Many questions regarding Apple Music...

[crankerchick]

Many questions reguarding Apple Music...

Ok so the cellular option in Settings > iTunes & App Store definitely applies to streaming and not just downloads. I just confirmed it today. I don't know how much more plain it can get than to just toggle that and it won't allow you to stream over cellular. It will let you browse Apple Music, it just will prompt you to enable cellular to actually play music. Between that and the option to actually only show music available offline, it's pretty easy to make sure you don't use data. The setting to show only offline music used to be in settings, making it inconvenient to toggle on and off. Having it right in the music app means you can disable cellular streaming always and then toggle between showing offline music only when you are away from wifi.

Looking forward to having the option in iOS 9 that looks like we will be able to break this away from being linked to automatic downloads for updates and apps.

It's not something I'll use often but I'll want the option to do it to be isolated to only the music app like it used to be before iOS 8.4.


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[vesperdem]

Re: Many questions reguarding Apple Music...

I've been having more and more success with Apple Music now. I have a better understanding of how music that you put on your desktop is to become available to the iPhone and other devices.

I found out that music has to be either on Apple's server as an Apple Music track, or uploaded to iCloud Music Library in order to be accessible on your iDevice. I attempted to put tracks into a playlist and was told that only tracks in the iCloud Music Library can be added to an iCloud Music Library Playlist.

I'm concerned that the music I have downloaded from my Amazon cloud backup don't appear to be uploading to the iCloud Music Library. iTunes shows the status "Waiting" but I have to specifically select tracks and select "Add to iCloud Music Library" in order for those tracks to get uploaded.

I've tried Spotify, Deezer and Google Music, but none of them were as I wished they should have been.

I've finished telling Spotify about the songs I want access to and have downloaded the songs that are not available on Spotify so that they are listed in Spotify's Local Files list. I think I understand what you were saying about it now working as you wished it would.

The "local files" songs are totally separate from the songs you selected as "Saved". This is stupid. If I want to play all songs from a band and 9 albums are in my "Saved" list and one was downloaded to my computer and is in the Local Files list, there is no way to play them all at the same time with out creating a playlist and adding all the tracks.

Apple and iTunes has a much better interface for this and makes the tracks all visible at the same time.

Spotify has a "Filter" option in it's menus that just do absolutely nothing. In fact, there is no way to search the music you have told Spotify you want saved in order to find some music to add to a playlist.

If you have a small list of songs you want to listen to, then Spotify is fine, but if you have a large number you want to see, it's just horrible.

It feels like Spotify wrote a beta client and then said it's good enough and that was that.

In my "comparison contest", Apple has just taken the lead and is pretty far ahead of Spotify.

 

[Tartarus]

Many questions reguarding Apple Music...

Nice to see you have finally figured out Apple Music. I know it's not the easiest thing to do, but once you know how it works, you start to appreciate the way it does work. I'm talking in general of course.

I have deleted Google Play Music Manager from my desktop a few minutes ago, as it was only uploading just a fraction of my music in my iTunes library. I had deleted my entire music library on Google Music, just to add my iTunes library back again and although I did so twice already, it didn't upload all of my songs. I was using the free Google service for Music, as I was never planning on paying for it anyway.

But somehow I am willing to pay for Apple Music as I already said earlier. It's funny how Apple makes people do what they didn't hold for possible

The only option I miss is auto saving 'Loved' for offline playback. My workaround is to save all loved songs in a playlist I have enabled 'Make Available Offline' for. I only have to sort on loved songs on iTunes on my desktop from time to time and add it to said playlist. My phone then automatically saves all songs offline.

 

[Tartarus]

Re: Many questions reguarding Apple Music...

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Have a look at this topic. I'm sure you will like it
http://forums.imore.com/showthread.php?t=335302

 

[vesperdem]

Re: Many questions reguarding Apple Music...

The only option I miss is auto saving 'Loved' for offline playback. My workaround is to save all loved songs in a playlist I have enabled 'Make Available Offline' for. I only have to sort on loved songs on iTunes on my desktop from time to time and add it to said playlist. My phone then automatically saves all songs offline.

Can't you make a Smart Playlist saying "Loved" "is True". I don't know about automatically downloading the tracks to an iPhone, but at least the playlist will be available. I'm trying it now, but I haven't tried adding new "Loved" tracks and seeing if the iPhone will download the new Loved tracks.

 

[Tartarus]

Re: Many questions reguarding Apple Music...

I had to be more clear. I meant loved songs from my own Library, not from Radio or Apples playlists.

And I haven't figured out Smart Playlists yet. I'm still in the progress of tagging and adding my brothers complete library to my own on my desktop.
He hates tags and I love tags, so I have to go album by album, tag them with musicbrainz Picard software. If the album's not known there then I have to check it on discogs using the tag&rename software. After doing that I have to compare the tags with iTunes to see if it's the same.

 

[vesperdem]

Re: Many questions reguarding Apple Music...

I had to be more clear. I meant loved songs from my own Library, not from Radio or Apples playlists.

That's what I am talking about too. I have several tracks that I have flagged as "Loved". I just created the Smart Playlist, changed the "Artist" pull down to "Loved". The "is True" was the default and clicked OK.

I haven't had a chance to add new "Loved" tracks and see if they show and are downloaded for offline playback. I'm still uploaded hundreds of tracks to the iCloud Music Library. That pretty much saps my internet's bandwidth.

 

[Tartarus]

Re: Many questions reguarding Apple Music...

I don't see an option to create a smart playlist on iTunes. I only have this

 

[vesperdem]

Re: Many questions reguarding Apple Music...

