Seeking experiences with Apple Music and "Will it work for me?"

[john uhoh]

I would love to start using an Apple Music subscription and adding albums to my library instead of buying the albums individually. My hope is to integrate the 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 have over 25,000 songs, which I understand means that I can't download for offline use on my iPod Touch until Apple increases this capacity limit
- 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 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

 

[crankerchick]

I use Apple Music in all the ways you describe. I started with iTunes Match and had my fair share of incorrect matches when it launched, as well as updating of play counts and last played not being logged properly. When iOS 7 launched, most of these issues were resolved for me (a few incorrect matches persisted) and I began using the service in earnest on all my devices everyday. Now with Apple Music, I add music I haven't purchased and it all integrates with the existing library since I enabled iCloud music library. I listen to and rate songs and my smart playlists include these songs as long as they are in the library. I have smart playlists like songs from a certain genre that are rated 5 stars that haven't been played in 30 days and this works fine. There are quirks in how Apple chooses to update play counts and last played from iOS devices in that the sync isn't instant. It takes 12 hours and playing a song to completion after the 12 hours has lapsed to trigger a sync of the play history to the cloud library, but it does work flawlessly for me as they have designed it to work. This only matters if you have multiple devices of course.

I haven't hit the 25k limit yet so I can't speak to that.

I haven't found a song in my library with modified tags but I had over 15k songs prior to ITunes Match and almost 20k prior to Apple Music so I haven't checked all of them of course. Make sure to have a backup of your library and physical music files before you turn on iCloud Music Library if you are worried. There have been stories.

If the service correctly matches your song then you will have the right version of the song whether you download or stream. You can create a smart playlist to show your matched music to see what songs were recognized and matched and verify they are the right versions before you download for offline use. That's a lot of music to check though. Incorrect matches happen but I don't really know how to fix it since so far since the iTunes Match launch I e only had a few and most recently with Apple Music I've had just one album match to a live album and it wasn't one I cared about so I didn't bother to complain about it. I just deleted it from my library and went into Apple Music library and added the right version that way.

I'm enjoying the integration and would say make a backup of your library file and physical media and then give it a try.

I've been using the service daily since the launch and while it wasn't without it's bugs, it has improved behind the scenes a lot (lots if server side fixes) and I would say for the last month I have experienced very few bugs and crashes and am really enjoying the integrated experience.

 

[Tartarus]

Seeking experiences with Apple Music and "Will it work for me?"

I would love to start using an Apple Music subscription and adding albums to my library instead of buying the albums individually. My hope is to integrate the new albums from Apple Music with my existing library.

That's no problem and it goes seamlessly. It's very easy

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?

I do l and there is no distinction between music you own and songs from Music. It's the same way as you are already used to.

Can anyone comment on this list of things that are holding me back:
- I have over 25,000 songs, which I understand means that I can't download for offline use on my iPod Touch until Apple increases this capacity limit

Just add your music to Music anyway. When the 25k is raised to 100k it will upload and match the rest of the songs automatically.

- I'm worried that iCloud Music Library will overwrite my tags

It won't. Tags get only overwritten if you delete songs from your library and redownload it from the cloud. You're safe. But make sure to have a backup, just in case.

- I'm worried that iCloud Music Library will play the wrong versions of my songs when I download for offline use

That only happens if there are multiple versions of the same song. You can avoid this by adding a suffix to the title tag. I.e. (My version), (right version), (play this) or any other text.
Be sure to do this before you upload that song to iCloud Music Library. Once it's matched, it won't matter how you rename that song, it will link to the wrong version on your iDevices. If that's the case, just delete the song from iCloud Music Library and iTunes and add it back. But like I said, make sure it's deleted on both your iTunes and iCloud Music Library.

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

just give it a shot. It won't let you down. Frankly, I hated both Deezer and Spotify and loved Music from the start.

Thanks for reading and for your help.

J

You're welcome

 

[Hendri Hendri]

What I wish on apple music :

1. Need seriously update and add activities playlist
2. Nice to have music video, but please, add the list and also the quality is really bad if we play in huge screen

Posted via the iMore App for Android