Meaning of: Show Apple Music vs iCloud Music Library (pics)

[Julien]

Having a hard time with Apple Music screwing up my Library (like may others) and trying to understand where the problem is originating. When I enable Show Apple Music and iCloud Music Library it seems to be reading erroneous data in my iCloud Music Library (???) and making changes to iTunes I don't want, like Playlists, Hearts and Star ratings. I have a suspicion this is in iCloud Music Library and not Show Apple Music. Can anyone confirm or refute this?

If it is in the iCloud Music Library is there any way to reset it so it will read what is on my Mac as a starting point?

So first I would like to understand what the difference is between Show Apple Music and iCloud Music Library? It seems straight forward but not sure.

• Can you use Show (have) Apple Music on your Mac and iDevices without enabling iCloud Music Library?
• If so do you get the same Apple Music songs across devices (signed into same account)?
• Will enabling Show Apple Music have any effect on my current Library (change Hearts, Stars or Playlists)?
• Can you sync Playlists manually from iTunes to iDevices with Apple Music enabled and iCloud Music Library disabled?

 

[hagar]

Apple Music is the streaming service (For You, New, Radio, Connect) while iCloud Music Library is your own music in the cloud (aka iTunes Match). Don't know what they were thinking but yeah, pretty confusing.

 

[Julien]

Apple Music is the streaming service (For You, New, Radio, Connect) while iCloud Music Library is your own music in the cloud (aka iTunes Match). Don't know what they were thinking but yeah, pretty confusing.

I understand the obvious basics but I'm looking for specific answers to my questions.

 

[manu chao]

Apple Music is the streaming service (For You, New, Radio, Connect) while iCloud Music Library is your own music in the cloud (aka iTunes Match). Don't know what they were thinking but yeah, pretty confusing.

1. Apple Music are the discovery elements of the streaming service (For You, New).
2. iCloud Music Library is the music offered by the streaming service that you have tagged as being part of your personal cloud-based music library (in the form of a list of songs with local storage being optional). Any music you owned prior to signing up to the service or that you continue to add from other sources is automatically added to that library and if not part of the catalogue of streamable music is uploaded to Apple servers then streamed/downloaded from there (much like iTunes Match).
3. Radio and Connect are also discovery elements but they follow a different format. While For You and New are customised to you by Apple, Radio and Connect are standardised in what they offer and with Connect let you choose whose artists you want to follow.

That is the definition for the purposes of the respective settings in iTunes and on iOS devices. For marketing purposes all together fall under the 'Apple Music' header.

If you enable only the former (Apple Music), you can still search for any music and stream any music you like and you can still add music to your personal 'virtual' library (ie, one that contains a priori only the names of the songs, not the files itself). Whether that personal virtual library is then only available on other devices where you enable the iCloud Music Library or only available locally, is something I don't know.

 

[flur]

If you enable Apple Music and disable iCloud Music Library, you can only stream music. You cannot create playlists with AM songs, you cannot add songs to My Music, and you cannot download songs for offline listening. I'm fully confident in this as this is my current setup. I turned off iCML after if FUBARed my library and music files.

To answer your questions -

1. yes, you can have AM without iCML enabled
2. No, if you don't have iCML enabled, you can't save or download anything from AM, so nothing really syncs across devices. The same songs will be available of course, because the entire AM library is available for streaming.
3. I don't know. I *think* the hearts go away, but I haven't turned it off to be sure
4. Yes, you can do the manual music sync from your computer to your iDevices that you used to do before 12.2

 

[Spankey]

This is interesting as I see how this is affecting Carplay. With the current update, you can no longer shuffle Artist in Carplay without asking Siri to do so. The shuffle arrow button has been removed. When doing so, I've been hearing songs from the Artist I'm playing that I do not have the album of. I have to assume that Apple Music is shuffling all songs by that artist. That's a pain because the songs on my phone are the songs I want to listen to.

 

[sou1 so1di3r]

To answer your questions -

1. yes, you can have AM without iCML enabled
2. No, if you don't have iCML enabled, you can't save or download anything from AM, so nothing really syncs across devices. The same songs will be available of course, because the entire AM library is available for streaming.
3. I don't know. I *think* the hearts go away, but I haven't turned it off to be sure
4. Yes, you can do the manual music sync from your computer to your iDevices that you used to do before 12.2

Sweet Jesus Thank You

iCML totally and royally destroyed my entire Dead live collections, and probably all my jam bands too.

