How's the Apple Music now?

[AppleHater]

It's been a month and there were technical issues for those who have own music library where the Apple Music was screwing up the playlist and song data.

Is the situation any better now? I really want to try the Apple Music but not want to take the risk of losing/screwing up my decade old music library that I put so much efforts into.

 

[sunapple]

Back-up your library and see for yourself? I myself am not planning on doing this since I already know I'll stick to my old way of listening to music. Streaming just seems like too much of an expensive hassle.

 

[adamhenry]

I don't know. I disabled AM and have no intention of ever enabling the screwed up mess.

 

[tomekosiowy]

For me is OK, as for old way re-configured, with all (iCloud Music Library, AM Connect and Apple Music) disabled.
I found worser thing: a few songs bought in iTunes Store, and redownloaded again (for some reasons) are corrupted. Requires more redownload tries (however finally you will got working files).

 

[MentalFloss]

It's been a month and there were technical issues for those who have own music library where the Apple Music was screwing up the playlist and song data.

Is the situation any better now? I really want to try the Apple Music but not want to take the risk of losing/screwing up my decade old music library that I put so much efforts into.

I think the simple answer is that Apple hasn't really fixed anything. So whether or not you will have problems is basically a lottery. Your chances for winning that lottery seem to be better if you are not an iTunes Match user (my library is completely fine), but I don't think anyone has had a 100% bug-free experience.

 

[AppleHater]

I can't believe Apple isn't putting higher priority on this matter. It's becoming a matter of trust. The trust whether I can trust their latest software can handle my valued data. It's far worse than iOS crashing a few times if your years of work goes away.

 

[Matt Leaf]

I love it. It's my favourite iTunes library yet.

I definitely think they will smooth the kinks out over time. But this is obviously a massive jump for them, moving to the streaming model.

But Connect still sucks the big one.

 

[mgpg89]

I've had a couple of issues a month ago, but they're (mostly) gone now.
No major problems anymore, so definitely give it a go.

But yeah, back-up your library just in case.

 

[Uofmtiger]

As mentioned above BACK UP YOU LIBRARY! If you hard drive gets corrupted, you could just as easily lose everything.

I was on iTunes Match, but I am maxed out at 25,000, so it wouldn't let me turn the setting on to join libraries, so I haven't had any issues (other than some duplicate songs showing up in my iOS library, but that may have been an issue before for all I know. I rarely used Match because it wasn't integrated into my streaming service of choice).

I have used most of the streaming services and Apple Music has the most bugs (which should be expected). However, I have already cancelled Rdio. Siri, having my iTunes Matched library merged, the way it integrates in my car, the ability to easily find new releases in my favorite genres, and the awesome "For You" section are enough to make me look past some of the bugs.

If it screwed up my library, I would simply delete it, copy over my backup and reimport into iTunes. Not a big deal to be honest.

 

[bobr1952]

Match user but planning to not renew in Sep. So far I have encountered few problems with AM. When I add an album to my music it shows up on all my devices. When I add songs or an album to a playlist they show up on all my devices. Created some radio stations--listened to others with no problems. Tried quite a few Apple playlists as well as a Rolling Stone magazine playlist with no problem. My library of my own music seems to be fine as well. So far, so good.

 

[Julien]

As mentioned above BACK UP YOU LIBRARY! If you hard drive gets corrupted, you could just as easily lose everything....

Just to add backup your entire computer, not just iTunes and not just for now. Always have at least 1 (better to have at least 2 and off site) complete backup of everything.

 

[HopefulHumanist]

It's working excellently for me now. I basically just backed up my entire library and then started afresh with Apple Music. Whatever wasn't in the catalog, I added manually. This is the best of both worlds for me.

 

[whsbuss]

It's working excellently for me now. I basically just backed up my entire library and then started afresh with Apple Music. Whatever wasn't in the catalog, I added manually. This is the best of both worlds for me.

This IS how its done. Completely happy with starting afresh and adding to the library.

 

[tomekosiowy]

Good for music mainly owned on iTunes Sotre. Start afresh with Apple Music and add manually – for example – let say: Liam Howlett's Unreleased demo tape (the Prodigy demo tape rip-off, in fact). Or soundtracks from (older) games etc. Good luck…

 

[Fatboy71]

It's working excellently for me now. I basically just backed up my entire library and then started afresh with Apple Music. Whatever wasn't in the catalog, I added manually. This is the best of both worlds for me.

That's exactly what I did. And only needed to add around 6-12 albums that weren't on Apple Music

I did have issues earlier on in the month, where by I couldn't download/make available offline, but this has been sorted out now. Not sure if that issue was ISP and or Apple Music at fault.

 

[HopefulHumanist]

That's exactly what I did. And only needed to add around 6-12 albums that weren't on Apple Music

I did have issues earlier on in the month, where by I couldn't download/make available offline, but this has been sorted out now. Not sure if that issue was ISP and or Apple Music at fault.

Same. Were you getting that cloud with the lightning symbol in the top right corner? I was, up until last Sunday. Ever since then, it's been fantastic for me so I think they fixed something. I'm glad to know they're working on things

 

[Julien]

Same. Were you getting that cloud with the lightning symbol in the top right corner? I was, up until last Sunday. Ever since then, it's been fantastic for me so I think they fixed something. I'm glad to know they're working on things

I have it right now. It seems that when you do too many AM 'things' in iTunes it goes 'off-line' for a few hours. Not a super serious bug but still very irritating. Wish Apple would get this bug squashed.

