 3 just works the same, I haven’t noticed any real difference

 

[MonkeyTennis]

It definitely does a much worse job of track buffering than Spotify. Slightest hint of network blip and it chokes. Plus if you listen to continuous DJ style mixes, it pauses for a second between tracks as it loads the next one. Doesn't happen on any other implementation of Apple Music, only the Tesla app. Really annoying as I like the Apple Cloud Music feature where I've uploaded all my CD rips and Bandcamp downloads.

 

[Cardo]

It’s not the best implementation, but I wouldn’t say it’s as bad as you describe. It’s certainly perfectly serviceable.

 

[Billbrown1982]

Interesting replies...if it was a PC or my Phone i'd reinstall the app but being on the car...

I suppose I should try the good old 2 button reboot really. It just didn't seem like that kind of problem but i've been wrong before...more times than I like to admit.

 

[MkPotato]

The Tesla version of Apple Music seems very sensitive to network connectivity issue, so is far glitchier than the native iPhone versions. It’d be much better to give us CarPlay…

 

[Billbrown1982]

Well 2 button reset didn't fix it. Don't really know anything else to try as there's no real access to any settings. Weird one this. Ah well. I'll probably suffer with it just means I need to reset the playlist at the start of every journey. Not the end of the world I suppose.

 

[MkPotato]

Well 2 button reset didn't fix it. Don't really know anything else to try as there's no real access to any settings. Weird one this. Ah well. I'll probably suffer with it just means I need to reset the playlist at the start of every journey. Not the end of the world I suppose.

Not the end of the world, but it sours the overall experience, particularly when CarPlay is becoming a standard with competitors. I understand that it’s a cost saving, but why not offer it as an upgrade. Similarly, they could offer USS parking sensors (and indicator stalks when they delete those) as an upgrade package.

 

[Zilla91]

I understand that it’s a cost saving

It's not a cost saving. It's just Musk being an arse and not allowing it

 

[Billbrown1982]

Car Play is one of those things people will argue about until the end of time. Me personally, not a fan of it. I actually quite like Tesla's UI and I certainly don't want a world where manufacturers all don't bother designing their own in car entertainment system and just lazily expect people to use Carplay or Android Auto.

BUT, there are definitely a few bugs that I really wish they would sort out.

 

[MkPotato]

Car Play is one of those things people will argue about until the end of time. Me personally, not a fan of it. I actually quite like Tesla's UI and I certainly don't want a world where manufacturers all don't bother designing their own in car entertainment system and just lazily expect people to use Carplay or Android Auto.

BUT, there are definitely a few bugs that I really wish they would sort out.

It’s about having standard functionality. Most people drive more than one car, and having a predictable, user-friendly MMI is safer and more convenient. As is having indicators on stalks and blind spot warnings on wing mirrors - buggering around with “standard“ controls is idiotic, as not only is it inconvenient, its distracting (and therefore dangerous).

 

[Lee Davis]

Is it me?

Yes

 

[phil4]

Even on an iphone, Apple Music has a very slow UI compared to Spotify. A quick stopwatch test takes spotify 4 second to load, suggest things, and start playing something it's never played before. That same process on Apple music takes 8 seconds, every step of it you could see was slightly less snappy than on Spotify, and it added up. I doubt the car app will manage much better.

(Tested on Iphone 14 Pro, with fire internet and unifi 6 wifi).

 

[spdpsba]

It’s about having standard functionality. Most people drive more than one car, and having a predictable, user-friendly MMI is safer and more convenient. As is having indicators on stalks and blind spot warnings on wing mirrors - buggering around with “standard“ controls is idiotic, as not only is it inconvenient, its distracting (and therefore dangerous).

You kinda of figured out everything!

 

[Andrew*Debbie]

Songs take ages to load, if they load at all. As soon as I leave my wifi area the player always craps out and I need to manually restart it and perhaps most irritating at all is whatever song it was playing when I parked up, it will switch to a station playing "similar" songs instead of just carrying on with my playlist.