If you switch to the "Playlist" tab next to My Music at the top of the iTunes window, you should see a column on the left side. At the bottom of that column, there should be a "+" and a gear. The "+" is where you can add a Playlist, Smart Playlist and new Playlist Folder (don't know what those are yet).

 

[Tartarus]

Re: Many questions reguarding Apple Music...

Thanks, I remember seeing those options yeah. I will check it out

 

[Tartarus]

Re: Many questions reguarding Apple Music...

Thanks a lot about those Smart Playlists. It saves me a lot of time now.

 

[crankerchick]

Many questions reguarding Apple Music...

SmartPlaylists are why I needed Apple to do Apple Music. I have a loved smart playlist just as vesperdem described. I have dozens of them based on ratings, last played, never played, genre, year, etc.

Examples:
Never Played for a genre: Play count = 0, genre = some genre
Self explanatory

Not recently played: genre is some genre, last played is not within x days, rating is greater than 4
Plays my 5 rated songs that I haven't listened to in the last x days. Crucial for shuffling my favorite music, leaving the playlist to listen to something else, and then going back to the playlist later. I won't hear in the shuffle music I already heard I left the playlist before getting through the rest of the playlist. This is especially crucial right now since the app can't seem to remember what was queued up sometimes.

Favorite artist shuffle: artists is , rating is greater than 3
For my favorite artists, whom I own multiple albums for. This is especially helpful right now since there's a bug getting the app to show the shuffle button for artists that have more than 2 albums in the library.
Classic music: genre is , year is less than , rating is greater than 3
Plays my favorite songs from would be "classics". Beats trying to build a playlist from scratch of "classic rock". You just add songs to library and rate them. You have to fix the year of the song in iTunes if the song is coming from a greatest hits album or something and the year is off.

Using Google Music, Spotify, any of those is a little painful when you have to build your playlists one song at a time knowing that iTunes can do it smartly for me.

I need Apple To squash the bugs in this app so I can finally have any song I ever want to listen to working with smart playlists. I have at least 20 smart playlists that make deciding what I want to listen to easy.



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[Tartarus]

Many questions reguarding Apple Music...

I gave Smartlists a go yesterday but somehow all songs appeared on iTunes in the list, but not on the phone.

Ie: I had a playlist 'Rated 5*' and on my desktop it was 165 songs and on my phone it was 163. I didn't get that. I tried figuring it out, but it was tiresome. So I will wait till all bugs are squashed and give it a go later.

I have the feeling there is opened a new world for me with Smart Playlists.

I love Greatest Hits albums like everyone else does, but never buy them anymore. I find that the original song most of the time sounds better. It gives that nostalgic feeling when listening to it.
When I have a original song, a (few) remix(es) and a revised new version of the song, I listen to all of them and then uncheck the box thingie next to it in iTunes to avoid playing it when shuffling that artist. Apple Music on my phone plays those songs anyway, so I am gonna create a Smartlist to exclude unchecked songs from being played. But as I said, I'm waiting till al bugs are squashed.

Thanks for the tips. That's what I love about this forum. We all learn from each other.

 

[crankerchick]

Many questions reguarding Apple Music...

I'm not sure what makes smart playlists have different song amounts on desktop and phone but I've seen it long before Apple music. I'm not sure it's an Apple music "bug" or just a longstanding bug (or some thing Apple thinks is a "feature"). Smart Playlists update live on the phone, though, so it isn't uncommon for them to be out of sync at times between devices (and especially now with Match/iCloud library and the delay in updates to the library from iOS devices for play count and last played). Your example doesn't fall into that category, but some condition on the phone is causing the list not to update.

I don't buy greatest hits CDs either, but with older music on streaming services sometimes you find that is all that's available. I listen to a lot of classic r&b and Rock and see it all the time.

My wish in this area is for the matching to get where the service knows that a song on album release and the same song on a compilation are the same. That way if the song plays from an apple music playlist, it will count it in the play count no matter what album it plays from.

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[Tartarus]

Re: Many questions reguarding Apple Music...

Yeah but it's weird it's not the same song amount across my iPhone and desktop, because I have exact the same library on both. I'm OCD, so I will stay on 'dumb' playlists for now.

 

[crankerchick]

Re: Many questions reguarding Apple Music...

I'm very meticulous about my library and my tags, especially since my smart playlists depend on them. The benefit of using them for me outweighs the instances where I see discrepancies.


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[Tartarus]

Re: Many questions reguarding Apple Music...

Yeah, it seems like you figured Smart Playlists out completely. I, on the other hand, didn't even know what it was till yesterday. So until I decide to figure it out on a day, I'll stay old fashioned.

 

[vesperdem]

Re: Many questions reguarding Apple Music...

Something to be aware of with regards to artists discographies and Apple Music.

Apple Music does not show the Artists entire discography even when displaying the artists page and click on the Albums link. There seems to be a maximum of 25 albums that are displayed no matter what. They missing albums are in Apple's collection, just not displayed on the screen.

I find this dumbfounding since it's possible to display hundreds of songs that seem to take iTunes a serious amount of time to download to your computer for display. Displaying albums would take much less data to send.

It makes adding albums to a collection difficult since searching for albums can be problematic if the name is short or common.

 

[Tartarus]

Re: Many questions reguarding Apple Music...

I haven't encountered this yet

 

[vesperdem]

Re: Many questions reguarding Apple Music...

Search for Queen in Apple's library. Trust me when I say that there are way more than 25 albums in their collection. Other bands to check, Genesis, Electric Light Orchestra, Alan Parsons Project.