How Apple Music Can Disrupt Users' iTunes Libraries 360
An anonymous reader writes: Early adopters of Apple Music are warning others they could get more than they bargained for if they intend to download tracks for offline listening. Since Apple Music is primarily a streaming service, this functionality necessitates turning on iCloud Music for syncing purposes. The way Apple syncs files is to scan your library for known music files, and if it finds one, the service gives your account access to Apple's canonical copy. Unfortunately, this wipes out any custom edits you made to the file's metadata. For those who have put a lot of time into customizing their library, this can do a lot of damage to their organizational system. Apple's efforts to simplify and streamline the process have once again left advanced users with a difficult decision to make.
I quit trying to organize my songs long time ago (Score:2, Insightful)
Nowadays I just follow Spotify's, or Napter's, or Deezer's or Apple's. They do all the work for me already. For $9/month that's a lot of time that I save.
Re: (Score:2)
You're not OCD about your music library, a small minority (not including me!) are. And websites always need clickbait with headlines implying a world shaking problem that hits all users... so the problem gets blown out of proportion.
Re: (Score:2)
For certain music genres, third party tags will be flatly incorrect even from an authoritative source. Classical music and Jazz need to use more tags than are typically supplied by download and streaming services and what tags are used are often applied incorrectly. Streaming and online stores ironically make more work for me than just ripping a goddamned CD and typing everything in myself.
Re: (Score:2)
The majority of tags from legit music I've bought have been incorrect.
The most common problems are:
1. Confusing composer with artist. If the song is a remix, the artist is the remixer. The original artist is the composer.
2. Genres are fuzzy. Lots of songs fit into many genres. Picking a single genre is inaccurate at best. Sadly the id3 spec only lets us pick one, so I comma separate them out of protest. Wikipedia does this too. Look up an album, see many genres, not one.
3. The infamous "Various Artists" art
Re: (Score:2)
No, the original artist is the original artist (ID3v2.2 tag TOA, ID3v2.3 tag TOPE). They may also be the composer, but that is by no means certain.
No, the ID3v2.2 and ID3v2.3 specs let you select multiple
Re: (Score:2)
There is no "original artist" tag, AFAIK. What I'm referring to is the "artist" tag which properly should refer to whoever actually made the song. If it's a remix or a cover, the artist is whoever made the remix or the cover, not the author of the original song. The author of the original is the composer.
Apple = Buggy (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not even using Apple Music and the update wiped out all the music on my iPhone. This was a long standing bug with IOS when the iPhone 6 came out, and I thought they'd finally nixed it a few months ago, but no now it's back. Meanwhile my iMac is at Apple for 10 days because of their failed 3TB iMac hardware, Argh, so I can't even synch it back on. Apple's quality has really dropped the last couple of years.
Re:Apple = Buggy (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple's quality has really dropped the last couple of years.
Thank Tim Cook....
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not even using Apple Music and the update wiped out all the music on my iPhone.
Didn't seem to effect millions of other people. Did it ever occur to you that maybe you made a mistake somewhere in the process? Lets assume its Apple's fault ... so one ... out of millions broke ... and if it happened to anyone else, would you still feel the same way? I doubt it.
so I can't even synch it back on.
... And you weren't smart enough to have backups? Who's fault is that exactly? Your ID is lower than mine, that puts you in the 90s somewhere for signing up with slashdot ... and you still don't know to make backups? With tha
Re: (Score:2)
Complaining about a failed hard drive is hardly something worth attacking Apple for, especially since they're covering the replacements for free.
The blame lies more with Seagate on those defective 3TB drives, IMO. They will fail the exact same way whether they get used in an iMac or a Windows PC.
Quintessential Apple (Score:2, Flamebait)
You'd think Apple/Mac customers would be fairly comfortable with the flexibility vs simplicity trade-off by now?
You're all idiots (Score:4, Insightful)
So many stupid comments about how Apple users cannot be advanced users, including troll moderators that support such idiocy.
Guess what, idiots? They're advanced users, not hackers/coders/programmers. Stop being elitist jerks and accept that there's people less knowledgeable than yourselves.
Looking to move off of iTunes (Score:5, Insightful)
.
I want to be the one in control of my music library. I do not want Apple, acting as a proxy for the media industry, taking inventory of the songs I have and changing the metadata for those songs.