I'm just going to leave it off and hope they can fix it soon or something. I'm too picky about my library to deal with this ****.

At least I can still use Apple Music on my work computer and desktop at home

 

[manu chao]

If you enable Apple Music and disable iCloud Music Library, you can only stream music. You cannot create playlists with AM songs, you cannot add songs to My Music, and you cannot download songs for offline listening. I'm fully confident in this as this is my current setup. I turned off iCML after if FUBARed my library and music files.

To answer your questions -

1. yes, you can have AM without iCML enabled
2. No, if you don't have iCML enabled, you can't save or download anything from AM, so nothing really syncs across devices. The same songs will be available of course, because the entire AM library is available for streaming.
3. I don't know. I *think* the hearts go away, but I haven't turned it off to be sure
4. Yes, you can do the manual music sync from your computer to your iDevices that you used to do before 12.2

With only AM enabled I do have the 'option' to 'Add to my music' on my devices (in the three-dots menu). I don't really know what this means. This whole thing is so buggy, for me it seems 90% of the time I select 'Add to my music' that menu entry stays there (indicating either that it didn't get added to my music or that what the menu shows is not reliable).

 

[John6Plus]

Sweet Jesus Thank You

iCML totally and royally destroyed my entire Dead live collections, and probably all my jam bands too.

I'm just going to leave it off and hope they can fix it soon or something. I'm too picky about my library to deal with this ****.

At least I can still use Apple Music on my work computer and desktop at home

I wouldn't hold my breath that they're going to fix it. It was this messed up - with the EXACT same problems - when Match LAUNCHED and those of us that cared about our music collections lost our minds. Bad tagging, bad artwork, clean versions replacing explicit, can't use smart playlists that reference other smart playlists. If they couldn't care enough to fix these fundamental flaws before they rolled out Apple Music as a major new service, I don't know when they ever will care.

It's a shame, I otherwise like Apple Music - a lot. The curated playlists are wonderful. I would prefer it over spotify because of the integration into my existing library, but for true integration you need iCML and that is like having my cats organize the Boston Public Library.

 

[flur]

With only AM enabled I do have the 'option' to 'Add to my music' on my devices (in the three-dots menu). I don't really know what this means. This whole thing is so buggy, for me it seems 90% of the time I select 'Add to my music' that menu entry stays there (indicating either that it didn't get added to my music or that what the menu shows is not reliable).

The option is there, just like the option is there to download for offline, but when I select it, I get a message telling me that I need iCloud Music Library enabled.

I suspect you have encountered a bug that is for some reason not giving you the message that you need iCML, but is otherwise behaving exactly the same as it is for me (meaning not adding the music to My Music).

 

[flur]

It's a shame, I otherwise like Apple Music - a lot. The curated playlists are wonderful. I would prefer it over spotify because of the integration into my existing library, but for true integration you need iCML and that is like having my cats organize the Boston Public Library.

This is where I am too. I heavily prefer the Artist radio stations in Apple Music over Spotify for discovery, but when I like a song I can't add it to My Music because I don't have iCML enabled. So I add it to my iTunes wishlist and then eventually add all of the songs/bands on my wishlist to Spotify. Then if I really, really like them, I buy them, so that I can integrate them into the rest of my music. This is a terrible process, but it'll likely be my process until either Apple disconnects AM from iCML or fixes the issues with iCML. I'm not holding my breath for either.

 

[sou1 so1di3r]

dear god I just realized my MAIN home Mac with hundreds and hundreds of GB of my music is now FUBAR.

iCML has tried to replace almost all my music, and now many songs are showing with a "!" and cannot locate the files.

oh my god this is horrible. how is this even happening. I have a live album from Umphrey's McGee and when I try to play the song it plays some totally random studio track from a rap artist?!?!

 

[flur]

dear god I just realized my MAIN home Mac with hundreds and hundreds of GB of my music is now FUBAR.

iCML has tried to replace almost all my music, and now many songs are showing with a "!" and cannot locate the files.

oh my god this is horrible. how is this even happening. I have a live album from Umphrey's McGee and when I try to play the song it plays some totally random studio track from a rap artist?!?!

This happened to me, on a smaller scale (probably because I only had iCML on for a few hours). You'll have to restore your files from a backup. Turn off iCML in your iTunes preferences and then restore everything (iTunes library files and music files). When you open iTunes after the restore, make sure iCML is still off (and leave it off).