Apple Music only listen on to 1 device

[JamesMay82]

Hey Guys,

Playing music on my phone and started playing music on computer to see if it matched up correct songs and it said I can only play music on one device at a time!

This is music that I have purchased on CD and ripped to iTunes and its telling me I can only listen on one device.

Anyone else noticed this issue? I know I'm not going to be doing it myself but if I'm out listening in car and my wife is using my comp its its not going to let her!

 

[YanniDepp]

Because Apple Music accounts are for personal use. If you and your wife are sharing an account, that's piracy.

 

[borgqueenx]

Because Apple Music accounts are for personal use. If you and your wife are sharing an account, that's piracy.

Not if you OWN the music. Or the right to play it and burn it.

 

[Phil A.]

That's strange - I've just tried it and could play on my Phone, iPad and Computer simultaneously. I have setup a family account: Wonder if that gives you a higher simultaneous play limit?

 

[Donoghan]

Individual accounts detect streams and limit it to one at a time, family accounts can stream from multiple devices simultaneously, even if you are signed into the same account on all of them.

 

[Phil A.]

Individual accounts detect streams and limit it to one at a time, family accounts can stream from multiple devices simultaneously, even if you are signed into the same account on all of them.

That would explain why I don't have a problem - thanks for the clarification

 

[playtillyadrop]

just tried with an individual account. I have a playlist that i have put offline so the music on that playlist is locally stored on the iPhone. By doing this i am able to stream music on my mac and play music on the offline playlist simultaneously. This is what i currently do with spotify to share the account with my wife since her use is very minimal. The only difference here is you do not have to set your account to offline mode like spotify, and apple music doesn't have that option to begin with anyways. Hope this helps.

 

[netnothing]

Individual accounts detect streams and limit it to one at a time, family accounts can stream from multiple devices simultaneously, even if you are signed into the same account on all of them.

So are you saying that technically you don't need to enable Family Sharing if you want multiple streams? You just have to select the Family plan for Apple Music? And each device can still be logged in as the same user?

-Kevin

 

[JamesMay82]

just tried with an individual account. I have a playlist that i have put offline so the music on that playlist is locally stored on the iPhone. By doing this i am able to stream music on my mac and play music on the offline playlist simultaneously. This is what i currently do with spotify to share the account with my wife since her use is very minimal. The only difference here is you do not have to set your account to offline mode like spotify, and apple music doesn't have that option to begin with anyways. Hope this helps.

Weird, I just tried that with a downloaded song on phone and played a locally stored track on iMac and it still wouldn't let me play both. I then tried a second time and it worked, wonder if thats a random glitch thats occurring.

 

[netnothing]

just tried with an individual account. I have a playlist that i have put offline so the music on that playlist is locally stored on the iPhone. By doing this i am able to stream music on my mac and play music on the offline playlist simultaneously. This is what i currently do with spotify to share the account with my wife since her use is very minimal. The only difference here is you do not have to set your account to offline mode like spotify, and apple music doesn't have that option to begin with anyways. Hope this helps.

I had the opposite experience. Downloading a song on 1 device and playing it still wouldn't let me play another song on a different device. Seems Apple Music does as check as long as there is an internet connection to see if you are streaming anything else. Only way it worked for me was to put the offline device into airplane mode.

Note that Apple Music is smart enough to determine if the song you are playing/streaming is owned by you or not. It's only if your are trying to play/stream a song from Apple Music that they are detecting the multiple streams.

-Kevin

 

[Donoghan]

So are you saying that technically you don't need to enable Family Sharing if you want multiple streams? You just have to select the Family plan for Apple Music? And each device can still be logged in as the same user?

-Kevin

Yes, Apple Music seems tied to the iTunes account used for purchasing, not the iCloud accounts. So if you use one account family-wide for purchases then by doing the family plan you can all share the same account and library and stream at the same time, but this way has nothing to do with iCloud Family Sharing. If you want different Apple Music profiles and libraries, you have to do the Family Plan, but set up iCloud Family Sharing and have the different accounts purchase under their own accounts yet share through Family Sharing, which is different than sharing by being logged into the same iTunes account for purchases. I hope this isn't too confusing.

 

[netnothing]

Yes, Apple Music seems tied to the iTunes account used for purchasing, not the iCloud accounts. So if you use one account family-wide for purchases then by doing the family plan you can all share the same account and library and stream at the same time, but this way has nothing to do with iCloud Family Sharing. If you want different Apple Music profiles and libraries, you have to do the Family Plan, but set up iCloud Family Sharing and have the different accounts purchase under their own accounts yet share through Family Sharing, which is different than sharing by being logged into the same iTunes account for purchases. I hope this isn't too confusing.