Re: (Score:2)
It's been a while and they may have fixed this, but I have no intention of every tying myself to iTunes ever again.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
People don't know how to use software and then complain that the software is buggy, news at 11.
Hint: check the "compilation" box.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why does it matter how the files are organized? Let the OS and the software take care of technical details and manage your music through iTunes.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I've said it above and I'll say it again:
Select all the tracks for the album, "Get info". On the "details" page, there is a checkbox named "Compilation [_] Album is a compilation of songs by various artists". iTunes will then keep the files in a directory for the album (under /Compilations/AlbumName/).
Re: (Score:2)
I used to care how the files were organized too, until I realized it was pointless if the software can do it for me. It's not about "the Apple way", it's about letting computers do the job for us, like it's supposed to be.
Re: (Score:3)
It's not how it's supposed to be for those who want to organise by directories.
You know, people are different.
Re: (Score:2)
If you're using iTunes, it doesn't matter how your files are organized, you're supposed to use playlists and smart playlists using the metadata.
And iTunes already does organize files by directories if your metadata is correct.
Re:Looking to move off of iTunes (Score:4, Informative)
In any case, if you don't want iTunes to manage the files, simply uncheck the option "Keep iTunes Media folder organized".
I really can't understand why people are bitching about this so much.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If you don't want iTunes to manage the files then you have to manage them yourself. Unchecking that option means iTunes won't copy/move your files when you add them to your library.
Re: (Score:2)
Let's just say I've found many other media utilities without this feature.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm the same way. If the music management program can tell the difference between 2-3 versions of the song, but are different remixes, as well as not overwrite the lossless version of a song with a MP3, I'm happy.
I used to worry about tags... but these days, I have so many other things on my plate that if some software can do the grunt work, so much the better.
Re: (Score:2)
That's the Apple way.
User asked for a feature then get flamed for wanting the feature. Nobody should want features not in Apple software.. Until Apple puts in the feature, then it's the greatest since sliced bread.
Accepting the rather odd notion that "organizing files by hand" is a "feature" of a music management system (something that organizes your music for you) - yes, iTunes has that feature, for quite some time now. Complaining about something you don't actually know about because you hate Apple - that's the Slashdot way.
Re: (Score:2)
Select all the tracks for the album, "Get info". On the "details" page, there is a checkbox named "Compilation [_] Album is a compilation of songs by various artists".
Re: (Score:2)
Did the really, really obvious "this is a compilation" checkbox that has always been there elude you?
Not sure what Apple is meant to "fix" about that. I'd say "check the box for you automatically" but then we're in a story talking about how the sky is falling because the Music launch caused issues with non-desired editing of metadata.
You can't win!
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately there is no Foobar 2000 for Mac. I tried a Mac for over a year and I could never find a suitable program for managing and playing my very large music library ... thousands of tracks in various audio file formats. Some programs couldn't deal with the number of files, some couldn't play all of the different audio formats. None could hold a candle to FB2K so I switched back.
Re: (Score:2)
Not a mac user myself, but I use Quod Libet [readthedocs.org] on both Linux and Windows for my 621 album collection of FLACs, and there's a mac version as well. It's written in Python using GStreamer for the audio support, so I suppose file support depends on what GStreamer can play on your platform. I'm pretty happy with its tagging support, it will bulk-tag selected files and can move/rename files if you want, great for when the track database gave the ripper "Sound Track CD 1" and "OST Disc II" (musicbrainz is just as s
Re: (Score:2)
Or you could just not use the service that's been available for years already and you've not been using.
What the summary is referring to is NOT iTunes Music, it is iTunes Match, which is not even a little new. iTunes Music includes iTunes Match for free.
So why do you suddenly switch from iTunes because you don't like a service thats been out for years and you don't use, but just now discovered does something you don't like?
$10 says you don't use iTunes anyway and are just trolling.
Either way you're a douc
Think different! (Score:2, Insightful)
Think different - as long as it is exactly as we tell you to.
iTunes never cared about directories so why tags (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:iTunes never cared about directories so why tag (Score:5, Informative)
There is an option in iTunes to leave the song files in their original location. I keep all my songs organized my way on a NAS and just point iTunes to it. The songs are not copied or moved to my Mac.
Re: (Score:2)
You can do it that way if you like - you can tell iTunes to let you manage the directory structure how you like. This is the first time an automated feature has clashed with that option it seems (it won't change the directory structure, but it might affect things like custom start and end points set in id3 tags). It's not supposed to interfere if you set it to manual control so this is clearly unintended behaviour.
