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Debate Rages Over Whether Apple Music Automatically Deletes Users' Owned Music Collections
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The only "issue" I had when I was doing the trial of Apple Music way back when, was that after it ended and I turned it off, it took all the music off of my *phone*, but not off my "personal cloud" drive where I store my music. I remember calling Apple about this, and the tech didn't understand the problem, and I spoke with some of the supervisors, but I suppose the issue hasn't been solved yet. In short, backups in multiple places keeps you from harm.
I have a large personal library of music - approx 200 GB - and I must say that it is with great confusion Apple Music is blending with my library. Sometimes my own itunes playlists is empty. Most of my playlists are doubled with one of them empty. I can not have local songs on my iphone from my itunes library anymore etc. I'm seriously considering getting rid of Apple Music and use itunes + spotify.
I feel like no one has addressed this: It's important to make the distinction between "Apple Music" and "iCloud Music Library." You can have Apple Music and NOT use iCloud music library as I have been from day one. Yes, there are features of Apple Music that will not be available because of this, such as making playlists with music from Apple Music, but the streaming itself works just fine. It seems it is the iCloud Music Library side of this that is causing all the issues.
Synching to make one computer the master is exactly what made me stop using iTunes.
It's like holding my music as prisoners.
What is it Apple's business whether I bought it, composed it myself , etc.
Just let ME manage MY music.
I have a pretty large library of tracks in iTunes (about 15K tracks all in all). Some of it dates back 10-15 years or so, back to when I first got an iPod and started listening to digital music in iTunes. Along the way, it's all been pretty carefully tagged, album art optimized, lyrics added, etc.
The last couple years, I've also started using Spotify. I bounce between iTunes and Spotify, and it's sort of annoying to have stuff saved or playlisted in two separate places -- so when Apple Music came out, I jumped on it right away. In a perfect world, it would be the iTunes library I already have, supplemented with on-demand streaming. What's not to like?
A lot, as it turned out. In my experience, once Apple Music was done churning through my existing library, it left it in shambles. Album art, trashed. Songs, attributed to random compilations or whatever Apple Music's database thought they belonged to instead of the actual album they were a part of. I'd put many many hours of work into my music. It's important to me. If I'm listening to a song, I care what album it's from, and I sure as f--- don't want Apple Music deciding it's from some Jack Black movie or whatever. It also trashed many of my playlists, which alone would be a deal-breaker. A lot of work has gone into some of those as well.
Fortunately, I had solid Time Machine backups of everything, and as able to restore it all to its pre-Apple Music condition. Needless to say, I'm back to Spotify and I'd be very very hesitant to try out Apple Music again until it's been well tested by others.
The last couple years, I've also started using Spotify. I bounce between iTunes and Spotify, and it's sort of annoying to have stuff saved or playlisted in two separate places -- so when Apple Music came out, I jumped on it right away. In a perfect world, it would be the iTunes library I already have, supplemented with on-demand streaming. What's not to like?
A lot, as it turned out. In my experience, once Apple Music was done churning through my existing library, it left it in shambles. Album art, trashed. Songs, attributed to random compilations or whatever Apple Music's database thought they belonged to instead of the actual album they were a part of. I'd put many many hours of work into my music. It's important to me. If I'm listening to a song, I care what album it's from, and I sure as f--- don't want Apple Music deciding it's from some Jack Black movie or whatever. It also trashed many of my playlists, which alone would be a deal-breaker. A lot of work has gone into some of those as well.
Fortunately, I had solid Time Machine backups of everything, and as able to restore it all to its pre-Apple Music condition. Needless to say, I'm back to Spotify and I'd be very very hesitant to try out Apple Music again until it's been well tested by others.
Apple Music is the center of a heated debate this week, with involved parties arguing over whether or not the service is deleting Apple Music users' song collections from hard drives after uploading them to iCloud Music Library.
Vellum's James Pinkstone wrote a long complaint on May 4 accusing Apple Music of doing just that. According to Pinkstone, Apple Music deleted 122GB of his original music files after he joined Apple Music and had his music library scanned by Apple to make his personal content available across multiple devices.
