Receiptify, the app that converts your music listening history into a shareable receipt, has been a fan favorite for quite some time now. Although it first became popular among Spotify users, it expanded to Apple Music users to help them see their top songs, artists, and genres in a receipt style. Nonetheless, current changes have made Apple Music users unhappy since Receiptify’s full features cannot be accessed on the platform.
What Changed?
The problem starts with changes made to the Apple Music API (Application Programming Interface). This API is a set of rules and tools that help in developing software applications and this is what Receiptify uses to get and analyze user listening data. Apple Music’s API alterations have limited the amount of information that can be consumed by third-party applications such as Receiptify. Significantly, it no longer offers a breakdown of listening history by time period, which is important for creating custom music receipts.
The Current State of Receiptify on Apple Music
Even though Receiptify continues to interact with Apple Music to a certain extent today, it is in no way comparable to what it used to be. At this time, receipts can only be created from your “Heavy Rotation” playlist. Still, this playlist, which displays your most played tracks, is not very helpful because it does not have the option to sort by time. This limitation implies that Apple Music users cannot be able to create those memorable “yearly wrap-up” style receipts that were once a feature of the app.
User Reactions and the Future
As for the Apple Music users, most of them have given rather negative feedback concerning this challenge and have posted their sentiments on social media and other online platforms. Some have even demanded Apple Music offer a similar in-app feature to what Receiptify does. Despite that, the fate of Receiptify on Apple Music is still unknown, but the developers have already noticed the problem and are working on its possible solutions.
Currently, any regular user of Apple Music might have to access the ‘Replay’ feature within the service to get a view of their history of playing songs. While not as aesthetic as the Receiptify receipts, Replay presents a person’s top songs of the year in a playlist format. Sadly for those who have come to appreciate this form of visual music representation given by Receiptify, there’s only a little to be gained.
Conclusion
The Receiptify and Apple Music situation is a case of the difficulties that third-party apps are likely to encounter with data access through external platforms. Of course, such changes are not good for Apple Music users, but at the same time, it shows that the platforms should seek a balance between data protection and opportunities for using these data.
As we move forward, it remains to be seen how this relationship will evolve, but one thing is for sure: The fans of music, therefore, want a solution that can enable them to continue expressing themselves using their listening history.