Make Available Offline so broken

[kieranet]

Using both and iPad Mini 2 and iPhone 5s I'm have no end of issues with Apple Music. However, along with playlists not saving tracks the most annoying problem is MAO.

Over the past three or four days I've tried to MAO a few albums that I don't already have in my iTunes. The feature is just clunky and doesn't work. I'll MAO a track and sometimes it will show the phone icon and sometimes it won't. I'll do the same with an album and sometimes it shows the icon, sometimes not.

There's no simple way of knowing if songs are available offline or not. The phone icon makes perfect sense if it works - but it's crap. Furthermore, one day a song is available offline and I can play it happily but then suddenly it's not there anymore.

The whole thing needs reworking. As someone who generally endorses Apple and has subscribed to Match since its inception I want to believe that this is just a glitch. But as it stands, Spotify trumps Apple Music hands down. This shouldn't have been released to the public whilst there are so many problems. Don't even get me started on playlists.

 

[whsbuss]

I've had no real issues with offline downloading. But my question is does a offline playlist play local or stream when still connected to wifi or LTE? A few time per week I'm in a area where only 4G is available and streaming always suffers. So if I have a playlist locally will it auto play or try to stream?

 

[kieranet]

I assume it will play it locally - streaming songs that are already on a device would be illogical (even for Apple) and people with limited data would not be happy.

I've had no real issues with offline downloading. But my question is does a offline playlist play local or stream when still connected to wifi or LTE? A few time per week I'm in a area where only 4G is available and streaming always suffers. So if I have a playlist locally will it auto play or try to stream?

 

[AppleRobert]

The "library" is mishmash and yes I like to be able to see what I have MAO instantly like the indicator in Spotify.

 

[NavySEAL6]

Make available offline was working, but now all of a sudden the music app doesn't recognize the local library. It doesn't even show up as taking space under usage and I have 30GB of music on my iPhone. Anyone else experience this?

 

[kmj2318]

Using both and iPad Mini 2 and iPhone 5s I'm have no end of issues with Apple Music. However, along with playlists not saving tracks the most annoying problem is MAO.

Over the past three or four days I've tried to MAO a few albums that I don't already have in my iTunes. The feature is just clunky and doesn't work. I'll MAO a track and sometimes it will show the phone icon and sometimes it won't. I'll do the same with an album and sometimes it shows the icon, sometimes not.

There's no simple way of knowing if songs are available offline or not. The phone icon makes perfect sense if it works - but it's crap. Furthermore, one day a song is available offline and I can play it happily but then suddenly it's not there anymore.

The whole thing needs reworking. As someone who generally endorses Apple and has subscribed to Match since its inception I want to believe that this is just a glitch. But as it stands, Spotify trumps Apple Music hands down. This shouldn't have been released to the public whilst there are so many problems. Don't even get me started on playlists.

The problem is that the icon will only show on what you select. So if you select to save and album offline, only the album will have the icon, even though all the songs are also offline. Same with playlists. Or if you choose an artist, no icon will show on albums or songs. Same with choosing an entire genre. The icons don't flow down to everything subservient to what you select. It's a silly bug.

 

[Peepo]

The problem is that the icon will only show on what you select. So if you select to save and album offline, only the album will have the icon, even though all the songs are also offline. Same with playlists. Or if you choose an artist, no icon will show on albums or songs. Same with choosing an entire genre. The icons don't flow down to everything subservient to what you select. It's a silly bug.

It's not a bug. It's how it tracks it and is not explained well by apple or on he user interface. When you know how it works it makes sense.

Think of it in terms of scope. Making an entire album makes it MAO. You can re-add individual songs within that album as MAO and the icon will appear for the songs. Then remove the MAO in the album scope and you will see the individual MAO songs are still there. I agree it is confusing and average person will have a difficult time understanding as it's not intuitive.

 

[kmj2318]

It's not a bug. It's how it tracks it and is not explained well by apple or on he user interface. When you know how it works it makes sense.

