Jason Yuan, writing for Medium’s Startup Grind:
Earlier this year I applied and interviewed for a graphic design internship at Apple Music (an opportunity of a lifetime), and was turned down with a very kind letter stating that although they liked my work, they wanted to see more growth and training.
At first, I was frustrated — Northwestern University doesn’t offer any sort of undergraduate graphic design program, so whatever growth they were looking for would have to be self taught…
…but as soon as I came to this realization, I became inspired to embark on what became a a three-month long journey to the holy grail — the iOS app that Apple Music deserves.
We don’t often link to concept pieces, but Yuan’s work is well worth a look. Besides the clean, elegant visual updates found here, one of the most interesting segments in the piece concerns a proposed new music discovery method called ‘My Sampler.’ The idea is that users can sample short clips of songs and either swipe down to add a song to their library or swipe up if they don’t like it. Yuan does a great job of showing how this type of gamification through gestures could be a welcome addition to the iOS Music app.