Is Apple Music ready for me to use the way I want to use it?

[john uhoh]

I would love to start using Apple Music and adding albums to my library through subscription instead of buying albums individually, but I've held off until now due to the nightmares some people have had with their libraries and integration between Apple Music and their local library with iCloud Music Library.

My hope is that with the newest iTunes, iOS 10 and the year that Apple has had to improve Apple Music that now may be the time to try Apple Music to integrate new albums from Apple Music with my existing library.

I do most of my listening via smart playlists (randomized playlists combining my favourite rated tunes, with newly acquired music, with music I haven't listened to in a long time, etc.) and would like to have the Apple Music albums that I add to my library integrated into that smart playlist approach as I do for the rest of my library, including ratings. Is anyone doing this successfully?

Can anyone comment on this list of things that are holding me back:
- I want to download playlists for offline use on my devices rather than use my data plan to stream
- I'm worried that iCloud Music Library will overwrite my tags
- I'm worried that iCloud Music Library will play the wrong versions of my songs when I download for offline use

I'm seeking some experiences from the community on whether Apple Music is usable as I've described above, if I should continue to wait it out for a few more months before trying Apple Music, or if I should just give up on trying to integrate.

Thanks for reading and for your help.

J

 

[Tartarus]

- Downloading for offline use works great.
- I have not seen this happening on any of my 8466 songs in my library
- This issue is not so major as it was in the beginning. Apple uses a new algorithm to match music.

I'm quite experienced with AppleMusic and I'd say just give it a try. But not before you make a backup of your entire library on an external hard disk, just to be safe.

 

[Ledsteplin]

But remember, offline music will take up storage space on your device. Maybe a playlist or two offline, depending on your available space.

 

[john uhoh]

Thanks very much to both of you.

I have time machine and i did a separate backup of everything yesterday so I might go for it.

No worries with offline music taking up space. I sync the old fashioned way today so my music takes up space on my phone / iPod / iPad.

 

[Joniwe]

I was just told that there is no legal way to download Apple Music or rip Apple Music to plain MP3, how can the software like Apple Music Converter survive?

 

[Rob Phillips]

I was just told that there is no legal way to download Apple Music or rip Apple Music to plain MP3, how can the software like Apple Music Converter survive?

Removing DRM from music is illegal unless you OWN the music. Subscribing to Apple Music doesn't give you ownership over its music. As such, software like Apple Music Converter shouldn't survive if it relies on music downloaded from Apple Music.

 

[malt1977]

I'm glad I stumbled on this thread, I've been toying with the idea of using Apple Music again...I tried it when it first came out and was unfortunate enough to have it mess up my library.

I'll do a backup and give it a whirl.