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

[jordanneo]

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

 

[Mad4WDW]

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

Hi

Smart playlists are problematic. Most of the time using iCloud music library they don't work as they should. Using iCloud music library play counts are not updated properly neither are last played data. This will affect playlists you use to rotate through 4 and 5 star songs for example.

You also can't use nested playlists. So you can't have a playlist that comprises other playlists to make mixes of new, top rated and key worded stuff etc.

The above problems would be solved by not using iCloud music library and still syncing via an iTunes library in your computer.

The 25,000 song limit is still there but changing to 100,000 soon supposedly. iCloud music library will overwrite some of your meta data and mess up some album artwork this is common with a lot of people reporting problems, large carefully curated libraries will be worse affected I guess. And yes some songs will be replaced with the wrong versions, live tracks for studio versions, acoustic versions for standard versions and clean versions of songs with swearing have all been messed up in my library.

If you do decide to try it make a full backup of you library including all the system files so you can restore everything in the event you don't like what it does.

Good luck

Greg

 

[Tech198]

Both accounts on those last two point.

Any matched songs will get replaced by the versions in AM (eg live version or DJ version of a song be replaced by the original with the same title)

If u want, u could go though and slightly modify the ones then it should force upload on those only, but its problematic on a massive library.

I have 200 CD's and i know lots of my songs i need to upload or match.... and even that i refuse to do (not only but u'll also get duplicate songs appearing of the same track)

Its just a mess and no user should be forced to replace/re-add their albums just because APple can't get it right, and i'll even go so far as saying, this is why i'm leaving AM.

Do yourself a favor, backup is even more important now... Apple probably knew this too..... Who knows. Just saying, for something to go a complete mess in a very short time time so quickly, means someone at Apple knew something here, just didn't say.

It may have been the way it "just went" due to the nature of all sync services into icloud and across the line, but that's what happens when u have all these syncing services all-in-one, trying to to the same thing which is syncing.. Its causes chaoes for everything else too..

See for yourself, nothing on icloud just works every time..... the same applies to photo sharing too...

I just walk away from all that.

If it works, then u'r lucky.... but its only temporary.

 

[Jstuts5797]

I've not experienced any of the issues noted above, not even on day one. I know some people do have these issues, including the smart playlists. But for me, even smart playlists and meta data have all worked perfectly. Basical I don't think you should take any one persons experience into your own experience because, well, YMMV.

 

[Mad4WDW]

I've not experienced any of the issues noted above, not even on day one. I know some people do have these issues, including the smart playlists. But for me, even smart playlists and meta data have all worked perfectly. Basical I don't think you should take any one persons experience into your own experience because, well, YMMV.

Smart playlists that use play counts and last played as filters don't work, this is not open to debate to doesn't work for anyone. Nested playlists also don't work with iCloud music library. There are lots of know issues that affect the service, if you haven't experienced them it just means you haven't encountered them yet not that they aren't there

 

[Jstuts5797]

Smart playlists that use play counts and last played as filters don't work, this is not open to debate to doesn't work for anyone. Nested playlists also don't work with iCloud music library. There are lots of know issues that affect the service, if you haven't experienced them it just means you haven't encountered them yet not that they aren't there

Actually it DOES work. I have a smart playlist that is setup to including all 4 and 5 star ratings. I had this setup prior to Apple Music launch and it just syncs over. Since Apple Music it still updates because I've tested it by 4 and 5 staring music in Apple Music and it adds it to the playlist. Even the track count changes as my star ratings do. So while that function may not work for you, it does indeed work for me as I use it daily. Likewise, I also have a smart playlist of recently played tracks that I had also setup prior to Apple Music and it still works to this very day.

 

[Mad4WDW]

Actually it DOES work. I have a smart playlist that is setup to including all 4 and 5 star ratings. I had this setup prior to Apple Music launch and it just syncs over. Since Apple Music it still updates because I've tested it by 4 and 5 staring music in Apple Music and it adds it to the playlist. Even the track count changes as my star ratings do. So while that function may not work for you, it does indeed work for me as I use it daily. Likewise, I also have a smart playlist of recently played tracks that I had also setup prior to Apple Music and it still works to this very day.

Are you syncing via iCloud music library or iTunes?

 

[Jstuts5797]

Are you syncing via iCloud music library or iTunes?

iCloud music library. It's rare I use iTunes on my computer for anything anymore. I used to use it for iTunes Match ,matching, but since Apple Music I don't use it for that either anymore.

 

[Cloudsurfer]

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

This is why I've decided not to go on with Apple Music. playing the wrong music coupled to a song name is something that happens more than often, especially with film scores where a lot of songs have the same name (Finale and End Credits, for example). iCloud music library has a lot of trouble keeping those apart.

Plus, it gets the album art wrong most of the time as well.

So far it's been a mediocre experience. I imagine it only works well if ALL your music comes from Apple Music or the iTunes Store, but if you've imported your own music I'd advise against it for now.

 

[Mad4WDW]

iCloud music library. It's rare I use iTunes on my computer for anything anymore. I used to use it for iTunes Match ,matching, but since Apple Music I don't use it for that either anymore.

Dude I can't believe how lucky you are if this is working for you, its f***ed up for most people. I've been playing stuff in my car again today, no playcounts updated last played not changed on any of the songs I played, my smartplaylists I've used for years no longer match, different stuff is in then on iphone and imac. Ive got a smart playlist that is supposed to pick 50 4 or 5 star songs at random and its full of AC/DC tunes because its just picked them starting at A rather than random. I've given up trying to fix it I just drop stuff I like into a static list now lol

 

[whsbuss]

Dude I can't believe how lucky you are if this is working for you, its f***ed up for most people.

Count me in the "less" people category.

 

[Noble Actual]

If you just want to listen to some pretty good songs Apple Music tells you to listen to, you will be happy.

If you want to use it for anything else, don't, its terrible.

 

[Jstuts5797]

Dude I can't believe how lucky you are if this is working for you, its f***ed up for most people. I've been playing stuff in my car again today, no playcounts updated last played not changed on any of the songs I played, my smartplaylists I've used for years no longer match, different stuff is in then on iphone and imac. Ive got a smart playlist that is supposed to pick 50 4 or 5 star songs at random and its full of AC/DC tunes because its just picked them starting at A rather than random. I've given up trying to fix it I just drop stuff I like into a static list now lol

I've heard some people have had issues since day one. I DO consider myself lucky that I've had no issues whatsoever. It didn't mess up any meta data, did not create any duplicates, did not screw up my library in anyway. Everything about Apple Music has "just worked" for me since day one. I don't know if this matters or not to my success with AM, but I was a subscriber to ITunes Match from its day one, and continue to subscribe to it as well today. Now I DID have issues with iTunes Match for a few months after it first came out and I was extremely frustrated. However that all worked out in the end too and I've had no issues with it for a very long time either.

I do feel bad for you as that WOULD indeed be frustrating. Ever since I first got into the Apple ecosystem back when the iPod nano first came out, I've always just had the attitude to let iTunes manage my library and do its thing. I don't get in the way of whatever it does. I know a lot of people don't do that. They have to get their hands in there and do things themselves and I understand that.... But I sometimes wonder if my hands off, let it do its thing, approach is why I've always had great success with anything iTunes/music library wise. I've never EVER even had album art issues.... Ever.