music

Duel of the Defaults: My List

Episode 097 of the Hemispheric Views podcast held a fun Duel of the Defaults! competition.

Here’s my list. I’ve really shifted to defaults over the past year. I’m conflicted about this: I really like a good indie app, yet find my needs don’t justify the complexity of using non-defaults.

  • ✉️ Mail Client: Apple Mail
  • 📨 Mail Server: iCloud Custom Email Domain
  • 📝 Notes: Apple Notes
  • ✅ To-Do: Reminders
  • 📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: Camera.app
  • 📚 Photo Management: Photos.app
  • 🗓️ Calendar: Calendar.app
  • 🗄️ Cloud file storage: iCloud
  • 📰 RSS: NetNewsWire connected to Feedbin
  • 📇 Contacts: Contacts.app
  • 🕸️ Browser: Safari
  • 💬 Chat: iMessage, WhatsApp
  • 🔖 Bookmarks: Micro.blog
  • 👓 Read It Later: Micro.blog
  • 📜 Word Processing: Pages
  • 📊 Spreadsheets: Numbers
  • 🛝 Presentations: Keynote
  • 🛒 Shopping Lists: Reminders
  • 🧑‍🍳 Meal Planning: None
  • 💰 Budgeting & Personal Finance: ScotiaBank app
  • 🗞️ News: The Economist
  • 🎶 Music: Apple Music
  • 🎧 Podcasts: Overcast (though testing Podcasts.app again)
  • 🔐 Password Management: 1Password (likely changing to iCloud Keychain)

This didn’t last long. When using Apple Podcasts to listen to Apple Music radio, you don’t see album art and can’t easily add music to your library. Discovery is my main use case. So, though I like the idea of this integration, in practice it doesn’t suit my needs 🎵

🎶 After a last scrobble on Dec 4 2007, I’ve resurrected my Last FM account and connected it to the Albums app. This should encourage me to listen to more complete albums, while also tracking what I’m listening to. I’ll keep using the Apple Music app for those “in between moments” when I don’t have an album queued up

Listening to Apple Music Activity Playlists for a week 🎶

As an experiment, I spent the past week listening only to the Activity Playlists in Apple Music. So, whatever I was doing, I picked the most closely related playlist.

Often these were straightforward. Cooking dinner with help from the kids: Cooking with Family; triaging the morning inbox of email: Checking Email; mind mapping a project: Brainstorming.

Other times it was more mood oriented. Reading by the fire when it is -20ºC: Winter; augmenting an early Wednesday morning coffee: Wake Me Up!.

Overall, the playlists are good.

The ones I listened to are meaningfully distinct from each other and the song choices do match the general mood of the activity. Just as one example, although their names are quite close, I did get different vibes from the Deep Focus, Peaceful Focus, and Creative Focus playlists.

In general the song choices are, not surprisingly, oriented towards the pop genres. That said, they aren’t just a collection of current hits. Playlists include some old gems and more obscure songs. Clearly, the songs were chosen with care and not strictly driven by machine learning algorithms.

One unanticipated side effect of this was that the rest of the family noted how much better the music was in the kitchen. No more of that “weird Dad music” 🙄. I take some consolation in the knowledge that in about ten years they’ll rediscover and appreciate these “classic songs” and finally realize that, in fact, I do have good musical tastes.

Although the music is generally good, discoverability is terrible. MacStories pointed this out and created a very helpful Shortcut for grouping and playing these playlists. Even when you select “See All” from the Just Ask Siri section, Apple Music shows some random selection of the playlists. I haven’t noticed any particular pattern of which ones are displayed and can’t understand why Apple is making it so difficult to browse them. Maybe they’re still experimenting?

I never did find reasons to listen to many of the playlists, like the whole series for Zodiac signs or the one for square dancing. This just shows the diversity of playlists available and, again, points out the problem with discoverability.

This was a successful experiment that forced me to actually experience the feature. That said, I wouldn’t want to continue relying on only these playlists. I’ll keep using them when I can’t be bothered to carefully choose an album or playlist and just want something appropriate to the mood or activity, which surely is the whole point of them anyway.

I added a HomePod to the newly renovated house. The sound quality is definitely as good as advertised and I appreciate the Apple Music integration 🎶. Siri has worked just fine for me so far, though I only really use it for reminders and calendar events.