Think of it in terms of scope. Making an entire album makes it MAO. You can re-add individual songs within that album as MAO and the icon will appear for the songs. Then remove the MAO in the album scope and you will see the individual MAO songs are still there. I agree it is confusing and average person will have a difficult time understanding as it's not intuitive.

I don't know if it's a bug or a choice. Nonetheless, I don't think it should work that way because most people don't expect it to. Looks like something a programmer would design.

 

[Peepo]

I don't know if it's a bug or a choice. Nonetheless, I don't think it should work that way because most people don't expect it to. Looks like something a programmer would design.

I agree, they made it nearly as complicated as managing NTFS permissions on Windows

But then again, they have mentality of everyone should stream (which is how they justify 16GB entry level iPhones) but don't understand that many in other countries outside USA pay a fortune for data.

In all fairness though, Spotify is similar where one can overlap offline files and get confused because it doesn't display correctly depending on which view you are in so Apple is not the only one at fault here.

 

[kieranet]

That's the most annoying thing - it's just not intuitive. Having similar options of 'Add to My Music' and 'Make Available Offline' is just confusing to the average user. Especially if it doesn't work properly. Having the "offline" phone icon showing for some songs and not others is just silly.

My general feeling is that Apple Music is hugely bloated and many of its features won't be used by the average user. This would be forgivable if the software worked, but currently it's just bad. For instance, soon after posting my thread I tested out a few MAO things to see if I was just going mad. I selected the 'New' button at the bottom, selected 'Recent Releases' and selected a few albums. In turn, I chose to make four albums available offline. I gave it a hugely generous one hour to download all the songs and selected Airplane Mode. On checking My Music, one album had completely downloaded but the other three had two or three tracks with no pending downloads, no acknowledgment of all the other songs.

I'm by no means a novice when it comes to computers, especially Apple, but this is just pissing me off. So much for 'it just works'.

 

[Pagemakers]

Agree 100% with the OP. It's a terribly designed system.

No idea what is downloaded or not. Just a blur.

 

[Pagemakers]

It still gives the MAO option for stuff that it has already downloaded!!!

 

[Primejimbo]

I haven't had any problems with that, but what's the difference between remove from my music and remove from downloads?

 

[kerrikins]

It still gives the MAO option for stuff that it has already downloaded!!!

It doesn't do that for me - it shows 'remove download', instead. Has it downloaded them correctly? And are you looking on the same device as where you saved them?

 

[Pagemakers]

I haven't had any problems with that, but what's the difference between remove from my music and remove from downloads?

Simply adding to my music does not allow for offline play.

 

[manu chao]

That's the most annoying thing - it's just not intuitive. Having similar options of 'Add to My Music' and 'Make Available Offline' is just confusing to the average user. Especially if it doesn't work properly. Having the "offline" phone icon showing for some songs and not others is just silly.

My general feeling is that Apple Music is hugely bloated and many of its features won't be used by the average user. This would be forgivable if the software worked, but currently it's just bad. For instance, soon after posting my thread I tested out a few MAO things to see if I was just going mad. I selected the 'New' button at the bottom, selected 'Recent Releases' and selected a few albums. In turn, I chose to make four albums available offline. I gave it a hugely generous one hour to download all the songs and selected Airplane Mode. On checking My Music, one album had completely downloaded but the other three had two or three tracks with no pending downloads, no acknowledgment of all the other songs.

I'm by no means a novice when it comes to computers, especially Apple, but this is just pissing me off. So much for 'it just works'.

Similar experience but I see no point in getting mad about it. This is a bug and fuming about won't get it fixed any faster. Apple is well aware that there are problems with it. Way too many people have noticed this for Apple not to know this too. Just pretend that MAO isn't yet implemented and check back in a couple of weeks.

 

[manu chao]

Agree 100% with the OP. It's a terribly designed system.

Yeah, it was really a bad decision by them to explicitly put these bugs into the software.

Why do so many people always think there is a higher power that intentionally created all the bad stuff, all the stuff we don't like? Why can't they accept that a lot of things are unintended consequences?

