Jim Dalrymple: Apple Music is a nightmare and I'm done with it

[flur]

As for the problems, everybody I know personally that is using Apple Music has zero major problems. In my family we are four using it and my GF has a freaking huge library with a mix of iTunes and no iTunes song (she is a fitness instructor and has musics from several fitness programs that are exclusive to those programs and thus are not on iTunes) and apart a couple of wrong album covers she had no problems. We are happy with it and I cancelled my spotify subscription.

Here's the catch. That thing where it deletes a bunch of your music? It doesn't happen until you turn iCloud Music Library off. In the meantime, it may be replacing some of the files on your hard drive with DRM'd files (yes, this has been reported), but you won't know unless you check. So it's totally possible that LOTS of people, including you, will have issues down the line, you just don't know it yet. And it's totally possible that if you're using a backup service that replaces the older backups with newer ones (like Time Machine) that you won't even have a good backup when you find out you have issues.

So, just because "everyone you know" isn't having issues (that they know about), that doesn't mean you should dismiss reports like this out of hand. What you should be doing is making sure you have a good backup of your music from BEFORE you turned on AM, and taking a closer look at what you actually have on your hard drive.

 

[Rogifan]

Really some of you guys are so over dramatic in everything Apple related... So far it's a free service and it will be like that for more 2-3 months... Give it at least that time. Spotify needs a few years until they reached the amount of traffic AM is having at this point.

As for the problems, everybody I know personally that is using Apple Music has zero major problems. In my family we are four using it and my GF has a freaking huge library with a mix of iTunes and no iTunes song (she is a fitness instructor and has musics from several fitness programs that are exclusive to those programs and thus are not on iTunes) and apart a couple of wrong album covers she had no problems. We are happy with it and I cancelled my spotify subscription.

I'm not saying you guys are not having problems, what I'm saying is that maybe they are not that widespread... Every service at its launch has problems, so will AM.

As for this Dalrymple... So he is a major Apple user and has no music backup? time Machine? If he said that he lost those 4k songs he is clearly lying to be more dramatic. That, by itself, takes a lot o credit of what he is saying...

Apple should have labeled it beta then.

 

[Droobiemus]

Now that I've gotten used/understand to the "workflow" of Apple Music, I'm starting to prefer it over Spotify. I definitely prefer the look. One thing that IMO is much better is the radio function. Spotify's artist radio is terrible, very repetitive, Apple music has much more variety and seems to keep the flow going. It really is "set it and forget it" when I'm at work. Also the "for you" tab is pretty spot on in my case, I've discovered A LOT of new music since its launch. What Spotify has going for it is really the overall speed of the app and the social aspect of it. Let's hope Apple is paying attention to the criticism of one its most loyal evangelist and will fix all the bugs soon.

Yup, same here. Takes a bit of browsing around and figuring out, but once tuned to your tastes, Apple Music is definitely spot on. Plus the Siri integration is great. I'm definitely keeping it after my trial.

 

[Itzamna]

Apple should have labeled it beta then.

It doesn't take a genius to understand that Apple (or any other company) didn't had the capability to mass test it and put the system under the pressure that it currently is. I've played World of Warcraft for years and since day one... Despite being one of the more ambitious game project ever made, the first months were a nightmare. There were patches every few days fixing problems. Does that mean that Blizzard should've label WoW as beta? No, because Blizzard couldn't, possible have test it for 1-2 million players at once overloading the servers...


Give it time, at least the trial... And then let the name calling start! You have nothing to lose really...

Here's the catch. That thing where it deletes a bunch of your music? It doesn't happen until you turn iCloud Music Library off. In the meantime, it may be replacing some of the files on your hard drive with DRM'd files (yes, this has been reported), but you won't know unless you check.

I always had it on, and again, no problems. But again, in my case i started my library from scratch. But my GF did not and she didn't had problems with deleted songs.

