Apple Music Download management and playback when off-line

[Crunchynut]

I use an iPad with loads of memory and an iPhone with less, meaning that whilst any music I add to my music library downloads to my iPad, my iPhone self manages what is downloaded to it, based on space allocated to the music app.

A couple of things seem screwed up.

Firstly, when I looked at what music was downloaded on my phone there was all sorts of stuff that is completely not my cup of tea, so goodness knows how that got there. And there is other stuff that should be there but isn’t. So, I deleted all downloads on the phone and selectively downloaded tracks from my library to my phone.

After 48hrs for things to settle, many of those tracks haven’t downloaded (space not being an issue). Why?

A further problem is, with my phone off line, why does the music app stall when trying to play a track that isn’t downloaded? Surely it is intelligent enough to know the track isn’t downloaded, that the phone is off line, and so just skip it, rather than just hang?

What am I doing wrong?

Guidance appreciated.

 

[Crunchynut]

No replies?

Oh well. I found a way round it.

Firstly I turned off automatic downloads in the music app settings. So now if I want something from my library on my phone then I manually download it. That reliably gives me a downloaded set of tracks.

Secondly, In the music library there are groupings such as albums, artists, songs etc. you can edit which groupings are displayed. If you go to edit you will see there is a grouping for ‘downloaded’. So I switched this on and now when playing music from my phone I just select from the ‘downloaded’ grouping.

Not ideal and I wish the app/OS was more intelligent but it isn’t and my work arounds work.