Presto Music 4+

I thought I should update my review now that I have used Presto Streaming for nearly a year. I love the clean tidy layout of the app, and the various ways to find music are ideal for classical music, including by label which is such a treat. Some inconsistencies though - why not able to sort/filter my collection by composer, genre, etc, why only grid view in new releases. I discovered something today though. also have an Apple Music subs at present and I offlined an album which is the equivalent of 5 cds at 24 bit 96kHz and it takes up about 4gb on my iPad. The same album (with highest quality set in the app) in Presto Streaming only takes up about 312mb - unlikely. And I can say the sound quality playing this from the Presto app is poor, although bizarrely my DAC still says it’s getting 96kHz. Can’t explain it but I can hear it.

However I did get one of the Presto Music Streamer puck and I love it. I have connected it via optical to my hifi system and it performs flawlessly and the sound is fantastic. The iOS app is a great remote and a joy to use, improved maybe by my comments above re general navigation and filtering etc.

Excellent in many ways, but a significant and frustrating issue on iPads with face recognition is that when playing an album the music progress bar is too close to the bottom of the screen and is partially covered by the iPad’s app changer bar. Swiping up to change to another app while listening results in the track resetting. It also makes moving through the track almost impossible. Disappointing that this issue has not been fixed in any of the recent updates. It’s not a problem on iPhone.

The upgrade prioritises streaming, which I don’t use and never will. I have bought a large collection of downloads in the past which could be easily accessed on the original version but which are now consigned to a hidden page you have select options to get to. Each time you leave the App and return to it you have to repeat all your previous steps, it doesn’t remember anything. Purchased recordings are still not sorted by composer or artist (only by title or when purchased) which isn’t much use to a serious classical collector. If I want to read articles I’d do that via the website, not through the App. The earlier version wasn’t perfect but it was simpler and didn’t have so many unnecessary functions. Please make this App better for the user who purchases recordings and wishes to access their collection more efficiently.