Re: (Score:3)
iTunes will leave the songs where they are OR will organize them into artist/album/song.ext for you if you choose. Those are two little checkboxes in the preferences, pretty sure the default is to move them into your iTunes library structure and organize them.
You have to have a seriously messed up configuration before it just dumps them into the same directory. I have experienced what you're referring to but I also do a bunch of weird crap with an AFP on a FBSD box using a ZFS store for it all, so I have
And... (Score:2, Insightful)
Not a single shit does Apple give. Now be a good iPhanboi and buy an Apple watch.
Oblig. (Score:3)
If it doesn't work as expected (Score:5, Funny)
If it doesn't work as expected, or a change in feature set results in data loss or poor performance, it's because you're doing it wrong... much like when the iPhone 4 introduced the faulty easy-to-short antenna design when holding the phone the way anyone holds ANY cellphone, Jobs excuse was "you're holding it wrong." Therefore in this case, extending Apple reasoning to the current use case, if you're editing metadata, you're doing it wrong.
Not to get into another religious soft-war, but .. (Score:3)
Google Music, in my experience, has the exact same problem Apple Music does. It ignores your manually input album art and other metadata, and decides to substitute what it thinks your tracks should have attached to them instead.
The only good thing Google does that (so far), Apple doesn't is gives you a button to tell it the data is wrong for a given track so you can override it. (Still, that's a LOT of pointless extra work to put back what was there in the first place.) Well, that, and the fact they're not going to trash your "master library" of music since they don't act as the application all of your music is stored in. They just mess up the copies of the data they put up in the cloud for you to stream back down from your devices.
I *wish* these cloud music services would simply ASK FIRST if you'd like to replace all of your existing metadata, or if you'd rather they only add metadata to your tracks that don't yet contain any at all.
Re: Advanced users do not use Apple products (Score:2, Insightful)
That makes kernel developers who use a Macbook as development environment what?
kernel developers on Macs - that would be me (Score:2, Insightful)
You're talking about me.
I've been a developer for 17 years. My name is in the kernel changelog. I've designed and built custom servers with power tools. I use Mac Pros for work.
It seems GP might think that Apple only makes iPhones. Mac Pros, which run certified Unix (OS X) are possibly the _best_ option for serious professionals. There are also a couple other companies making one or two choices in well-built hardware you can install enterprise Linux on, of course.
Re: (Score:2)
Mac Pros, which run certified Unix (OS X) are possibly the _best_ option for serious professionals.
Who cares whether a Unix is certified? Linux is the big daddy of the server rhythm these days. It's all been over but the tears for Big Iron Unix since you started seeing people consider the GNU toolchain 'indispensable' on it.
There are also a couple other companies making one or two choices in well-built hardware you can install enterprise Linux on, of course.
There's a lot of companies making much more capable hardware these days, particularly in the graphics department, and featuring considerably more expandability. Much of it comes at significantly lower cost, as well, and if you spend more money, you'll know what you got for it in most
Re:kernel developers on Macs - that would be me (Score:5, Funny)
But his name is in the kernel changelog!
Re: (Score:2)
But his name is in the kernel changelog!
On one hand, mentioning that seems arrogant. On the other hand, the most prestigious piece of software in which my name might appear is a drupal module.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't want to brag, but Emacs is named after me.
Re: (Score:3)
When he mentioned it the first time in this discussion, that was arrogant. When he mentioned it the second time is when it became a matter of honor to ridicule him.
Re: (Score:3)
It's tattooed to your mom's ass.
Enterprise cares. Also regulatory agencies (Score:3)
> Who cares whether a Unix is certified? Linux is the big daddy of the server rhythm these days
Linux has a huge installed base, absolutely. Most of my work throughout my career has been on Linux. We also know that GNU stands for Gnu's Not Unix. Linux is popular, and it's explicitly Not Unix. There is no guarantee your Unix software or integrations will continue to work on any particular version of any particular Linux distribution, as they try out a third init system in as many years.
So who cares abo
Re: (Score:2)
However, Apple has one thing at the consumer [1] level... and that is very good CS.
I've heard lots of stories that went both ways there. As someone who has owned a piece of Apple hardware with a known and admitted hardware bug which Apple closed wontfix and told people to buy more hardware to get around the problem, I have my own opinions about the value of Apple support.
