Not necessary. I only need gift card from the country I wish to purchase content from.
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Apple Music – is it finally 100% safe to turn on iCloud music library?
- Thread starter lars666
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Not necessary. I only need gift card from the country I wish to purchase content from.
Interesting! One question: you need to create a new id on every country store or you can do it with your main account? I guess you can purchase the songs but they're not associated to your main account (Purchases, etc).
I'm really interested in this, thank you!
Correct. You do need to create a new ID for each country you'd like to sign up.
So how have things gone? Debating switching myself, but I also have a heavily hand-tagged library of ~15,000 and like my metadata the way it is.
Unfortunately still wasn't able to try it out – when my iMac came back from repair, I had to discover that this Mac (which contains my "physical" iTunes library) is still locked to another Apple ID (have a secondary one for US purchases which I activated a few weeks ago to download my purchases). Therefore, I can't activate Apple Music - which I want to use with my main Apple ID – for another 1 ½ months ...
Unfortunately still wasn't able to try it out – when my iMac came back from repair, I had to discover that this Mac (which contains my "physical" iTunes library) is still locked to another Apple ID (have a secondary one for US purchases which I activated a few weeks ago to download my purchases). Therefore, I can't activate Apple Music - which I want to use with my main Apple ID – for another 1 ½ months ...
Would be curious when able! Debating how/when to trial myself.
Anyone else done such a thing with their own well-maintained libraries?
Bumping @lars666's thread to ask: whether classical music or not, has anyone moved any decently-sized music library from local storage to iCloud Music Library via Apple Music? Sorely tempted to but need to have a couple days to tinker and trial it -- realistically because I'm very skeptical and anticipate needing to restore from backup after mismatched classical tracks.
Sadly, I'd have to spot check because I can't possibly verify 14,000+ tracks.
Sadly, I'd have to spot check because I can't possibly verify 14,000+ tracks.
Here's a question: If you use iTunes Match / iCloud Music Library and it replaces your music from ripped CDs with tracks from Apple Music - what happens to the lower quality stuff you ripped yourself? If you unsubscribe from iTunes Match / iCloud Music Library, do you get the ripped files back?
It does NOT replace your music tracks UNLESS you delete and then download them. Also keep a backup and NO MATTER what you will have your original tracks.
I'm another person who had a pretty large library of music, a mix of stuff I'd ripped from my own CDs and stuff I'd purchased. I never had iTunes Match, but became a subscriber to Apple Music and enabled the iCloud Library function. Everything seemed to be going ok with stuff being uploaded and synched across devices, but over the last while, more and more albums and songs are just unavailable on all my devices.
The album is listed, but tracks are greyed out.
Any idea why this is and how to fix it?
The album is listed, but tracks are greyed out.
Any idea why this is and how to fix it?
Answering the question from the topic title, it’s probably not. I have enabled iCML in June 2018 and it resulted in silently deleted tracks from dozens of playlists I have in my local iTunes library.
I decided that the best option for me is to have a separate local iTunes library without iCLM, and another library with iCLM.
I decided that the best option for me is to have a separate local iTunes library without iCLM, and another library with iCLM.
Apple has a history of announcing services that it does not live up to the same promise. Apple music is just one of them, but when it doesn't replace music,,, it's good
Although there are workarounds, why should you need to fix up their mistakes ? That is why i DRM free all my Apple music stuff... It may be against their stuff, but i'll tell everyone, i would tell them..
"Fix it", then i will rely on it.
It's the only reason i still keep AM.
Although there are workarounds, why should you need to fix up their mistakes ? That is why i DRM free all my Apple music stuff... It may be against their stuff, but i'll tell everyone, i would tell them..
"Fix it", then i will rely on it.
It's the only reason i still keep AM.
NO. Dont' do it. I just copied one album to iTunes yes one album yes just one and it messed up the tags took me a hour to restore the backup and get it back right.
Sorry to report this is precisely what happened to me and the ramifications have been far more insidious than I could have dreamed. As "other life" prevented me from taking the time to sort it all out I found myself doing without music and my beloved audiobooks more and more. You lose a part of yourself when this happens. Some will say our identity shouldn't depend so much on external things but music has deep roots. Now, six years, later, I'm finally taking the time to re-enter that garden and take stock of what remains.
Sorry to latch on to this old thread. I'm on the fence about activating Apple Music for which I'd have some limited use, but I'm concerned it would do more damage than good.
I'm pretty particular about my collection and mostly still buy vinyl and CDs. I occasionally now buy albums on iTunes - either to just have something quickly that I don't care much about or to augment something quickly that I already own. You get the picture. My iTunes library is maintained manually and I sync devices manually (phone, laptop, imports to car etc). If I now get Apple Music what happens to my existing library? I heard that Apple will go and update content with higher bitrates and such. I'm concerned that it would overwrite stuff that I have in a certain format on purpose, alternative version imported from vinyl etc. How can I prevent that from happening?
While reading a bit more the underlying question is if there is a way to download and listen to albums without using iTunes Cloud Match.
These are my questions out to Apple at this point and it's difficult to get a clear answer from people who think about music and music collection in a very different way ("songs". streaming, this and that and the other).
And I understand that my usage is different than what some programmer in California/India intended it to be for some kids who grew up with streaming. So I may just stay away from it. I don't mind spending more money that way since it (hopefully) supports the artists.