The process Pinkstone describes above is not how Apple Music's matching feature works, according to an in-depth explanation shared by iMore. Apple will match songs and upload original songs by converting them into an appropriate format, but it does not delete without user intervention. iMore theorizes that Pinkstone accidentally wiped his own library by misunderstanding confusing dialog options.
Confusing the issue further is Pinkstone's conversation with an Apple Support Representative named Amber, who seems to be just as perplexed about how Apple Music functions when merging an existing music library with the Apple Music service.Amber's statement is inaccurate according to an Apple Music support document. Original files are never altered and remain available and deleting personal content is not the intended behavior of the service, but it continues to be unclear if Pinkstone and other Apple Music customers who have had content deleted have experienced a bug or mistakenly deleted their content themselves because of a confusing user interface. Multiple Apple Music listeners have disagreed with iMore's point of view and have said they too have experienced music deletions that weren't self-initiated.
Regardless of what actually happened, it's clear that Apple Music is in need of a serious overhaul. Rumors suggest Apple is working on revamping Apple Music and will unveil changes at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June. Hopefully that revamp will extend beyond cosmetic changes to clear up many of the confusing aspects of how music libraries are handled.
Apple Music users with personal music collections should create a backup on an external hard drive, which will ensure no music ever goes missing through user error or an Apple Music bug.
Article Link: Debate Rages Over Whether Apple Music Automatically Deletes Users' Owned Music Collections
And what does it say about the design of the software when so, so many people seem to be experiencing this "user error"?
No, no, no. We don't ever have 5 minutes. We want to click.
First of all we don't want to have to learn anything. It's plug and play, then google when something doesn't work.
Documentation for whatever Apple releases has become more and more sparse anyway.
We have been taught to click, confirm the action (decision is made for you in your interest, click AGREE)
People have the habit to click away any window if there is more than one, just to get on with things.
But, whatever they release should be easy to understand, preferably in one window.
Nobody reads, agreed. So, some companies have gone to make cancel the default and you have to consciously read and agree to perform whatever action gets the desired task done.
Even Apple will be not be able to change ADD consumer behavior.
Why on earth should I believe Apple? They put U2 songs on my computer without my permission, they change my CD covers in iTunes without my permission and I'm not even signed onto Apple Music or Match, I repeatedly get songs deleted from iTunes when syncing my iPod, and messages that iTunes can't sync certain songs to my iPod because they aren't the correct format even though I bought them on the iTunes store. Let's face it Apple, iTunes & Apple is a total cluster f@*#k of hurt. Please, stop the pain.
Our family gave Apple music a fair try and we definitely are in the camp of those saying it does NOT "just work" and needs the promised overhaul!
When we first tried it out, days after its initial release - I remember some accusations of it deleting people's music libraries. What we actually experienced ourselves (my wife has a huge iTunes library on her iMac and I have a fairly large one of my own on my Mac Pro desktop in iTunes) is that in my case? It didn't delete my local music library, BUT the music-match functionality it employs messed up some of the cover art on some of my albums. (For those unaware, iTunes supports 2 different methods of storing album artwork. The original method used in old versions of the software is IMO still the best method -- embedding the art into the music file itself. That way, if I copy a given MP3 to a different device like my car stereo via USB stick, the stereo head unit still displays the artwork. The second method Apple NOW uses as its "preferred" way to handle artwork is to auto-download the art as it matches it with music tracks, and updates the iTunes database to point to it.) Like many long-time iTunes users, I seem to have a mix of music with embedded art and tracks where the art is pulled from the artwork database instead.
In my wife's case, we ran into a more serious issue. Upon upgrading her account so Apple Music was enabled, her iCloud credentials became corrupt on one of Apple's servers. She could no longer download and install ANYTHING on her iPhone, iPad or Mac under her iCloud login! THAT mess took weeks to resolve and she was about ready to dump everything Apple by the time someone in Engineering *finally* corrected the problem. (Before that, we even went as far as having someone at the Genius Bar replace both her iPhone and iPad with brand new ones - because he was "sure it has to just be defective hardware causing this".)