Here are a few hints:

Open the Apple Music app on your phone, go to Settings (... menu on Android), scroll down to Playback Cache. Make sure it is set to at least 500MB. If you drive through several dead zones, set it to 1GB. If you stil have trouble, try setting mobile data streaming to High Efficenciy


I've got WiFi streaming on my phone set to Lossless and Mobile set to high quality. It will glitch briefly when I drive in or out of the WiFi at work. Never stops though. ?? Nevertheless, try setting WiFi and Mobile to the same quality setting. That might fix the issue.

I have a few dozen albums downloaded to my phone. I have music when there is no connectivity and the downloaded tracks are lossless.

If you play a single track, it will make a "station" based on that track and start playing the station when the track ends. I hate that feature. This is the one thing, the only thing, that Spotify does better. There currently is not a way to turn it off on Android. I have not looked for a way to turn it off with the Tesla Apple Music App.

On the phone I normally use shuffle songs, which will rotate through all the songs I've got in Apple Music. My library is huge. I add music all the time. Prune as needed so the library does not get stale.


The Apple Music app on the Tesla is not as good as the phone app. I've been using it during the free trial of Premium Connectivity, but will switch back on my phone soon. Shuffle Songs will only shuffle through one page of songs. That is something like 20 songs, all starting with the same letter. Ugh. Instead I've been listening to Albums. That works, but Apple Music will create a "station" and play that when the Album ends.

 

[Billbrown1982]

Here are a few hints:

Open the Apple Music app on your phone, go to Settings (... menu on Android), scroll down to Playback Cache. Make sure it is set to at least 500MB. If you drive through several dead zones, set it to 1GB. If you stil have trouble, try setting mobile data streaming to High Efficenciy


I've got WiFi streaming on my phone set to Lossless and Mobile set to high quality. It will glitch briefly when I drive in or out of the WiFi at work. Never stops though. ?? Nevertheless, try setting WiFi and Mobile to the same quality setting. That might fix the issue.

I have a few dozen albums downloaded to my phone. I have music when there is no connectivity and the downloaded tracks are lossless.

If you play a single track, it will make a "station" based on that track and start playing the station when the track ends. I hate that feature. This is the one thing, the only thing, that Spotify does better. There currently is not a way to turn it off on Android. I have not looked for a way to turn it off with the Tesla Apple Music App.

On the phone I normally use shuffle songs, which will rotate through all the songs I've got in Apple Music. My library is huge. I add music all the time. Prune as needed so the library does not get stale.


The Apple Music app on the Tesla is not as good as the phone app. I've been using it during the free trial of Premium Connectivity, but will switch back on my phone soon. Shuffle Songs will only shuffle through one page of songs. That is something like 20 songs, all starting with the same letter. Ugh. Instead I've been listening to Albums. That works, but Apple Music will create a "station" and play that when the Album ends.

That was very helpful thanks, I've made the changes you suggested. I did have everything set to Lossless, kind of forgetting the speed limitations of the car's date connection, so now set to high we shall see if that speeds things up a bit.

Yes its the "station" playing that is bugging me the most. I, like you, have a huge library that I just put on shuffle everytime but as soon as I get out the car, even to pop into a shop, I get back in and its switched over to a station based on whatever the last song playing was. Seems like a really odd functionality that Apple could fix easily, oh well.

I'll persevere for a bit but I can see me switching back to Spotify in the near future.

 

[ChrisInTheCar]

Buffering has got noticeably worse for me since the last couple of updates to the car, so much that I often give up and just go back to just using bluetooth.

 

[Andrew*Debbie]

I did have everything set to Lossless,

Apple Lossless can have bitrates as high as 6444k kb/s. Not all music will hit that. I just did a quick check. A 3:26 track used 44.9MB of storage.

That is 1800 kb/s. "High quality" AAC is 256kb/s.