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Does Music app now truly stream?

CosmoPilot

CosmoPilot

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 8, 2010
1,537
372
South Carolina
Wirelessly posted

So I have a few albums with just 1 song. Last night, I played one of these songs and then went back to the albulm and noticed the cloud to download icon was still available. I tapped it and low and behold it started downloading the entire song (after it played in its entirety over 3G).

Can anyone else test this?
 
CosmoPilot said:
This has not been available since cloud. In the past, it would download while you played it. Now it doesn't download at all.
Click to expand...

That doesn't make sense...what you're syaing then is that my iPhone which might be nearly full would not play music before since there was no room for it to download songs?

Music has streamed since iCloud/iTunes Match was introduced..it might have taken up memory as a buffer (which is maybe what you mean by "download"), but once the song was over, it was not "downloaded to your device. You had to and still have to click on the cloud icon to truely transfer the song to the device.

If not...it is "streaming." Right? :confused:
 
There is a buffer so to speak. If you partially listen to a song it will not continue to to download. If the whole song is played it is downloaded.
There is no streaming.
 
MozMan68 said:
That doesn't make sense...what you're syaing then is that my iPhone which might be nearly full would not play music before since there was no room for it to download songs?

Music has streamed since iCloud/iTunes Match was introduced..it might have taken up memory as a buffer (which is maybe what you mean by "download"), but once the song was over, it was not "downloaded to your device. You had to and still have to click on the cloud icon to truely transfer the song to the device.

If not...it is "streaming." Right? :confused:
Click to expand...
No, it hasn't.

http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=83243
 
MozMan68 said:
well then...another great thing about iOS 6.

I wonder how many songs were downloaded to my iPhone under iOS 5?
Click to expand...
All of them were. However you could delete them by swiping your finger across the song. Another great feature was that you could manually delete the song. All songs had a cloud icon next to them allowing you to individually download songs and individually delete songs. So in iOS5, when you played a song it downloaded it to your phone and the cloud icon next to it went away.

I had not read iOS6 allowed for real streaming, but apparently it does.
 
I just tested this on 6 albums i have with just one song present. I played the songs one at a time and the results were as follows:

The download symbol still remains even after the song is played. Pressing it shows downloading of the song icon as usual, even after song is played. It does not double download, still says 1 song in settings (see below). I tried this with the first track I played.

The number count of songs in settings>general>about goes up each time you play a track.

The capacity on the device (iPhone 5) decreases after each song play.
A bug in iTunes does not show music downloaded when played (even though it does download) in the Audio section. It seems to go to Other section...

Conclusion: same as all the iOS 6 betas, the track still downloads when played, it is not streamed as some claims state. Capacity decreases and song count goes up in settings. iTunes doesn't seem to know whats going on!
To test: play a few songs from a playlist. Turn on airplane mode. Look at playlist, only songs which were played show up to press to play again. Other songs are greyed out. (EDIT: all the other iTunes Match songs vanish apart from the previously played song/songs.

----------
MozMan68 said:
That doesn't make sense...what you're syaing then is that my iPhone which might be nearly full would not play music before since there was no room for it to download songs?

Music has streamed since iCloud/iTunes Match was introduced..it might have taken up memory as a buffer (which is maybe what you mean by "download"), but once the song was over, it was not "downloaded to your device. You had to and still have to click on the cloud icon to truely transfer the song to the device.

If not...it is "streaming." Right? :confused:
Click to expand...

Incorrect
 
Last edited:
CosmoPilot said:
Wirelessly posted

So I have a few albums with just 1 song. Last night, I played one of these songs and then went back to the albulm and noticed the cloud to download icon was still available. I tapped it and low and behold it started downloading the entire song (after it played in its entirety over 3G).

Can anyone else test this?
Click to expand...

To answer your question: No, it doesn't truly stream.
 
Defender2010 said:
Just another of the many music app bugs :(
Click to expand...
I wonder if the stream feature (as it appears to act) manages the storage if the iPhone differently.

As you say, when you play a song the count goes up and the song appears with the device in airplane mode. I'm thinking these songs (non-manually downloaded songs) are deleted by the OS if space is needed whereas manually downloaded songs can't be managed the same way by the OS.

If this proved to be true, it would be the best if both worlds. Just a theory, but would make sense based on how it currently behaves.
 
CosmoPilot said:
I wonder if the stream feature (as it appears to act) manages the storage if the iPhone differently.

As you say, when you play a song the count goes up and the song appears with the device in airplane mode. I'm thinking these songs (non-manually downloaded songs) are deleted by the OS if space is needed whereas manually downloaded songs can't be managed the same way by the OS.

If this proved to be true, it would be the best if both worlds. Just a theory, but would make sense based on how it currently behaves.
Click to expand...

I remember reading somewhere that iOS will start to delete older songs if you need space when new ones are being played....the greatest thing Apple could do (apart from true streaming) IMO is to allow the user to set the maximum space for music. Eg. 2GB When it reaches this it deletes the least played downloaded track. At least this way we could manage the capacity better.
 