I know they place that small cloud icon next to the tracks to differentiate them, but that's not good enough. I'd like iTunes to at LEAST support a default view where all of the music obtained as part of an Apple music subscription is shown under one list, while everything else is under a different heading and list.
When we first tried it out, days after its initial release - I remember some accusations of it deleting people's music libraries. What we actually experienced ourselves (my wife has a huge iTunes library on her iMac and I have a fairly large one of my own on my Mac Pro desktop in iTunes) is that in my case? It didn't delete my local music library, BUT the music-match functionality it employs messed up some of the cover art on some of my albums. (For those unaware, iTunes supports 2 different methods of storing album artwork. The original method used in old versions of the software is IMO still the best method -- embedding the art into the music file itself. That way, if I copy a given MP3 to a different device like my car stereo via USB stick, the stereo head unit still displays the artwork. The second method Apple NOW uses as its "preferred" way to handle artwork is to auto-download the art as it matches it with music tracks, and updates the iTunes database to point to it.) Like many long-time iTunes users, I seem to have a mix of music with embedded art and tracks where the art is pulled from the artwork database instead.
In my wife's case, we ran into a more serious issue. Upon upgrading her account so Apple Music was enabled, her iCloud credentials became corrupt on one of Apple's servers. She could no longer download and install ANYTHING on her iPhone, iPad or Mac under her iCloud login! THAT mess took weeks to resolve and she was about ready to dump everything Apple by the time someone in Engineering *finally* corrected the problem. (Before that, we even went as far as having someone at the Genius Bar replace both her iPhone and iPad with brand new ones - because he was "sure it has to just be defective hardware causing this".)
[doublepost=1462564582][/doublepost]I experienced this too. I strongly dislike the Apple design philosophy that anything you "borrow/lend" via Apple Music as content you download for offline listening should be displayed right alongside all of your OWNED content.
I know they place that small cloud icon next to the tracks to differentiate them, but that's not good enough. I'd like iTunes to at LEAST support a default view where all of the music obtained as part of an Apple music subscription is shown under one list, while everything else is under a different heading and list.
I have a massive iTunes library, including tons of music not available on Apple Music, or iTunes in general. I have used Match since it debuted, as well as a continued subscription to Apple Music. I have used Match to move the same massive library to new computers, over time. I have never lost a song.
I think theses services work as intended, and work very well. This sounds like user error to me.
I think theses services work as intended, and work very well. This sounds like user error to me.
IMO, the confusion arises because of how AM handles music it matches: When it scans your library it will match as many songs as it can, and upload the rest. Now, here's the kicker: If you don't have iTunes match, those matched songs that haven't been purchased through iTunes have DRM on them if you subsequently download them, so if you match your library, delete your local files and then download them from AM, lots of them will come back with DRM on them (specifically, songs you have ripped and then have been matched)
I suspect people are adding their library to AM, then removing their local copies, mistakenly believing that they can download them again and they'll be as they were: This simply isn't how AM works and I think Apple should be a lot clearer about that. Interestingly, if you also have an iTunes Match subscription, you will get them back without DRM
I suspect people are adding their library to AM, then removing their local copies, mistakenly believing that they can download them again and they'll be as they were: This simply isn't how AM works and I think Apple should be a lot clearer about that. Interestingly, if you also have an iTunes Match subscription, you will get them back without DRM
I am not your average Apple user. In fact, I have set up hundreds of clients with various iterations of iTunes sharing over the last decade - including libraries of movies as well as music.
This exact scenario has happened several times to my clients - and to my OWN library just last weekend. While I was clearing out some duplicate files, I decided that, once done, I would completely rebuild the library. When I deleted the library file, ALL of my original content on my RAID disappeared. All of it. Every song. 593 GB of carefully ripped, tagged, organized music. It was no longer viewable or addressable on the RAID.