For example, MAC and Snap-On tools are more expensive than what comes off the boat to a Harbor Freight store... but the expensive tools tend to be better in the long run since they last longer, and if they do break, there is a no questions asked warranty. Similar with Macs.
Oh, you failed so hard when you tried to make the car analogy... because the hand tools at Harbor Freight have lifetime warranties now, and it's a lot cheaper to get the extended warranty for the other stuff (like scanner
Re: (Score:3)
True, Harbor Freight hand tools have a lifetime warranty, and they've stepped up their game at the same time Sears' contract manufacturers moved to China and Craftsman tools went to hell in a hand-basket. But, when they do break, someone who's on the clock has to run out to Sears or Harbor Freight and wait in line to get that replacement, and you're stuck explaining to the customer why their car isn't ready today. Meanwhile, Snap-On, Mac and Matco break less often to begin with. When they do break, the loca
Re: (Score:2)
Meanwhile, Snap-On, Mac and Matco break less often to begin with. When they do break, the local distributor shows up the same day in their truck with a replacement and you still get the customer out the door by close of business.
All of this, and maybe Apple support too, works really well when you live in the city, near one of their facilities. When you live anywhere else, it all goes to hell. The delivery trucks don't go to most of the shops, so you get stuff from whichever truck actually shows up. And when you need a machine serviced, they expect you to either bring it in, wait, or ship it and wait. It's not just Apple, I don't mean to pick on them alone; my fun stories involve HP... but only because I didn't buy Apple, or Sony, e
Re: (Score:2)
However, Apple has one thing at the consumer [1] level... and that is very good CS.
I've heard lots of stories that went both ways there. As someone who has owned a piece of Apple hardware with a known and admitted hardware bug which Apple closed wontfix and told people to buy more hardware to get around the problem, I have my own opinions about the value of Apple support.
Well, the you would be better off buying from one of many PC manufacturers - just make sure you pick one where you don't find several worse stories. Which will take you some time.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't say.
Man, dude is thirsty
Re: (Score:3)
For some reason, I can't help but read your posts with a Spanish accent.
"Hello, my name is Ray Morris. My name is in the kernel changelog. You've insulted OS X. Prepare to die."
Re:Advanced users do not use Apple products (Score:4, Interesting)
If you use Apple products you are not an advanced user. It is as easy as that.
Wow, I guess that means that more than half of all advanced computer users that I encounter in my day to day life must have machined their own custom laptops to look just like Macbooks!
No, but seriously, many advance users do not care to have advanced control over their music library.
Many advanced users unwittingly had Itunes destroy their music organization about a decade ago when they switched from Winamp to Itunes. They swore about it for a while, then accepted that Apple controls their music folder now and that having advanced control over your music organization is nice, but not essential. If we turn off our RDF deflectors temporarily we might even think of it as a feature. Remember what a time sink music file organization used to be.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
No, but seriously, many advance users do not care to have advanced control over their music library.
And you base your opinion on?
When I see an 'advanced' apple user going into a tunnel on the train I just chuckle and turn my cheap mp3 player up a bit more to drown out their complaints. They made their choice.
I still have control over my music collection and it still grows. Advanced users don't do use itunes, they use whatever they damn well please because they don't need Apples software. As far as 'control over your music organization' goes a few regular expressions and a 5 line shell script are enough
Re: (Score:2)
Don't know what the hell you are talking about. I have an iPhone and nothing is streamed. Any music I listen is stored on the device.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't know what the hell you are talking about. I have an iPhone and nothing is streamed. Any music I listen is stored on the device.
I don't use itunes so I wouldn't know how the music gets on the device, I thought it was streamed AAC, my mistake. I don't understand what the complaints are about however I do like to maintain control over my music collection.
So as long as you have an itunes to manage it, I don't think it is so easy to step out of the walled garden once you step into it.
Re: (Score:2)
It's only streamed if you use a steaming service. My collection is all mp3, and yes, managed by iTunes.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't know what the hell you are talking about. I have an iPhone and nothing is streamed. Any music I listen is stored on the device.
Well it seems he has actually met more people using Apple Music than anything else in the last couple of years he's riding the "train". Confirming Apple has won the Streaming War.
Re: (Score:3)
This isn't a feature. There are good reasons to want to customize your tags.
- The "official" ones are often wrong or inconsistent. It is especially bad for compilations and collaborations.
- You want custom fields.