As long as you don't turn on iCloud Music Library, you can safely activate/use Apple Music just as expected. Just without the option to save/download tracks from Apple Music. Yes, it's a rather huge annoyance, as I have 30K+ tracks that I've personally tagged, and iCML will indeed screw up artwork. So I leave iCML "off". But I do enjoy the remaining benefits of Apple Music.
After using Apple Music for almost a year now, my (subjective) experience is: Yes, the service (now) is safe and doesn't delete/mess up things in your library by itself (exception, like BeatCrazy says: I have some strange different cover artwork shown from time to time) – HOWEVER: You have to be DAMN careful – if you are not a "typical" Apple Music chart listener user, but a music lover with rare live recordings or whatever – what you are doing when managing your music as the many different iCloud status possibilities can be tricky. For all what's holy, if you are a music lover and trying Apple Music, backup everything on a separate HDD/SSD before playing around with it and – even if you keep AM – put this drive untouched in your drawer in case you discover something missing days, weeks, months or even years later!
No. Still mismatches different remasters, destroying the listening experience from the cloud. Expanded soundtracks often gets tracks matched with the same tracks on the original albums present in the iTunes Store, despite massive audio quality differences.
Remasters may be a problem, I'll agree with that. I have to admit that – although I am a deep music lover when it comes to live recordings and obscure tracks – I don't care much about if I have the 1999 remaster oder the 2008 remaster, but I completely understand that those could make a difference in sound difference, even a HUGE one in some cases.
As said before: Whatever people do – if they have mp3s/AACs/whatever in their iTunes library which aren't replaceable and try out Apple Music, make a whole backup of the library and put the hard drive in the drawer forever!
As said before: Whatever people do – if they have mp3s/AACs/whatever in their iTunes library which aren't replaceable and try out Apple Music, make a whole backup of the library and put the hard drive in the drawer forever!
Just trying Apple Music again. Let’s say I have songs on my computer that I personally ripped at lossless compression. If I turn on ICML, I assume what shows up on my phone if I I sync using the cloud is not lossless. That’s ok. But, can I still copy my lossless files direct to my phone? In other words, have both? And, as asked above, just to be clear, is Apple going to replace the lossless songs on my computer with lossy?
Apple Music with iCloid Music Library simply sucks. Here’s a brief list of things I encounter literally every single day, in order of decreasing exasperation.
1. Albums that I own (and did not match) have tracks that are magically missing — they are grayed out and cannot be played. Why? They should have been uploaded.
2. Songs are completely mismatched a huge proportion of time. I recently picked an artist at random — AC/DC, Dirty Deeds. It had duplicate tracks. I started playing the duplicate tracks and they were actually Yo La Tengo songs, now labeled as AC/DC with AC/DC song titles but Yo La Tengo art. Great.
I can pick almost any album at random and discover similar problems.
3. The album art is often wrong (as mentioned above)
4. Filling in tracks with remastered or live versions or vice versa. Why? If there isn’t an exact match, don’t match them. I don’t want the remastered versions — many of the albums are also remixed and reordered. Not what I purchased and not what is in my collection.
The Apple Music matching algorithm is a frustrating mess. They’ve really ruined the music experience for those people who like to listen to their own music with a smattering of some streaming music on the side.
Not to mention the confusing mess of adding to a library to listen offline, the lack of appropriate signposts in the app to know where you are, the inability to edit meta information on iOS to restore some semblance of order. It’s just really, really pooorly thought out and implemented. And like most Apple software, stagnant once it has been released.
1. Albums that I own (and did not match) have tracks that are magically missing — they are grayed out and cannot be played. Why? They should have been uploaded.
2. Songs are completely mismatched a huge proportion of time. I recently picked an artist at random — AC/DC, Dirty Deeds. It had duplicate tracks. I started playing the duplicate tracks and they were actually Yo La Tengo songs, now labeled as AC/DC with AC/DC song titles but Yo La Tengo art. Great.
I can pick almost any album at random and discover similar problems.
3. The album art is often wrong (as mentioned above)
4. Filling in tracks with remastered or live versions or vice versa. Why? If there isn’t an exact match, don’t match them. I don’t want the remastered versions — many of the albums are also remixed and reordered. Not what I purchased and not what is in my collection.
The Apple Music matching algorithm is a frustrating mess. They’ve really ruined the music experience for those people who like to listen to their own music with a smattering of some streaming music on the side.
Not to mention the confusing mess of adding to a library to listen offline, the lack of appropriate signposts in the app to know where you are, the inability to edit meta information on iOS to restore some semblance of order. It’s just really, really pooorly thought out and implemented. And like most Apple software, stagnant once it has been released.
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I've been an Apple Music subscriber since the first month it came out in 2015 and am also a heavy user. I've not only experienced everything above that you've described, but additional issues you didn't mention like albums splitting (a greatest hits album added from AM split into twenty different singles), full albums that say "Show complete album" and then show the exact same thing, just with different artwork. I also encountered an issue today which I decided to screen record and include here.
https://imgur.com/3oImDVL -Link to the issue I had adding an album today.
I'm beyond frustrated at this point. The service has been out for over three years now, I'm paying for it, there's over 50 million subscribers. WTF Apple. The final straw for me today was going to listen to an album I personally copied from CD and one of the songs was greyed out and "unavailable to play" just like you mentioned above. I'm probably going to switch to Spotify, I can't take the glitches anymore.
The problem with any streaming service is having a live recording matched by non-live version, if that's the only one available. You can get by that, but no one wants to change meta data for millions of "incorrectly matched songs"
not to mention the time it would take to go through manually, since "smart playlists" don't exactly do what Apple says it does. which is a huge downside.