 

[HopefulHumanist]

I have it right now. It seems that when you do too many AM 'things' in iTunes it goes 'off-line' for a few hours. Not a super serious bug but still very irritating. Wish Apple would get this bug squashed.

Ok, that must be it. I finished loading most of my library that night lol. Yeah, I really hope they do fix it or at the very least give us a workaround.

 

[Fatboy71]

Same. Were you getting that cloud with the lightning symbol in the top right corner? I was, up until last Sunday. Ever since then, it's been fantastic for me so I think they fixed something. I'm glad to know they're working on things

Yeah I was getting the cloud with the lightning symbol top right in iTunes. The other issue I was having was not been able to download/make available offline on my iPhone. I just kept getting an error.

I did solve both issues (while a fix was getting sorted out) by changing the DNS server on my iPhone and on my Mac. I have now returned my DNS server on both Mac and iPhone to their default value and everything is working fine now

I got the advice on changing the DNS server off of the Apple forums, I think it was last weekend that some of the members had confirmed the issue had been sorted out, as they were running back on their default DNS server value.

Some people were saying it was only affecting a certain ISP (Sky broadband, this is what I am on) and some were saying it was Apple Music at fault

 

[LizKat]

Back-up your library and see for yourself? I myself am not planning on doing this since I already know I'll stick to my old way of listening to music. Streaming just seems like too much of an expensive hassle.

Backup definitely good idea. Two backups even better.

I have decided to stick with it (used an empty library and only brought over a few tracks from an existing one, for trial period anyway). I am not figuring to turn on the cloud for most of my iTunes libraries, I don't want the bandwidth freight of what would be a lot of uploads.

Can't beat AM for deciding between classical performances, because one can't make any kind of judgment based on track previews that run 90 seconds at best. Now I can listen to things on my classical wish list and make a fully informed decision.

I think $120 a year will be worth it for me, when I think of some of the purchasing mistakes I have made sometimes, wow. I hasten to add I'm not really a fan of streaming so my approach at least for classical will usually be to download and then listen offline. For the coffee break when I'm home and on WiFi streaming radio or For You seems fun and no reason why I wouldn't continue to use it that way too in future.

 

[Kiimora]

The only issue for me is the music cutting out whilst offline , here's hoping Apple sorts all these problems out in iOS 9

 

[Fatboy71]

To give myself a fair comparison on Apple Music and Spotify and also to see if perhaps Spotify might be the better music streaming service for me. I decided to spend a day with Spotify, I got a 7 day free Premium trial on Spotify (which I thought was a bit on the greedy side).

Yeah, I managed to find an album on Spotify that wasn't on Apple Music (and vice versa too I found when looking for another album, but to be fair, Spotify has been on the go a lot longer). But that aside, my first impressions were not good at all with Spotify, I really didn't like the UI on Spotify. I found it not at all intuitive and I'm usually pretty quick at figuring UI's out and finding my way around an app, but after spending the day with Spotify, I was still struggling with it. In comparison, I managed to find my way around the new Music app (on iOS) pretty quickly and only looked around online at some of the guides to see if there was something I'd missed.

Another thing I missed was how you tell Apple Music what you like, artists, genres, and I couldn't for the life of me find a similar feature on Spotify. Yeah, I'm lazy and I like the way Apple Music presents me with stuff without the need to think what should I search for (which I'm guessing is how Spotify suggests stuff for you).

Also with regards to sound quality. When I was using Spotify, I chose the extreme setting for sound quality (which gives you the highest quality). I chose the exact same album on Spotify and also on Apple Music. I found on Spotify, the volume level was a tad lower (despite having the volume set on the same level) and good as the sound quality was on Spotify, to me, it lacked a bit of detail/clarity when compared to the sound quality when I listened to the same album on Apple Music. Apple Music uses a slightly lower bit rate than Spotify from what I've read, but I think Apple Music uses AAC file format. Definitely for my ears the sound quality from Apple Music was noticeable better.

Apple Music won't be for everyone that's for sure, and the same for Spotify, but I cannot see myself considering Spotify for my music streaming service after what I have experienced.

 

[motulist]

I think it's great overall, BUT it has a few serious bugs. AppleMusic is still version 1.0, there hasn't been an update yet. So whatever bugs it had on day 1 are still there today.

This is because Apple insists on making its apps tied to iOS updates, so we won't be able to get an AppleMusic update until iOS 8.4.1 is entirely ready to be released.

 

[Julien]

I think it's great overall, BUT it has a few serious bugs. AppleMusic is still version 1.0, there hasn't been an update yet. So whatever bugs it had on day 1 are still there today.

This is because Apple insists on making its apps tied to iOS updates, so we won't be able to get an AppleMusic update until iOS 8.4.1 is entirely ready to be released.

While true of App features and some functionality a lot of AM/iCML functionality is actually backend/server based. This can be dynamically and transparently updated.

 

[motulist]

While true of App features and some functionality a lot of AM/iCML functionality is actually backend/server based. This can be dynamically and transparently updated.

That's true, but many (most?) of the issues that're causing people problems are due to bugs in the app itself.