No Artist Shuffle In iOS 8.4

Apple Tuesday released iOS 8.4, the latest free software update for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The update brought several big changes, but not without a new share of problems.

It seems that users can no longer shuffle all music by a single artist if the user happens to have more than two albums by that artist in their music library. It sounds like some obscure, almost legal jargon-esque dictum, but nevertheless, many iOS 8.4 users are growing increasingly frustrated by this new restriction.

Prior to Tuesday’s update, iOS 8 users were able to shuffle their music freely either by artist, by album, or simply by setting their entire music library to shuffle all songs. Now, for reasons unknown, when users select an artist from their music library, the ‘shuffle’ selection, which normally allows all songs by a particular artist to be played in random order, is sometimes missing. The reason for the issue only occurring sometimes is not. however, random. The ‘shuffle’ selection is present so long as only one or two albums by the artist exist on the user’s device.

Most major and semi-major software updates contain some bugs or other minor issues, and most subsequent software releases attempt to address them. Apple does have a reputation for addressing such issues fairly quickly. But for those whom having ‘artist shuffle’ is a daily necessity, there is a temporary fix. While the method is rather indirect, affected users can still say to Siri, “shuffle (artist),” and Siri will play all songs by said artist in random order.

With the high volume of related complaints circulating online forums these past few days, iOS 8.4 users can likely expect some sort of fix soon. However, only time will tell.

Update:

As it turns out, there is an in-app method of selecting artist shuffle. When in artist view, iOS 8.4 users are able to select an artist, which will bring the user into the artist’s page, where an album or a song can then be selected. However, from the artist view, users can also tap on the small artist picture, which will then start playing all songs by that artist on shuffle. It’s a rather hidden feature that perhaps should not be so hidden, but it does still exist. It is still unclear why an actual ‘shuffle’ selection only shows up for artist with only one or two albums, however.

Author Profile: Consumer Expert Amitabha Sarfati

Amitabha is a freelance writer, editor and actor. His primary focus as part of the Consumer Press writing team is to bring people the latest in gaming news, announcements, tips and rumors. He can be found and followed on Google+ at https://plus.google.com/+AmitabhaSarfati/.