 

[manu chao]

That's the most annoying thing - it's just not intuitive. Having similar options of 'Add to My Music' and 'Make Available Offline' is just confusing to the average user.

As far as I know, all streaming services have the two options of 'Add to my music' and 'Make available offline'. I know Spotify does. But I guess if Apple does, it is unintuitive, but if Spotify does it, it is not. Called grading on a scale or want to have your cake and eat it (have a streaming option but don't want to be bothered by having to decide whether to permanently store the files locally).

Especially if it doesn't work properly. Having the "offline" phone icon showing for some songs and not others is just silly.

How dare they design something with bugs in it. Buggy software is really unintuitive.

 

[Fuchal]

Yes, I agree 100%. Terrible on the phone. It's like a broken version of the Beats system.

On desktop it's even worse. Download an offline version of an album or two and the server will ban you for the next few hours. No access to Apple Music or iTunes server at all. Must be a rate limiter gone insane, or something.

 

[Paco II]

I'm a bit confused by this thread. Are people having actual issues making music available offline, or just talking about the inconsistent phone icon? It's easy enough to see exactly what's offline in Settings.

 

[kieranet]

I'm a bit confused by this thread. Are people having actual issues making music available offline, or just talking about the inconsistent phone icon? It's easy enough to see exactly what's offline in Settings.

The phone icon thing is a little confusing, yes, but I do genuinely have problems making music available offline too. 90% of the time I attempt to make a whole album available - nothing happens, or at best one song might download. Selecting tracks individually to MAO works better but still only maybe half the time.

Similar experience but I see no point in getting mad about it. This is a bug and fuming about won't get it fixed any faster. Apple is well aware that there are problems with it. Way too many people have noticed this for Apple not to know this too. Just pretend that MAO isn't yet implemented and check back in a couple of weeks.

I'm hardly 'fuming'. I've created a discussion thread that other people have agreed with. Pointing out bugs and usability issues is how things get fixed so forgive me for raising several glaring bugs that make using the software a complete slog. Ultimately this is going to be a subscription service so I've every right to point out what's broken.

 

[Paco II]

As a long time iTunes Match user, this sounds very similar to problems I've had when trying to download songs to my phone, the equivalent of MAO. If I did too many, frequently some would get 'stuck' and never download. Not saying for sure that this is the same issue, but since Apple is likely using the same technologies for this, it's very possible.

The phone icon thing is a little confusing, yes, but I do genuinely have problems making music available offline too. 90% of the time I attempt to make a whole album available - nothing happens, or at best one song might download. Selecting tracks individually to MAO works better but still only maybe half the time.

 

[kmj2318]

It still gives the MAO option for stuff that it has already downloaded!!!

Those icons only show on what you specifically choose. So if you choose to MAO an album, only the album will get the icon. You can also choose songs within that album specifically, that way if you delete the album, your choices for the individual songs will be preserved. The icon doesn't actually reflect if something's saved, its more of a sign that says "keep this even if I change something else." When there is no icon on a song, then remove the album will remove the song with it. Technically Make Available Offline for something that's already saved should say something like Keep Available Offline or Preserve Offline Status or something, i don't know, but it would just be even more confusing.

 

[wrightchad1]

My trouble is coming in when I make something available offline, if it is a big playlist, say 300 songs, it gets through about 100, then starts failing. Random tracks will pop up saying they could not be downloaded, and it kind of locks up the whole process until I reboot the phone.

 

[Paco II]

I started a separate thread lamenting the fact that Apple didn't pay enough attention to iTunes Match and its issues. This sounds like the exact same issues I've had downloading with iTunes Match since it started. A few download then it just gets stuck requiring a reboot. They really should have fixed these things before launching Apple Music.

My trouble is coming in when I make something available offline, if it is a big playlist, say 300 songs, it gets through about 100, then starts failing. Random tracks will pop up saying they could not be downloaded, and it kind of locks up the whole process until I reboot the phone.