BluOS 4.0 still bad design
Answered
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Official comment
We do appreciate your honest and candid feedback Mats
A number of our key decision-making staff are monitoring these posts as always but even more so in the immediate wake of BluOS 4.0.
As a listening company, we try to value our consumer's opinions. We may not answer directly or go in a direction everyone may agree with, but we are reviewing and considering everything people post.
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The new user interface is terrible, Tony - a real step backwards from what was one of the best user experiences out there. Especially problematic on the iPhone, though similar issues on the iPad.
I can't be alone in not needing or wanting "Presets" but there's no way to simply remove it from the Home Screen. The music library should also be the default home screen - or certainly just an option for it to be? - rather than a black screen with a few small tiles on it for "Recently Played", "Most Used" and the aforementioned "Presets" - just too cluttered and frankly ugly and unengaging.
Search is now a tiny button on the bottom of the app - that's not helpful.
And finally - why can't I get rid of TuneIn and Radio Paradise from my Music Services? Don't want them, don't use them, don't want to have to tell the app every time that my preferred option is Library.
Appreciate that your team is looking at replies - the "may not go in a direction everyone may agree with" is troubling, as I don't see many pro- views on here, which hopefully will suggest to the powers that be that the new interface needs to take its consumers' views into account more than just a "well, we designed it, we're attached to it".
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Personally I’m pretty OK with the new design of V4. But I do agree that my own Library needs to be the default one. Pushing streaming services on top feels like the Sonos approach to me. One of the reasons I left Sonos.
One thing that annoys me in V4 is the amount of clicks I need to perform to finally find what I’m looking for. The interface is not intuitive, at least not to me. I should not need a few pages of manual to guide me through how the UX works….
Also, when using the Search function, I need to select the source in the top right, but the pull down menu opens in the bottom left….why??0 -
Strange - my Sonos always brings up my Library as default rather than the streaming services I have subscribed to (including native Apple, but that’s a whole different thread…). The old BluOS interface was on a par with Sonos’ excellent and user-friendly interface, 4.0 is a huge step backwards and results in multiple steps to just get to where you want to be. The almost hidden Search button is a baffling design choice, almost as though it wasn’t beta tested in the real world.
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One thing that I DO like is the playlist. Finally I can actually read what is in the playlist. Also the currently playing song is clearly visible in the playlist. Plus that the playlist no longer keeps adding albums, but seems to clear itself when pressing play to play a new album is something I appreciate.
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Now…..I hope that in the next update also Genres is properly supported for multiple genre albums.
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Wow! This is really bad. Now you truly can't find anything... Lots of CRAP on the screen with little discernable organization... I don't understand this at all!
So, instead of working on something useful (like an android port for FireTV), or improving the organization of their interface, the devs spend their time making a total mess of things. Making a bad design far, far worse...
$0.02
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The UI is absolutely awful. Sorry to be blunt, but man it is bad. Can’t even find where my USB data exists (if it does at all).
If you switch back to the old one, it freezes. Come on, guys. With so many competing options out there, you need to do a lot better. Online reviews of your company are also terrible. You need to fix your reputation.
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Hi Jackie
We have made your USB content easier to find, index and share. Please see; https://support.bluos.net/hc/en-us/articles/360037137354
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That doesn’t help at all. I am not getting any prompts for my USB drive (formatted as NTFS and uses its own power adapter.
The UI is not intuitive at all and the USB port shouldn’t even be there if it doesn’t work,
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Just a horrible rework on an already terrible design...
I listen to NPR every day at the office and yet my interface always insists on telling me "Service timed out after 8 hrs" even after I had shut them down myself the afternoon prior. As a result, I get this warning every morning and always have to click on my preset (which is now littered all over my interface) THREE TIMES (inc the warning) before I can get it to play EVERY MORNING.
Who designed this crap? Who tested it for useability? Som folks in a lab coat no doubt thought this was very flexible and a great interface (check, check, check on the functionality clipboard).
But no one actually used it or tested it. Its a completely dysfunctional mess...
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Bluos 4 is awful. I mean really awful. I've lost my music queue which is so annoying.
The awful welcome defaulting to services I've never used. The pointless movement of buttons and links
Please, get rid of the children designing your software and then leave it alone.
The best thing you could offer is a better Tidal search but I guess that remains for Tidal to do. So annoying ghat we can't search by composer, player/orchestra etc.
But just leave Bluos alone.2 -
Get used to it. None of the official replies indicate that they realize they've made a mess of it. So this is not going to happen.
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Just needed to add.
If you disable the new interface, the search doesn't work so there is no option. Put up with this cr*p.0 -
Tidal Connect is always disconnecting since update - ironic
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Tidal Connect doesn't offer the full Blusound experience that direct control, through the App, gives to streaming through the device itself.
I'm horrified by the total disregard shown by Bluos to these comments. Obviously no body wants to be called as incorrect but. Just offer rollback if you want to ruin an App and never, release updates without external testing.0 -
Update after a few months using the V4 app on iPad and iPhone.
Unfortunately, the more I use the BluOS app, the less I like it. It's just so counter intuitive and the amount of clicks I need to perform before I hear the music I want, is just ridiculous. The V3 app was much, much better in this regard, at least to me.
Anyway, I have not the time nor the energy to rant and start listing all the flaws, they are listed here above already. So let me try to be constructive and list a few improvement proposals that do not radically change the way the app is now, but at least covers the most obvious annoyances:
1. On screen 'Home': make Presets scrollable, just like Recent Stations, Recently Played, etc. Presets are there to be able to do a quick selection of the station you want to hear. Should be a one-button approach. I do not understand why I first need to click 'show all'.
2. On screen 'Favourites': show ALL favourites, regardless the source (but listed per source). Get rid of the source selection in the top right corner.
3. On screen 'Search': same like 2); when I do a search, I want the app to search in ALL sources. And I want to be able to list the results in a user selectable way (like it's done on Home and Favourites screen).
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I would really like to have light theme as well and it to follow system
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A year ago I bought my NAD C368 with the BluOS module insert (rather than the Audiolab 6000N etc.) because I was persuaded that BluOS was the Bees Knees. My NAD / Qobuz / BluOS setup produces wonderful sound quality thru KEF R3s and more music choice than I'll need in a lifetime. My disappointment (functional design apart) is the BluOS software Quality Assurance testing before release is noticeably lacking, particularly since v.4 came about. Some glaring obvious bugs appeared that should have been noticed before release. They were tidied up over several sub releases, which seemed rushed and clumsy, not to mention un-professional and undoubtedly reputationally damaging. Not quite the Bee Knees I was sold on? Come on BluOS, your (apparently) good previous reputation is evaporating. Take a look over your shoulder BluOS!
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