Rampant developer disregard in Amazon music!

By Diego Garibay, 28 November, 2019

Forum
Accessibility Advocacy

I have submitted very detailed feedback to Amazon about their Amazon music app. They know it is very in accessible. They have been made aware many different times through their appropriate channels how they can fix it. The latest update completely broke accessibility! The buttons are not labeled, the player will not come back if you press on the right part of the screen. Basically they took it from slightly annoying to completely impossible. They did this after being informed exactly what was wrong with it before and how they could fix it. This is one of the only applications that I have had this problem with from Amazon! I believe it may be the developer team and their ignorance. they are unwilling to change their application because other features have taken presidents, I know it is still growing but it must be made accessible. I have been very polite during my interactions, I have explained exactly what is wrong but nothing changes. any help will be greatly appreciated. Honestly, I don’t know what else we can do.

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Comments

By Paul on Monday, November 25, 2019 - 00:54

One thing you can do is decide not to subscribe to Amazon Music anymore. You could also encourage others to boycott Amazon Music. Personally, I’d never waste my time with music streaming services with inaccessible apps because unlike video streaming services, music streaming services usually have a much broader selection of content and there isn’t just one service available. It’s also important to realize that fixes can take a while to reach the user.

By Daniel Angus M… on Monday, November 25, 2019 - 00:54

AppleMusic works grate, and works on iOS, iPad os,macos, and possibly tvOS. the interface is easy use, and it is available with a three month trial.

Daniel

By Diego Garibay on Monday, November 25, 2019 - 00:54

The fixes I reported happened about two months ago. It would make sense if nothing changed but, they made it worse. Also, of course I’ll vote with my wallet! After my three month free trial is up I am not subscribing.

By Endarion on Monday, November 25, 2019 - 00:54

Hi!
As has been pointed out, Apple Music has excellent accessibility. Google Play Music also does a relatively good job, although swiping backwards will sometimes displace focus. Then again, I believe Google is phasing this one out in favor of YouTube Music, which in my opinion does everything right in terms of accessibility. All in all, Google is currently doing an amazing job in terms of accessible iOS apps.
Please note that the part about phasing out Google Play Music is just an educated guess on my part.
All the best,
Endarion

By Kristen on Monday, November 25, 2019 - 00:54

I guess that answers a question on whether I should try out Amazon Music - I think I get it for free since I am an Amazon Prime member.

We, as a family, currently subscribe to Spotify, so I haven't really felt the need to try out Amazon Music. We have Spotify because my husband has an Android and Spotify works on both, where as I don't believe Apple Music will work on naything but an IOS/Apple product.

By Holger Fiallo on Monday, November 25, 2019 - 00:54

I use my Alexa to play music from amazon. I do not use the app. Works well and if I want to play music, I have close to 300 albums that I can play.

By Ekaj on Monday, November 25, 2019 - 00:54

You might've already done this, but here's another suggestion. I don't know if you have the Alexa iOS app, but I do and in my opinion it is much more accessible with VoiceOver than it was when I first got my Echo and the app. So perhaps writing to Amazon and telling them that since they've done such a nice job with their Alexa app for iOS, you'd think they could make their music app accessible as well. I can't say I've done much with Amazon's music service yet, as I only got the Echo for my birthday at the beginning of the year, but I'm eager to try it out. Btw, I definitely agree about Apple Music.

By J.P. on Monday, November 25, 2019 - 00:54

While Amazon Music has quirks, it is mostly accessible. There are a few unlabeled buttons. Some you just need to pass for voice over to register and read. I have no issues hiding and expanding player. I’m running latest version from a few days ago.

By KE7ZUM on Monday, November 25, 2019 - 00:54

Use spotify. It's better and quality of music is grate, plus it works nicely with the djay app I use.

By Diego Garibay on Monday, November 25, 2019 - 00:54

I am so glad they managed to fix that issue with a player. I’ll definitely try it out again and let you all know.

Apple Music is actually available in a lot of places, not just Apple devices. There's an android app, Echo and Sonos speakers, Windows (via iTunes), and there's even a web player, although I think it's still in beta. I haven't tried any of these, although it would be interesting to see, for instance, how accessible the android app is compared to iOS. AM is the only streaming service I've used because it's already on iOS. It's a good thing that there are several alternatives though.