So it's totally possible that LOTS of people, including you, will have issues down the line, you just don't know it yet. And it's totally possible that if you're using a backup service that replaces the older backups with newer ones (like Time Machine) that you won't even have a good backup when you find out you have issues.

It's also possible that those problems are localised and will be fixed in the next interactions... It works for both ways. That's why i said that people tend to over react. Again, give it time...

So, just because "everyone you know" isn't having issues (that they know about), that doesn't mean you should dismiss reports like this out of hand. What you should be doing is making sure you have a good backup of your music from BEFORE you turned on AM, and taking a closer look at what you actually have on your hard drive.

First, what makes you think that i didn't look at my hard drive? My background is in computer science, so trust me, my professional life is on those disks, so i keep them tight down.

As for the problems down the road, i'm not dismissing the reports. As i said, i'm not saying those guys are lying (well maybe just Dalrymple, because no backup? Really?), i'm saying that maybe its not as widespread as some of these guys seem to want it to be. Plus, there is no sense to worry with something that might happen in 5 years or whatever time if there are no real proof that it will happen...

For example, when i bought my last MBP, i got a SSD from a third party. In countless forum threads (including on this forum) people were saying that without trim support the SSD's would slow to a crawl after x months... 4 years and a half later, it still as fast as it was when i bought and even if it fails, lets say in the next year, it has lived all the life cycle i was expecting it to live.

 

[bjjp2]

Allow me to introduce the doubters to this thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-right-old-mess-of-my-itunes-library.1896446/

 

[Itzamna]

Allow me to introduce the doubters to this thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-right-old-mess-of-my-itunes-library.1896446/

And i bet there are countless more on the Internet... But again, that doesn't mean that the rest are not enjoying or are doomed to have problems. For instance, taking that thread as an example... There are about 500 posts there. Even if those were 500 different people (which by a large margin it isn't since many many people posted a lot more than once), 500 unhappy costumers are probably next to nothing when compared to the rest... You can even make it 10 times that or 100 times that, so you can take into account people that don't write on forums or that are not aware of the problems, that even so it would be next to nothing when compared to the overall picture...

Bugs are part of software design, and as i said, lets wait and hope they fix them so we all can enjoy it. But that doesn't mean that everybody is suffering or that AM is a pile of crap.

 

[bjjp2]

And i bet there are countless more on the Internet... But again, that doesn't mean that the rest are not enjoying or are doomed to have problems. For instance, taking that thread as an example... There are about 500 posts there. Even if those were 500 different people (which by a large margin it isn't since many many people posted a lot more than once), 500 unhappy costumers are probably next to nothing when compared to the rest... You can even make it 10 times that or 100 times that, so you can take into account people that don't write on forums or that are not aware of the problems, that even so it would be next to nothing when compared to the overall picture...

Bugs are part of software design, and as i said, lets wait and hope they fix them so we all can enjoy it. But that doesn't mean that everybody is suffering or that AM is a pile of crap.

The thing that's so disappointing about AM is not simply that it's "buggy." It's that it messes with your own other data without any warning. This is inexcusable.

 

[Itzamna]

The thing that's so disappointing about AM is not simply that it's "buggy." It's that it messes with your own other data without any warning. This is inexcusable.

Maybe they didn't expect that that function would have the impact on users library that it had on some users.. Or maybe it's a necessary evil due to the architecture of iTunes and so the sync and match can work well... We don't know...
They gave us 3 months, so in the end, we are still testing the Apple Music. That's why I said to wait until November or so and then lets see how things are... If its a bug, if its working as intended, if its a localised or generalised situation, etc...


All this panic and unhappiness is just, in my opinion, over reaction and over dramatic at this point.

 

[stormchaser]

From the article:
At some point, enough is enough. That time has come for me—Apple Music is just too much of a hassle to be bothered with. Nobody I’ve spoken at Apple or outside the company has any idea how to fix it, so the chances of a positive outcome seem slim to none.

