As Anders has mentioned, one of the biggest complaints we heard about Sooloos was the queue staying around long past its expiration date-- thousands of tracks, some played or queued months ago, sitting around for no reason. It was extremely jarring when your after-dinner jazz listening was followed by something totally unrelated, queued days ago by someone else in your household.
One of the reasons for the long lasting queue in Sooloos was that it also functioned as a kind of work space – it was where you built playlists, and where you saw your (recent) history. Playlists and history are both real features now, with lots of exciting functionality planned on our roadmap. This let us design a queue implementation that no longer required “clean up”.
While designing the queue, we also recognized a real need to easily pivot to a whole new set of content as your mood changes. Sometimes I’ll wake up and queue something quiet while the coffee brews – folk, jazz, r&b, classical… An hour later, fully caffeinated, I’m getting into a groove with work and I’m ready for something with a little more energy. For better or worse, being able to switch the mood in a single, satisfying click was an experience we prioritized above “I want to interrupt the song, but not the queue”, which for now takes two clicks (Add Next > Next Track).
So, why not include a “Replace Queue” button? Well, we’ve also found that many people don’t even think about the queue. I may spend 10 minutes browsing and queuing the perfect mix of albums for the next couple of hours, but my wife sees what she wants, hits play, and lets Radio do the rest. When she’s ready for something new, she does it again, and she’s never faced with a decision about whether to “replace the queue”, a meaningless distraction for how she listens to music. All the options on the screen make sense to her and me, which was the desired effect.
This isn’t to say anyone’s wrong – we take all of this feedback into consideration and I wouldn’t rule out a change here, but that gives you guys some insight into how this was designed.
A few additional points for all three of you still reading this:
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We are planning a party mode for times when you’re passing around a tablet and can’t expect people to understand the play choices. IMO, Play Now at a party is pretty rude anyway
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Our upcoming 1.2 release will add an undo button to the “12 Tracks Played” notification that pops up (kind of like Gmail), so you have a few seconds to correct your mistake if you accidentally kill your queue