Music app problem - seeing just the songs on the iPhone/iPad?

[xristy]

If I sync some albums to the Music app on my iPhone or iPad I can't see just those songs that are resident on the device without having to wade through the several thousand that are in the cloud and available for download.

In other apps such as the Audible app I can select to see what is in the cloud+device or see just what is on the device. I can't see how to achieve the same with the Music app.

From a usability point-of-view it seems odd that this function isn't available. Not every one lives in an area of free and copious internet bandwidth.

 

[xristy]

no ideas?

So either no one else sees this as a usability issue or perhaps no one has any ideas about how it is supposed to be solved or can definitively point to it not being possible - in which case I'd really wonder why. Maybe no one else really has very many purchases from iTunes but that is surely not correct.

I find that if I have an album on my iPhone then I can't tell that it is on the iPhone in the Albums view without tapping on the album and seeing whether there's a cloud download icon next to the various songs. I have 590 albums so unless I remember exactly which ones I've put on my iPhone it's rather a problem to scroll through the list of albums and pick out the ones that are on the phone.

Similarly for artists.

In the case of songs with 1750+ songs it's easy to scroll past one that is actually on the iPhone since most have the cloud download icon next to them.

Am I missing something about the proper use of the Music app?

 

[570934]

Erm, have you tried turning the show all music off in settings.

 

[xristy]

Erm, have you tried turning the show all music off in settings.

No I had not seen the setting. Thank you for pointing it out. It's not as convenient as the way the same functionality is presented in the Audible.app - which I misled myself into thinking was "the" way it would be implemented if present - namely the "all songs" vs "device only" is simply a toggle at the top of the listing. No need to leave the app to go into the settings and toggle the mode.

Now that I have turned off "show all music" I see 16 songs from a smattering of albums that I had no idea were on the iPhone and for which I don't seem to be able to delete them either in iTunes or directly in the Music.app such as by swiping leftward from the righthand side of a song. These 16 songs don't show up in iTunes when the iPhone is connected so they can not be managed from that app.

There must be a way of deleting a song from the device in the Music.app but it seems to be yet another magic incantation that I am failing to see.

 

[570934]

No I had not seen the setting. Thank you for pointing it out. It's not as convenient as the way the same functionality is presented in the Audible.app - which I misled myself into thinking was "the" way it would be implemented if present - namely the "all songs" vs "device only" is simply a toggle at the top of the listing. No need to leave the app to go into the settings and toggle the mode.

Now that I have turned off "show all music" I see 16 songs from a smattering of albums that I had no idea were on the iPhone and for which I don't seem to be able to delete them either in iTunes or directly in the Music.app such as by swiping leftward from the righthand side of a song. These 16 songs don't show up in iTunes when the iPhone is connected so they can not be managed from that app.

There must be a way of deleting a song from the device in the Music.app but it seems to be yet another magic incantation that I am failing to see.

You can delete all your music on the device by going into setting/usage waiting for the app list to load, then go into the music app and you can remove all the tracks in one go.
I haven't sync'd any music from my iTunes since getting match. I just stream everything, or download if it's a current album I'm listening to. Just one point worth noting, use Siri to find what you want to play. I've found it a pita looking for stuff with nearly 25,000 tracks. A quick "play album whatever it's called" and you off and running.

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Also, why don't you just create a playlist which shows which albums you have on your phone. Create it in iTunes and syc, this will let you see just your device installed tracks.

Easy uh lol

 

[xristy]

Thank you for the helpful replies.

You can delete all your music on the device by going into setting/usage waiting for the app list to load, then go into the music app and you can remove all the tracks in one go.

I just want to be able to delete a track/song by itself. Not all the tracks.

I haven't sync'd any music from my iTunes since getting match. I just stream everything, or download if it's a current album I'm listening to. Just one point worth noting, use Siri to find what you want to play. I've found it a pita looking for stuff with nearly 25,000 tracks. A quick "play album whatever it's called" and you off and running.

I happen to be in Nepal for an extended period and Siri doesn't work in Nepal even for local requests regarding albums or songs. Further, bandwidth isn't as available here as it is in the U.S., Europe, Japan or Korea so "just stream[ing] everything" is a non-starter. The cloud is just not a world-wide solution as cool as it may seem.

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Also, why don't you just create a playlist which shows which albums you have on your phone. Create it in iTunes and syc, this will let you see just your device installed tracks.

Easy uh lol

Yes I suppose that's a way to workaround the issue I raised. I continue to be puzzled by many of the usability decisions made in Apple apps.

 

[570934]

More I think about it the playlist is the way to do it. Especially if your syncing with iTunes while using match too.