I have the good fortune of having a backup, so I wasn't completely up the creek. I had the time and curiosity, so before I restored I tested and scanned my RAID for the original files. I was able to recover them reasonably well but had a lot of garbled metadata. A few tested files were unplayable. And I could not restore 90% of the music videos I purchased from iTunes via the iTunes store.
A person should NEVER lose their original data this way. Indeed, I saw the exact same dialog box that is in this article, and it is NOT clear that the ORIGINAL data would be deleted. In no way, at all, should this ever be possible - and especially not without a clear, specific warning and verification.
I've got a pretty huge library of stuff in my iTunes. I'm sure there are better solutions to use, but most that I have checked out are not as pretty, and don't have a dekstop/mobile relationship like iTunes does. Correct me if I am wrong!
I've long held a grudge against Apple over iTunes though. It seems that whomever is in charge of the iTunes dept at Apple justifies their position in the company by making frequent revisions to the look and feel of the app.
Maybe instead try and fix all the stupid bugs and stop trying to funnel us into usage and views that we do not want.
I've got offbeat tastes in music and am comfortable listening to Stravinsky, Oi Polloi, Cabaret Voltaire and Coil in quick succession. There is no streaming service that fits me. My thousands of albums in my iTunes fit me. So quit trying to shuffle me onto your misbegotten streaming service.
Quit changing the default view of iTunes and making it a huge hurdle to put it back the way that we are used to.
(you too Adobe. Save for web is still a better choice than what replaced it!).
It's kind of a lame place to be in when you have almost as much animosity for Apple as you do for Microsoft.
I've long held a grudge against Apple over iTunes though. It seems that whomever is in charge of the iTunes dept at Apple justifies their position in the company by making frequent revisions to the look and feel of the app.
Maybe instead try and fix all the stupid bugs and stop trying to funnel us into usage and views that we do not want.
I've got offbeat tastes in music and am comfortable listening to Stravinsky, Oi Polloi, Cabaret Voltaire and Coil in quick succession. There is no streaming service that fits me. My thousands of albums in my iTunes fit me. So quit trying to shuffle me onto your misbegotten streaming service.
Quit changing the default view of iTunes and making it a huge hurdle to put it back the way that we are used to.
(you too Adobe. Save for web is still a better choice than what replaced it!).
It's kind of a lame place to be in when you have almost as much animosity for Apple as you do for Microsoft.
This and things like it have been occurring since day one.
- Live replaced with studio.
- NonDRM replaced with DRM.
- Unique album (especially live) tracks replaced with studio versions or removed.
- Libraries wiped out.
- Libraries partially or wholly corrupted.
- Inconsistent / conflicting help from Apple.
- Artwork, tags, etc replaced or corrupted.
The experience made me glad I had an off-line backup of my library.
I'm pretty sure I've used Match since launch and never had an issue with music being greyed out, unplayable or outright vanishing from my iPhone before AM was forced on me.
I never even trailed Apple Music (I don't use any music streaming service) and disabled it as much as iTunes allows, but maybe 100 or so of my 12,000 bought & paid for songs still won't play or download! And Artwork is scrambled on some tracks too. But I've always kept hard drive backups so I can restore if necessary.
I've even started exporting my pictures from Photos, just in case. Apple are making a convoluted mess of their cloud services & can't be trusted to keep my stuff safe anymore. iTunes has always been flakey & needs a complete rewrite IMO.
Good thought however I will never trust them with personal data at this scale again. They need to re-earn my trust and an announcement won't do that.
While I don't really have a large library myself (about 5GB), I haven't really experienced this issue before. I do wonder if this bug is real or if he just accidentally clicked the wrong thing. The "Amber" thing makes me even more suspicious.
I will say, though, that since using Apple Music, about 5 or 6 of my CD-ripped albums lost their cover art (and they were all available on iTunes), so that's a bit annoying.
I will say, though, that since using Apple Music, about 5 or 6 of my CD-ripped albums lost their cover art (and they were all available on iTunes), so that's a bit annoying.