This doesn't sound promising

 

[nickdylan]

Of the 23,000 songs I have on iTunes I can access a whopping 300-odd on my iPhone 6/iPad Air 2 with iTunes Match and Apple Music. Luckily 95% of them are available on Apple Music streaming, but it's undeniably a huge mess. I kind of wish I could go back to iOS 8.3.

 

[Bromeo]

Reminds me of what was it... the iOS 8.0.1 fiasco? Maps? MobileMe? .Mac? iSync?

Apple likes to do "the big reveal" of "revolutionary" products. It has to out-do itself each time. The products get increasingly ambitious as a result.

Now we are gulping from the firehose of superlative innovation. We're drunk on it. We want, no, we demand, more!

Makes me want to curl up with a hardcover book while listening to a CD from my collection as time slowly ticks by on the mechanical clock on the wall. Tick, tock, tick, tock. Time to change the CD and wind the clock again.

Life was simpler.

 

[Michael Goff]

welcome to tim cook's ****** apple

I know, right? Before Tim Cook, they always did good with internet based things. Mobile Me worked great, initial iCloud was amazing, and then Tim Cook came in.

Also, that was sarcasm.

 

[rorschach]

A lot of bugs, that's for sure.

For example, I have a bunch of songs downloaded for offline listening. Today I get on the subway and take out my phone to listen, and dozens of songs were unavailable -- grayed out. I had to download them all again.

 

[sigmadog]

I just dug my Sony Walkman out of the closet. Anyone got any cassettes I can listen to?

 

[Rogifan]

I was listening to Kirk McElhearn's The Committed podcast. He had Jim Dalrymple on as a guest. One thing they brought up was no beta testing of Apple Music outside of HQ. Both of them are big music buffs, have large personal libraries and know iTunes well. They both said they would have confidentially beta tested Apple Music. Why in the world wouldn't Apple have guys like that give the service a spin a month or so from release? I forwarded a link to the podcast to Eddy Cue on Twitter. Who knows if he reads stuff tweeted to him or if it goes through an assistant but it can't hurt to throw this stuff his way. He needs to hear this stuff. It's coming from people that want Apple Music to work and to be successful and who believe Apple can do better.

As far as some of the issues Jim and others are having (like missing songs from albums)...I wonder if Apple purposely engineered the service so they don't have to pay streaming royalties on stuff you already own. So if you own several albums by The Who and then add a greatest hits album via Apple Music to your library it will only add those things that aren't on the albums you already own. If that's intentional did no one at Apple consider that people might sometimes like to just pull up a greatest hits album and press play? Or might be pulling their hair out trying to figure out why only certain songs were added?

 

[Rogifan]

Maybe they didn't expect that that function would have the impact on users library that it had on some users.. Or maybe it's a necessary evil due to the architecture of iTunes and so the sync and match can work well... We don't know...
They gave us 3 months, so in the end, we are still testing the Apple Music. That's why I said to wait until November or so and then lets see how things are... If its a bug, if its working as intended, if its a localised or generalised situation, etc...


All this panic and unhappiness is just, in my opinion, over reaction and over dramatic at this point.

The thing is Apple didn't call this a beta. Just because they're offering it free for three months doesn't make it a beta and doesn't mean we should have to put up with a crap experience. But I think Kirk McElhearn is right: The service was not designed for people with large personal libraries of purchased music. It was designed for millennialist who don't own much music and think Beats 1 is the bomb.

 

[navaira]

The thing is Apple didn't call this a beta. Just because they're offering it free for three months doesn't make it a beta and doesn't mean we should have to put up with a crap experience. But I think Kirk McElhearn is right: The service was not designed for people with large personal libraries of purchased music. It was designed for millennialist who don't own much music and think Beats 1 is the bomb.

Yup. But nobody said that. It was enough to announce "today we are starting the beta testing of Apple Music, and giving you a three month trial, if you encounter problems please use the Feedback tab, and be warned the beta version might cause unintentional problems for those with big libraries". OS X and iOS go through many developer and public beta versions. This didn't. I don't buy the "it's free so don't complain" suggestion either. Hey, someone broke into my house and stole my CD collection, but he didn't charge me so it's fine?

