I am Flabbergasted at Apple Music

By Hayden, 9 March, 2018

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

I have trouble imagining I'm the only person who has had this happen--repeatedly--to me. I add an album to my library, and I go to play this album later, only to find that it no longer exists; instead, the songs in it have been redistributed into other albums--mainly compilations--which I never added. Or, the album exists with some of its songs, but others have been redistributed in this way. To add to this, it is not uncommon for me to discover that, despite a song title being present, the song is not available to play. In some cases, there have been enough such songs that the album is nearly useless. Has anyone discovered a way to fix either issue?

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Comments

By themusicman08 on Monday, March 26, 2018 - 02:15

Someware I might start is reporting this to Apple. I haven't had Apple Music's service since Ios 9. Maybe also look around and see if other folks have reported this issue or ask why this is happening to you.

By Derrick on Monday, March 26, 2018 - 02:15

It’s licensing. Sometimes they don’t have the rights to stream. Sometimes things have to be purchased

By Adam M on Monday, March 26, 2018 - 02:15

Hello,
I have noticed the same things with my music managed by Apple. Tracks change position within a compilation, or disappear entirely.
A poster in this thread was absolutely correct, it is a licensing issue.

I have always kept my most valuable music, as I have acquired it, in MP3, FLAC, and wav, stored completely separate, and permissions-isolated from iTunes and the Apple machine.

As far as my every day music, I put up with it these days with an Apple Music subscription, a sacrifice of convenience.

Way back, 15 years ago, when iTunes was new, and competing with Music Match, I refused to switch to iTunes, just for this reason.
It would re-organize my music, and not in the way I expected.
Music Match did much the same thing, but provided controls on how the organization took place.

It only got worse with iTunes Match, where a person's library of metadata got uploaded to Apple's servers, and they served back their recommendation of how the files should be organized, including messing with folder structures, Not to mention compression-heavy re-encoding of the audio.

In the present, I have surrendered myself to Apple Music, and I do realize that my music experience through them is a holely licensed one.
I don't have room to store 40 million songs, but Apple does. And I can access it on any of my Apple devices.
This is why I surrender to them.
However, You don't have to entirely surrender to them.
For the pieces of music that you hold dear, those you love, you can exclude them from your iTunes library. You can hold on to them just as the files that they are.

However, the reality of the situation of music is, it is very quickly becoming a service, rather than an owned object or file.
Music is a service, and no longer a physical object, or even tangible file.
These days, it is becoming more and more controlled by large companies. What we can and cannot listen to, when we can or cannot listen, how we listen to it, on what players, and in what formats, and especially, non-choice in how it is compressed and presented.

My final words on this subject:
Maintain your own music collection independently and isolated from any sort of music management application, especially iTunes.
As far as new music, stuff you don't know, but just might be interested in, Apple Music, along with many other services may be worth while.
But the stuf you really and truly care about, be sure to obtain the highest encoded quality and file version of it, and completely isolate and store it far far away from iTunes.

By Ekaj on Monday, March 26, 2018 - 02:15

I've tried signing up for a free trial of Apple Music, but once I log in with my Apple ID I've always been asked for some sort of payment. I think there's perhaps some trick to Apple Music that hasn't been revealed yet, lol! Perhaps it's just a gimmick to get people to purchase Apple's products and services. Regarding the order of tracks, this has happened to me as well even with no Apple Music subscription. But it only seems to happen with tracks that I attempt to label manually. I asked on an email discussion list, and the person who replied to me said that this issue is resolved by numbering the tracks each time. But even after I do that the order is still messed up. But other than that I've had no issues with iTunes.

By sockhopsinger on Monday, March 26, 2018 - 02:15

Of course they are going to want credit card information. After all, as soon as your trial period ends, unless you go in and cancel your subscription you will be charged. They need a card for that, and they're not going to give you a trial without one.

By Hayden on Monday, March 26, 2018 - 02:15

To whomever it was that posted regarding licencing, that is an interesting concept here--namely, that track 7 of a 15 track album is alone restricted from being streamed due to licencing. I suppose that is possible, but it seems to me that the entire album would be more likely to be made completely unavailable.

By Chris Smart on Monday, March 26, 2018 - 02:15

This typifies Apple's general philosophy. We know what is best for you and will keep you in our nice but separate ecosystem, for your own good. My primary way of consuming recorded music is still my Windows PC, and a very large external hard drive, with most files in FLAC format.

Another philosophical point to keep in mind is that streaming pays almost nothing to artists. So, for as long as we are able, we should be buying music through iTunes, bandcamp.com, or similar, so the people creating that music can continue to do so. Look up the streaming service pay out information sometime; you may be surprised.

By Derrick on Monday, March 26, 2018 - 02:15

They may not have a deal with that record company. For example, you may only be able to find a song on a greatest hits compilation because they may only have rights to it with the company providing that album. It’s all about the money!

By Oderous Urungus on Monday, March 26, 2018 - 02:15

If you want to save an album to your library in tact, would it be worth the trouble to save each track individually on a playlist that shares the title of the album?

By Homer Dog on Monday, March 26, 2018 - 02:15

In this case, CMA does not stand for Country Music Awards! My 16 GB iPhone 6 is full and I need to delete some music from it to be able to perform other functions or use some of my apps. Why, when I single tap on a song, Voice Over says, "Options available," one of which is Delete, but nothing will delete. I am used to deleting from my device and having iTunes put it back when I sync my phone, but to not even be able to delete it at all?!

