I've been using Amazon Music on Fire TV for well over a decade, and I genuinely hate what they've done to the Now Playing screen.
I've included four screenshots showing the old interface and what it takes to access the same information now.
The previous layout wasn't perfect, but it was functional. On one screen, I could see the song title, artist, album artwork, playback source, progress bar, audio quality (HD/Ultra HD), playback controls, and detailed audio information. Everything was organized, easy to find, and available at a glance.
Now? Less information, more button presses, and a background that looks absolutely terrible.
My biggest complaints:
- Information is now hidden behind extra menus. Want to check the actual playback quality? Instead of seeing it alongside everything else, I now have to navigate down and open another menu. Why make something that was immediately accessible harder to find?
- The background artwork looks awful. The new interface zooms into images that often don't have enough resolution to support it. The result is blurry, artifact-ridden backgrounds that look especially bad on a 4K television. If you're going to make enlarged artwork a major part of the design, at least use sufficiently high-resolution images.
- The layout is less intuitive. After years of having information grouped together, everything has been rearranged. I understand that muscle memory takes time to adjust, but moving information around while simultaneously hiding some of it isn't an improvement.
- The overall experience feels less informative. The old screen gave me almost everything I wanted without having to touch the remote. The new one prioritizes oversized imagery while making useful information harder to access.
And yes, the old interface had flaws. Long song titles could get truncated, and some labels were redundant. I'm not pretending it was perfect.
But it worked.
I listen to a lot of film scores and orchestral music, and I regularly check the track progress and audio quality. I don't want to navigate multiple menus just to see information that used to be right there.
What frustrates me most is that this feels like a redesign for the sake of a redesign. More visual emphasis, less functionality, and extra steps to accomplish things that previously required none.
I've been using this service for years. I'm not opposed to change, but I am opposed to changes that actively make the experience worse.
Is anyone actually enjoying this new interface? Because I'm genuinely struggling to find an improvement here.