 

[sishaw]

As far as some of the issues Jim and others are having (like missing songs from albums)...

That minimizes the issues people are having. The issue is album covers, artists, and songs getting scrambled, and this is happening to people's personal iTunes libraries, including CDs they imported. I'm glad you personally are not having these problems, but I and many others are.

 

[Rogifan]

That minimizes the issues people are having. The issue is album covers, artists, and songs getting scrambled, and this is happening to people's personal iTunes libraries, including CDs they imported. I'm glad you personally are not having these problems, but I and many others are.

Sorry I didn't mean to minimize the issue you all are having. That was just one example and my thoughts as to why it might be happening. And I have my issues to (though my library isn't large). I have the Beatles boxed set which I purchased on iTunes and I'm not seeing all the correct album art. And for a long time most of the songs were showing up under one album called The Beatles Boxed Set rather than under the correct album. But I hate iTunes so much I try really hard not to use it if I don't have to.

 

[Rogifan]

Wow, Don Melton, who was a Director at Apple (basically created Safari and ran the Safari team), doesn't mince words about Apple Music in his latest podcast with Rene Ritchie and Serenity Caldwell. What amazes me is Caldwell says she had to create an Apple Music family sharing FAQ out of whole cloth because a Apple had nothing. Wow.

http://traffic.libsyn.com/zenandtech/melton06.mp3

EDIT: I'm watching CNBC right now and both Jon Fortt and Kara Swisher are dinging Apple Music (and Apple services in general). Kara said she recently signed up for Spotify premium because Apple Music was too confusing. Jon Fortt said he thinks Apple tried to cram too many things into one app. Scott Forstall took the fall for Apple maps. At what point is Eddy Cue held accountable for Apple Music? Or is he too popular and well liked inside the company and therefore untouchable?

 

[Razeus]

Apple's betas are alphas. Official releases are betas. Point releases are the real thing.

This is Tim Cook's Apple.

 

[navaira]

iTunes is at 12.2.1, but looks to me like developer preview 2. I can't believe they didn't test it outside Apple HQ. Honestly, none of the testers had any problems like the ones described by tens of people on forums I read? Nobody noticed that artwork and metadata gets borked? Did anybody test it at all?

I don't think it's possible to count percentages and amounts that they will lose because of unleashing this beast of an alpha release upon unsuspecting people. But I know more people who decided to get a paid Spotify subscription after playing around with this free trial. As for me, I already had a paid Spotify subscription and I'm going to stick with it unless I see hordes of very satisfied AM users declare that ALL the errors have been removed.

 

[flur]

Apple's betas are alphas. Official releases are betas. Point releases are the real thing.

This is Tim Cook's Apple.

I'm not convinced we'll EVER get a truly working version of this. They've known about the Match bugs for years and didn't fix them.

People have asked if Eddy Cue will pay. I want to know how many execs will have to be fired before folks start to look at Tim Cook as the problem. I know Steve made mistakes too, but it seems like there were a lot fewer of them. Is that rose-colored memories, or is Tim Cook ultimately the problem Apple is having with producing good software and services?

 

[navaira]

I'm misquoting but that time when Steve asked people what is MobileMe supposed to do, they responded and he shouted "well why the **** doesn't it do that?!"... I wonder if Tim Cook is capable of doing that.

 

[Razeus]

Everything about Apple feels tacked on these days. They are spread too thin. Trying to do everything and good at nothing. As evident from the last Keynote (which also felt tacked on and disjointed), I don't think Tim Cook has a good handle of his direct reports. He needs to pull in the reigns by quite a bit.

If they want to make services for my Home and Car, HELL NO. You can't even get an album added to a playlist properly. I'm still getting wrong directions in Maps. iTunes Match still matches 8/10 songs you have.