Star Ratings Make a Return to Apple Music on iOS 10.2 Beta

Glad they saw what a mistake that was. Nice to see ratings back. Maybe they will also see the mistake of treating music owners as second class citizens to music renters.

It's still weird that the like/dislike system is buried in the music player now. I miss the days where it was accessible in control center as well as the lock screen. The new version is a step backwards imo.

Seeing those screenshots from an iPod touch, it really looks like the current UI is designed primarily for the 4.7" and 5.5" screens.

Also, I wonder what made them change course and bring back star ratings..

I wouldn't stop submitting LetAppleKnow suggestions :P so glad to have the star ratings back!

I'm so glad they listened to user feedback and added them back. I'm not even exaggerating when I say that this is the best Apple news I've read in years. Can't wait for the public beta so I can use them again.

"Terrible, Apple is dead, Steve would never have removed star ratings and brought them back."
-MacRumors Forum

YES! I have years of smart playlists as well as new super sophisticated system I learned from the "Why Would I want to stream" thread that all rely on Star Ratings.

A simple "love" and "unlove" is not sufficient for any level of sophisitcaling. Star ratings can be used to adjust the frequency that certain songs play. Not having it available on iOS has just been annoying and requires 3 party apps. It's not like the interface can get any more cluttered. Just hide it in the more info sections or just above the lyrics when you scroll up.
[doublepost=1478010227][/doublepost]Also, I wish there was an option in settings to "Hide All Clutter."

Even if you hide Apple Music, the app is so packed full of crap that it's almost unusable on the iPhone. WHy do I have to select "Downladed Music" every time I want to switch between albums and playlists when Apple Music is disabled? Why is the bottom dock so limited when it used to have 5/6 items in iOS 6 and 7!?
[doublepost=1478010311][/doublepost]

iOS is slowly becoming a house full of switches. Not sure if that's good thing or a bad thing...

It's a good thing if the feature benefits you, a bad thing if it doesn't. ;)

All kidding aside, the allure of iOS was simplicity, but that's hard because people's are so different. THere needs to be a balance, but I fear that Apple is approaching too much.
[doublepost=1478010400][/doublepost]

Seeing those screenshots from an iPod touch, it really looks like the current UI is designed primarily for the 4.7" and 5.5" screens.

Also, I wonder what made them change course and bring back star ratings..

I can attest that Apple Music was made for large screens. I can tolerate it on my 9.7" iPad, but it's horrible on my iPhone SE. I jumped to Cesium. It's a shame though because I thought that the release of the SE would mean Apple would optimize for all sizes again.

Who said they changed course? When software is re-designed, often times things are pulled out with the intention of them being put back in later. They are not a development priority, so they are not designed, coded, or implemented. The Music App was entirely redesigned.

The Star Ratings was a low priority which was put off to 10.2. It's also possible that if there wasn't enough demand to bring them back, it would have been axed instead, but that's not what ultimately happened.

I don't expect most forum members to understand this because most of them have never designed software or worked for a software company. They will make up their own anti-Apple nonsense as they always do.

Making it sound like you understand how software is designed isn't much better.

Suggesting that the star rating system was something that was always intended to be there but didn't make the cut for the initial redesign is nothing more than a flight of fancy. There is no indication that was the case.

If development resources and timeframe were so tight as to not include a star rating system but develop another rating system as a stop-gap, then that was very short-sighted and a waste of time.

And we're not talking about some ground-breaking feature. The star rating system has been around from the beginning. The issues related to such a system are well known.

Based on what happened, Apple tried the heart/no-heart rating system, received feedback, and changed direction.

TRYING TO BRING BACK THE SOUL OF STEVE JOBS, WELL IT'S TOO LATE NOW TIM

/s

Honestly makes me want to put the beta on my production phone. I've been lost without the star ratings in my Music app since almost all of my play lists depend on them to populate.

I'm very glad song ratings are back but think it's poorly done. It's too much of a hassle just to view if a song is rated, let alone what that rating might be.

If I'm driving, or at the gym, I don't want to have to click a few times to rate a song or simply view its rating.

I'd love it if the UI more more dynamic and we could turn on meta data so we could see it on the Now Playing screen. Rating, Year Released, etc.

I didn't know about this option till today but there is a widget in the App Store that brings ratings to the widget screen, Music Rating Widget ('https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/music-rating-widget/id971955890?mt=8&at=1l3vm7V').