Defender2010 said:
I remember reading somewhere that iOS will start to delete older songs if you need space when new ones are being played....the greatest thing Apple could do (apart from true streaming) IMO is to allow the user to set the maximum space for music. Eg. 2GB When it reaches this it deletes the least played downloaded track. At least this way we could manage the capacity better.
Click to expand...

Agreed, I would just like the ability to delete a song from the iOS. Makes no sense to me that they took this feature away in iOS6.
 
Defender2010 said:
I remember reading somewhere that iOS will start to delete older songs if you need space when new ones are being played....the greatest thing Apple could do (apart from true streaming) IMO is to allow the user to set the maximum space for music. Eg. 2GB When it reaches this it deletes the least played downloaded track. At least this way we could manage the capacity better.
Click to expand...

I completely agree. That would be the BEST solution IMO. Here's hoping for some changes to iTunes Match in the near future..
 
OZPINHEAD said:
Umm. Because its downloading.
Click to expand...
But we've already established the fact that playing the song without downloading it causes it to download.

Do the following:
1. Play a song without downloading it. Notice after the song is finished playing, the cloud download icon remains.
2. Go to settings>music and turn off "show all music"
3. Go to the music app and notice the song you played is displayed which means it is downloaded to your device.
4. Turn "show all music" back on
5. Now go to the song again and click on the download cloud icon.

Notice the download circle indicates its downloading even though we just proved its already downloaded. So based on what you said above, it's downloading twice.
 
CosmoPilot said:
But we've already established the fact that playing the song without downloading it causes it to download.

Do the following:
1. Play a song without downloading it. Notice after the song is finished playing, the cloud download icon remains.
2. Go to settings>music and turn off "show all music"
3. Go to the music app and notice the song you played is displayed which means it is downloaded to your device.
4. Turn "show all music" back on
5. Now go to the song again and click on the download cloud icon.

Notice the download circle indicates its downloading even though we just proved its already downloaded. So based on what you said above, it's downloading twice.
Click to expand...

That is my experience I played a song. Turned off show all music.
The song remained.
Turned on show all music and the song is still there it did not redownload
If you do not play the whole song it is not downloaded. So then if you come back and try to play it again. It try's to download again
 
personally to me, being able to listen to a music before it fully download = streaming.
same as for watching a show before it fully download = streaming.

whatever it is, anything that u want to use - u have to download.
what era are u in? dont u understand what download is?
if u dont download anything, how can u even listen to it?

what's with all these "truly" streaming thrash, what world are u in?
the only true streaming is when u listen to an online radio.
but u still DOWNLOAD the data and listen to it live while downloading (with a few seconds of lag)

anything "on demand"... u still DOWNLOAD...
so what's with all the - no that's downloading crap.
 
wharzhee said:
personally to me, being able to listen to a music before it fully download = streaming.
same as for watching a show before it fully download = streaming.

whatever it is, anything that u want to use - u have to download.
what era are u in? dont u understand what download is?
if u dont download anything, how can u even listen to it?

what's with all these "truly" streaming thrash, what world are u in?
the only true streaming is when u listen to an online radio.
but u still DOWNLOAD the data and listen to it live while downloading (with a few seconds of lag)

anything "on demand"... u still DOWNLOAD...
so what's with all the - no that's downloading crap.
Click to expand...

That showed us then :rolleyes:
 
OZPINHEAD said:
That is my experience I played a song. Turned off show all music.
The song remained.
Turned on show all music and the song is still there it did not redownload
If you do not play the whole song it is not downloaded. So then if you come back and try to play it again. It try's to download again
Click to expand...

You didn't mention anything about step #5. After you played the song (in its entirety) was the cloud download icon still visible?

This is what I'm getting at. The cloud download icon is visible even though it has already been downloaded because it was played. Tapping the cloud icon causes my iPhone5 to "act" as if its downloading it again.
 
CosmoPilot said:
You didn't mention anything about step #5. After you played the song (in its entirety) was the cloud download icon still visible?

This is what I'm getting at. The cloud download icon is visible even though it has already been downloaded because it was played. Tapping the cloud icon causes my iPhone5 to "act" as if its downloading it again.
Click to expand...

There was no cloud icon upon return. I played the whole song.
Therefore it was downloaded and only downloaded once.
This really isn't that difficult.

Partially play a song = no download what you played is streamed held in the buffer, cached, whatever you want to call it.

Full play of the song = download
 
OZPINHEAD said:
There was no cloud icon upon return. I played the whole song.
Therefore it was downloaded and only downloaded once.
This really isn't that difficult.

Partially play a song = no download what you played is streamed held in the buffer, cached, whatever you want to call it.

Full play of the song = download
Click to expand...

Please read post #10 above.

This is happening to every iDevice in my house as well as others. EVEN when I play a song in its ENTIRETY, the cloud download icon remains.

Obviously you must test this on a song which currently has the cloud download icon (I.e., you've never listened to or downloaded previously). This phenomenon is not isolated to just me..again, read post #10
 
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