Do you think this is just a glitch? Allowing the Apple Music Family Plan without Family Sharing?

This BTW would be exactly what I would want. I don't want to do family sharing. I have my Apple ID for both purchases and iCloud on my devices, and my wife has my ID for purchases and hers for iCloud....same with the kids. Have no interest in the mess that seems to be family sharing......would just want my wife to be able to download and listen to music at the same time as me.

-Kevin

 

[Rigby]

Not if you OWN the music. Or the right to play it and burn it.

Apple Music cannot be limited to your own music. That's why an individual plan won't allow multiple streams. If you want full access on multiple devices, get a family plan. If you only want to stream your own music to multiple devices using the same account, get iTunes Match.

 

[Donoghan]

Do you think this is just a glitch? Allowing the Apple Music Family Plan without Family Sharing?

This BTW would be exactly what I would want. I don't want to do family sharing. I have my Apple ID for both purchases and iCloud on my devices, and my wife has my ID for purchases and hers for iCloud....same with the kids. Have no interest in the mess that seems to be family sharing......would just want my wife to be able to download and listen to music at the same time as me.

-Kevin

I don't think it's a glitch, I think it is intentional. I'm purely speculating of course.

We have Family Sharing because I set it up when it first came out thinking it would be better than what it is. So we use it for just the Calendar/Reminders/Find My Friends-type sharing, not purchases. All purchases are on one iTunes account separate from our individual iTunes accounts. Sounds like you have it set up for your family like I do, except I don't use my personal iCloud account for purchases since I had an iTunes account before I got MobileMe (then converted to iCloud). It doesn't bother me that we all share the same Apple Music account as long as we can stream whenever we want. We've shared our 15k+ iTunes Match library without issue since day one of iTunes Match and all four of us listen to mostly the same type of music. We just respect each other's additions and don't remove it if we didn't add it, etc.

 

[netnothing]

I don't think it's a glitch, I think it is intentional. I'm purely speculating of course.

We have Family Sharing because I set it up when it first came out thinking it would be better than what it is. So we use it for just the Calendar/Reminders/Find My Friends-type sharing, not purchases. All purchases are on one iTunes account separate from our individual iTunes accounts. Sounds like you have it set up for your family like I do, except I don't use my personal iCloud account for purchases since I had an iTunes account before I got MobileMe (then converted to iCloud). It doesn't bother me that we all share the same Apple Music account as long as we can stream whenever we want. We've shared our 15k+ iTunes Match library without issue since day one of iTunes Match and all four of us listen to mostly the same type of music. We just respect each other's additions and don't remove it if we didn't add it, etc.

Thanks for the reply. Sounds like you are similar to our situation right now in that I don't need separate music lists etc.....just the ability for everyone to have access to the music.

-Kevin

 

[Peepo]

Do you think this is just a glitch? Allowing the Apple Music Family Plan without Family Sharing?

This BTW would be exactly what I would want. I don't want to do family sharing. I have my Apple ID for both purchases and iCloud on my devices, and my wife has my ID for purchases and hers for iCloud....same with the kids. Have no interest in the mess that seems to be family sharing......would just want my wife to be able to download and listen to music at the same time as me.

-Kevin

I moved over from shared iTunes account to family sharing and wasn't bad at all. You are in for a much bigger mess if you have your wife and kids downloading and making playlists etc. and this all gets duplicated across all signed in devices.

I wouldn't want my songs and playlists to be tainted with my wife's country or kids dubstep and hip hop.

 

[netnothing]

I moved over from shared iTunes account to family sharing and wasn't bad at all. You are in for a much bigger mess if you have your wife and kids downloading and making playlists etc. and this all gets duplicated across all signed in devices.

I wouldn't want my songs and playlists to be tainted with my wife's country or kids dubstep and hip hop.

Curious how you moved to family sharing and if you were similar to us. Right now I have:

me@ourdomain.com
This is the store account and my iCloud account on all my devices.

On my wife's phone she has:
her@ourdomain.com for iCloud
me@ourdomain.com for iTunes

Same for kids:
kid1@ourdomain.com for iCloud
kid2@ourdomain.com for iCloud
me@ourdomain.com for iTunes

Was this how you had yours setup? If so, what did you do to switch. Where I'm getting stuck is.....if I start the Family, I then invite her and kids.....then do I log out of iTunes on their devices and login with her and kids emails? How does that affect current installed apps? Will they get updated?

-Kevin