By Homer Dog on Monday, March 26, 2018 - 02:15

Hayden,

I have experienced the same issue; especially, when I sinc playlists. I posted in another part of this site yesterday (probably the wrong place, as I don't use forums or blogs much). iTunes made three copies of one of my playlists. The list originally had 80 songs in it. When I completed sincing my phone, each of the three had the same 8 songs out of 80. To compound my frustration, I went searching for the original playlist in iTunes and could not even get my playlists to display. All I could pull up were songs and albums. It has been said numerous times that Apple can afford to pay attention to accessibility but appears to not wish to apply it to iTunes. Their devices are fantastic with regard to accessibility for the blind but iTunes? Not so much!

By Homer Dog on Monday, March 26, 2018 - 02:15

In reply to by Oderous Urungus

It is worth taking the time to apply each song from an album one at a time, as downloading the album or including it when you sinc your device with iTunes, the play order almost always gets messed up. I have yet to read any plausible reason for this or solution to correct it.

By Hayden on Monday, March 26, 2018 - 02:15

Regarding the issue of being unable to delete songs, I just recently had the same issue. I had to get a new iPad do to a swolen battery in my old one, and I blithely commenced downloading all of my music. Turned out that the amount of music I had exceeded the storage limit on my new iPad, and once that limit was reached, I had massive problems of a similar sort. I was unable to remove downloaded content or to stop the rest of my playlist from downloading. In the end, I had to reset my ipad to factory defaults and start over

By Lynne on Monday, March 26, 2018 - 02:15

Thank you. Now I know that keeping my music on a separate hard drive and not using iTunes was the way to go. Love the music services but it took serious time and considerable funds to amass my beloved collection and I really would like it to remain in tact.I subscribe to Apple Music and have an Amazon prime account. That's sufficient for my music needs at this point.

By Adam M on Monday, March 26, 2018 - 02:15

Hello Lynne,
Definitely keeping your charished music collection on separate media is something that I will always recommend.
However, I do not believe that avoiding the use of iTunes or Apple Music entirely is the best way to go. It is great that we have such a vast resource of music available for legal purchase and consumption, for streaming or download.
The philisophical problem that I have with such services as Apple Music is that, as the way it is set up. While a user is subscribed to the service, it is fully usable. And if the user gives too much access to one's music collection, it could absolutely ravage it, reorganize it, replace versions of songs with fully re-encoded copies and worst of all, sometimes, entirely different musical versions of songs.
And if and once you unsubscribe from the service, you lose all access, instantly, to anything that you have ever purchased or downloaded.
This is most applicable to Apple Music, but an iTunes uninstallation, or iTunes Account Deauthorization will also lose you access to your music as well.

My ultimate suggestion for anyone and everyone, is to maintain and keep a copy of your charished and most valuable music stored on a separate media source, be that hard drive, computer, NAS device, whatever. And do not link this to iTunes.
Then, as you go about your days, as you explore music, definitely keep using iTunes and Apple Music.
If and when you hear something you want, buy it on iTunes, or add it to your music library via Apple Music.
Once it is downloaded to your machine, you will find it in the iTunes Media Library folder of your iTunes program settings folder. This is generally under the users or program data folders of your operating system drive.
Once you've located the music that you paid for, relocate it to your protected and isolated music collection, ensuring that it stays far away from iTunes.

Adam M.

By HoldenM on Monday, March 26, 2018 - 02:15

I'm very much a modern person. I love the different technologies we have access to now, but I am a bit of an old man when it comes to music. Is Apple Music convenient? Yes it is. But I don't use iCloud Library and I don't add anything. My wife and I have a subscription to Apple Music, so what I'll do is, if I have an artist that I like, but I don't love, I'll look up and listen to the songs I like on Apple Music, but the things I do hold near and dear I keep on CD. I have two giant books full of them and I still buy them when I can. I do dread the day when physical copies of music go away forever. I don't know that will ever entirely happen, but I think we're getting close to that day, if any time is close now certainly is.

By KE7ZUM on Monday, March 26, 2018 - 02:15

Use tuneskit to grab all of your music in mp3 or flac or what ever format. I do this wiht my spotify stuff this way if an album disappears I still have it. And as an artist I've made a total of $5 over the 5 years I've ben streaming. It's sad really. By the way I do get most of my big money from itunes and amazon purchases, not streaming.

I agree that they want to see a form of payment before offering you the free trial. However, I personally don't agree that it's the right way to go about it. You see, they automatically assume that people will just continue after the trial is over. This is not always the case. Some people just want to check things out, then come back later or disappear indefinitely. Well, they are not getting any credit cards from me. All they get from me is gift cards.

By Kerry Fielding on Sunday, July 26, 2020 - 02:15

Hi. I'm no expert but I know that there used t be a tickbox in the preferences section of iTunes that you can uncheck so that apple does not organise your music. Just a thought.

By gailisaiah on Sunday, July 26, 2020 - 02:15

Hello Hayden and all,
One thing I have noticed with Apple Music is that in the FOR YOU tab, I'm given choices from other music types. This includes explicit stuff I would never listen to.

By Cowboy on Wednesday, August 26, 2020 - 02:15

I miss the days kept all of my own music on my own hard drive and listened to it on Winamp because it really kicked the llama's ass. For those who don't remember Winamp I am sure I just confused you.

On the other hand Even after Winamp quit being updated and supported we still as blind people didn't have access to music players sutch as iPods. The first iPod I bought I put an aftermarket piece of freeware on that talked to manage my music outside of the IOS environment which was extremely buggy as I recall. I guess my point is that there's always give and take and no situation is perfect. We just find something else to complain about and no I am mnot saying that this isn't worth complaining about it just got me to thinking.

By Holger Fiallo on Wednesday, August 26, 2020 - 02:15

I only use it to listen to my music I added from my PC to iTunes and albums I purchase. No apple music for me. Do not like that the app does not put playlist together like artists. It is hared to find a playlist title.