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Have music services such as Spotify and Apple Music + iCloud replaced iTunes syncing for you?

palmerc2

palmerc2

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Feb 29, 2008
1,624
684
Los Angeles
I'm curious what the consensus is regarding music....I am really considering removing my synced music from iTunes, to being 100% on Spotify. There are a couple exceptions such as spoken audio I sync from iTunes that would never make it to Spotify, and the occasional rare album. Best part is the music stays in sync when I add something from my Mac, and vice versa. I go back and forth between Music.app and Spotify to listen to different songs on different apps, would be better to have it all in one central place.

Then when it comes to syncing pictures, and videos, those can both be added to iCloud and download to your phone and would be in Photos on your iOS device.
 
I am 100% on Apple Music.

Deleted all my mp3's a while back.... way too much of a headache to dig up songs or to even buy them. Just pay 1 flat rate and be done with it.

I also went digital with my BR discs... ripping my entire library and that's mainly what I use iTunes for now... an organizational tool that syncs my movies with all my devices.
 
TravisPNW said:
Deleted all my mp3's a while back....
Click to expand...

Unfortunately that isn't an option for me....the spoken tracks I buy from a website ONLY come in mp3, would never make it on Spotify, and no matter what I tried I couldn't get Apple Music to sync them in the cloud.

I didn't really like Apple Music anyway.
 
Nope.

I've got between 20 and 30 days straight of non-stop music. With itunes match for $25/year I have it available on all my apple devices. Less than subscription costs. With the demise of itunes sharing I use it to copy any music to all the fixed (macs/pc) locally.
 
All my MP3s are in Google Music. All 3600 of them. 99.999% of what I do today is Google Music streaming.

Had my dad ask me how to get MP3 files onto his iPhone and I honestly had no clue cuz I've never tried to do that. (Yes, it's not hard, but having never done it for many many many years....). :)
 
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I have a mix of Apple Music and iTunes media that make up my library. My main reason for getting Apple Music was that I could retain all the music I already had and just add on to my library. I have many albums that aren't on Apple Music or Spotify and I wanted to keep these connected to the library I used. That said, I don't actually sync to iTunes anymore because I just add everything to my iCloud Library and it auto downloads on my phone, iPad, and Mac
 
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Oh yeah.

The large majority of my music is still music I have downloaded over the years and have sync'd through iTunes Match, but as soon as Apple Music was released I just use both services in one music library.
 
Aren't iTunes purchases directly tied to iCloud? I stream from my regular iTunes library, no need for downloading.
 
I have too much music accumulated through the years to even consider a music service as a primary media for my listening. It might be something to consider as an enhancement, but not primary to suit my use case.
 
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Still buy Music from iTunes, Amazon and Google. Whichever has the track or album is cheaper, and iTunes for storage.

Device listening is through iTunes Match. At home listening via Sonos from Amazon stream or my local iTunes library. All my music are always in sync, cheaper than a subscription, and I own my music.
 
I'm 100% on Apple Music as well. I'm honestly not sure the last time I purchased a song or album on iTunes. Plus, it helps that all my playlists and albums/tracks are in the cloud via the music.app.
 
palmerc2 said:
I'm curious what the consensus is regarding music....I am really considering removing my synced music from iTunes, to being 100% on Spotify. There are a couple exceptions such as spoken audio I sync from iTunes that would never make it to Spotify, and the occasional rare album. Best part is the music stays in sync when I add something from my Mac, and vice versa. I go back and forth between Music.app and Spotify to listen to different songs on different apps, would be better to have it all in one central place.
Click to expand...
I could never quite get the hang of Spotify. Maybe it was a misunderstanding on my part about how it works but I never seem to get the music out of it I ask for.

In any case, my entire iTunes library resides on my MBP. Google Play Music has a method that pushes any changes in my iTunes library to Google Music, including playlists.

I have about 10GB or more then in Google's Music cloud. I can use any device to stream it and on my 5 and 6s+ I use Google's Music app to do so.

Best part of all of this for me is that it's been free since Google sent me the Music beta invite.
 
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eyoungren said:
I could never quite get the hang of Spotify. Maybe it was a misunderstanding on my part about how it works but I never seem to get the music out of it I ask for.

In any case, my entire iTunes library resides on my MBP. Google Play Music has a method that pushes any changes in my iTunes library to Google Music, including playlists.

I have about 10GB or more then in Google's Music cloud. I can use any device to stream it and on my 5 and 6s+ I use Google's Music app to do so.

Best part of all of this for me is that it's been free since Google sent me the Music beta invite.
Click to expand...

This is pretty much what I do. I don't actually pay for Google Music either, but they still allow me to upload up to 100,000 songs I already own (excluding the old iTunes tracks that have DRM still) to the cloud along with playlists. I own a tiny fraction of 100K tracks. The go-between is a little app called "music manager". It works mostly fine, but I'm still working out the kinks since some non-DRM songs still won't upload.

I believe that ultimately, the music services and the recording industry want us all on subscriptions with no option to actually purchase music. Purchase options on some services are already somewhat buried and I expect we'll start seeing that option vanish in a few years. If you're ever in a position where you are not paying a subscription--no music for you.
 
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Spotify at the moment only because I have the subscription included in my monthly contract. No way I am paying anyone £10pm for music that I’ll never own.
 
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barkomatic said:
I believe that ultimately, the music services and the recording industry want us all on subscriptions with no option to actually purchase music. Purchase options on some services are already somewhat buried and I expect we'll start seeing that option vanish in a few years. If you're ever in a position where you are not paying a subscription--no music for you.
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The one way to work around that I've found is dealing with the artist website directly. Most of them allow album downloads.

I prefer either to do that or to buy a CD outright. I don't appreciate some service owning or controlling my access to something I have paid for. I realize I do not own the rights to the music itself, but I should be able to place it on any device capable of playing it that I wish.

Not going to be held hostage by a service.
 
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I moded my light blue hardly used 4GB iPod mini for fun to 256GB then iTunes sync before that years and years ago.
I'm a GPM subscriber I mainly stream with SONOS at home and offline in car. Not watched tv in about 7 years, I perfer music and youtube food and travel, bbq and paramotor videos, with adguard ad blocker.
 
iCloud yes. The only time I ever connect my phone to iTunes is when I’ve first bought it and setting it up to transfer my music across because I don’t want to have anything to do with Apple Music. However for backups it’s icloud all the way.
 
Not even close. I'd rather have it all on my device & never have to worry about losing signal. Plus, no streaming service gets even remotely close to having all the music I listen to. And never will.
 
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I still buy songs on iTunes as well as subscribing to Spotify and Apple Music. In addition to that, I also have iTunes Match service so that I can have all my songs available on other devices (sometimes I dropped AM - depending on my mood - so that way I still have access on the library).

With Apple Music, I don't download or add anything to my library because I do not want to have tracks from AM mixed up with my well curated/purchased music.
 
I keep everything on my personal machine, and nothing in the cloud but email. I have a few tracks and albums I've purchased from Apple over the years, but the vast majority of my music is purchased on CD, ripped lossless, and then sync'd to my phone.
 
Yes, but not by choice. I finally got fed up with iTunes Music Library messing up my sync'ed songs (e.g., replacing the album version with a live one) that I just blew away all of the sync'ed music on my phone and am now 100% AM (I was 95% AM before). All the AAC/ALAC files are still on our server to play on the Apple TV in the living room, but not on my phone anymore. Love Apple Music - wish it played nicer with local libraries...
 
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