Must the Mac Interface be So Bad?

[fwhipple]

I've been complaining a lot about Spotify recently, so I may as well get it all out.

First of all, it's important for Spotify to know I was a huge fan, signed-up for the premium account, and even as I hear more and more features make it into the free account, I've been happy to pay for the "premium" experience.

Unfortunately, Spotify has made a lot of really annoying changes recently and it's turning me off to Spotify in general.  Today's topic:  The new Mac interface.  I'm not sure if they broke the Windows interface the same way, but the new interface is just....  stupid design.  It doesn't look like a Mac application anymore -- nothing like it.  Just a big blob of black.  The fonts or leading have been changed -- everything looks like it's inverse bold font with HHHUUUGGEEEE leading in between lines in any sort of list.  It just looks stupid, like the Duplo version of Spotify.  No surprise -- Spotify didn't see fit to make ugly interfaces optional; i.e., no options to change the interface whatsoever in Settings.

Spotify, you had just a good thing going.  I don't know which genius in your organization started pounding the table screaming "Let's screw-up everything!!!" but unfortunately you're letting him/her win.  Let's see if we can't get back to a nice, clean, native-looking interface with reasonable use of screen real estate --- and for God's sake, bring back the bloody stars.

[mdewater]

While I agree there's definitely some changes to be made with the new update, I don't think the overall aesthetic design is one of them. The color choices, the shapes, the fonts... it all looks like it was designed in 2014, as it should. It's modern and clean.

[AbsolutelyNoFB]

If you want to see a video of just why the Spotify client so often is a pile of junk, full of bugs and bad design, take a peek at this video that describes the Spotify engineering culture. Basically there is no accountability, no central control, no coordination. Teams can do dumb stuff and fail without any consequences. There is no quality control. The client has multiple teams working on different parts of the client, so the client may not work well as a cohesive whole. Etc, etc, etc.

[AbsolutelyNoFB]

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@mdewater wrote:

While I agree there's definitely some changes to be made with the new update, I don't think the overall aesthetic design is one of them. The color choices, the shapes, the fonts... it all looks like it was designed in 2014, as it should. It's modern and clean.

---

This is really not true at all. Because Spotify ships with its own fonts and rendering (it is basically the Chrome web browser), often times it doesn't mesh with the native system very well. Fonts and font spacing are one area that ever since Spotify stopped making a native client, have never worked the way they should for many people.

The older clients were "modern and clean" to a much greater extent than Spotify's more recent clients. And blazingly fast without subtracting features such as filtering/search. While the latest client did bring back a dark theme (thank you, Spotify), it didn't do so in an elegant useful manner. And without the support of themes, I can't use a dark theme at night and a lighter theme during the day.

The irony of Spotify's move to the browser is that it made themes very simple and easy as the browser engine (HTML/CSS/Javascript/etc.) can handle the heavy lifting. But Spotify doesn't support themes any longer. Themes would make Spotify more personal encouraging product/subscriber loyalty and provided a way to solve many UI issues -- too dark, too light, fonts too small, fonts too big, etc.

[richcookin]

maaan, you are so right;

ex:

a black slider on a black bgnd--that is just so awful!

when a song is highlighted, its highlighted now with a black tint---omg!!!!

all the movement within in the player is now "cloudlike" which means its lagging;

i just cant believe they ruined what at lest used to be practical and things could be read;

oh guys--they call this "minimilist";

uggh-dat is mome terrible taste!!!

[Zeppelin]

I agree it not as good as the PC version & the iOS is really crap and not what I expect as a premium user !!!! 😬😬
When listing my music on left I get the annoying list of tracks within that playlist on the right which is new and now I can see how to get rid of it - I just want to either see my playlists or the tracks within when I select a playlist one or the other Spotify NOT BOTH - get your GUI designers down to Spec savers !!!!!