- You want to change language (e.g. transliterate names into Japanese)
Tagging hasn't been a time sync for over a decade. When you rip the tags are grabbed off the net, the same as what iTunes does for you.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I'm sure there are plenty of people who do like to control their tags themselves.
The tried and tested way to solve this sort of conflict would be for tags to have namespaces. That way your music files could have multiple sets of tags. Your music player could then be configured to either look for a single namespace, or to use some algorithm to merge multiple namespaces.
Re: (Score:2)
And now we know why Linux will never be more then a blip on the desktop radar. That superiority complex drives everyone away.
That must be the reason. Not marketing, or level of difficulty - just lack of people using it that don't make you feel stupid.
[note to Supreme Commander of The Linux Desktop War - the coward is onto something] What do you mean there is no "Supreme Commander"? No "the Linux Desktop"? No Linux Desktop War!! WTF - there must be a war. This is just not football! I bought facepaint and everything (sob)
Re: (Score:3)
And now we know why Linux will never be more then a blip on the desktop radar. That superiority complex drives everyone away. Enjoy your crappy buggy software. The OS is just there so we can run the applications, and all your applications are amateurish and shitty.
You're a great example of the parasites every great endeavour attracts.
Re: (Score:2)
You do realize that underneath the glitzy guis both Mac OS X and linux are essentially the same. In many cases one can change a few lines in a Makefile and the same software package will run on both.
iOS is toys, OS X is Unix. Learn the difference (Score:5, Insightful)
You're thinking of the iPhone and iPad, toys for people who don't care about control over their property, but perhaps do care about build quality, vs. Macs, which are powerful Unix computers.
I've been a developer for 17 years. My name is in the kernel changelog. I've designed and built custom servers with power tools. I use Mac Pros for work.
Re: (Score:2)
As opposed to those millions of Android handsets from various OEMs that all come out of the box with root access right?
...
Right?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
> Sure the backend layer of OSX is unix, but the window manager they put on it is a toy.
Actually, it is not a toy. The Mac window manager is top notch. Don't confuse the operating system or windowing system with Apple's various gui-based software packages that work on top of them.
Re:iOS is toys, OS X is Unix. Learn the difference (Score:5, Informative)
Huh? Are we talking about the same window manager which steals your input focus with modal windows? The one where I'm typing at a terminal and just when I'm about to hit return some warning message pops up and I don't even get a chance to read the message because the timing was just right for me to notice it flashing and think "fuck, what the hell I've done now again"?
Yeah, top notch fucking usability nightmare.
Re: (Score:3)
I do not recall that ever happening, but there are enough obscure settings in OS X (or any other operating system) that it does not surprise me that it can happen.
Re: (Score:2)
Huh? Are we talking about the same window manager which steals your input focus with modal windows? The one where I'm typing at a terminal and just when I'm about to hit return some warning message pops up and I don't even get a chance to read the message because the timing was just right for me to notice it flashing and think "fuck, what the hell I've done now again"?
Yeah, top notch fucking usability nightmare.
Yes, but we weren't talking about Windows.
Re: (Score:2)
Huh? Are we talking about the same window manager which steals your input focus with modal windows? The one where I'm typing at a terminal and just when I'm about to hit return some warning message pops up and I don't even get a chance to read the message because the timing was just right for me to notice it flashing and think "fuck, what the hell I've done now again"?
No we're not. You've not actually used a Mac have you.
Re:iOS is toys, OS X is Unix. Learn the difference (Score:4, Interesting)
finder not having a cut function,
Cmd+C Cmd+Option+V
The edit menu even changes its contents if you hold option down while it's visible.
or a keyboard shortcut to rename files
Press 'return' to rename files.
and there's no equivalent to alt-f4 either.
Cmd-Q
It's by far the worst user interface I've ever used
Maybe you should take the trouble to learn it?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
How do you open a terminal window "here" on a mac?
https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Command-N
Boy that that was tough...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe the problem is that I expect OS/X to be a bit consistent with other systems, in the same way that KDE and Gnome are somewhat consistent with Windows. But it is just a different world, and it scre
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Even things as simple as being able to right click on a folder and open in a new window aren't there. The UI forces me to open a new window in a standard place such as the 'Documents' folder and navigate again, and there is just no other way that I can find.
Right click on a folder on OSX gives you "open in a new tab". With the alt modifier, you get "open in new window". 5 seconds of experimentation just found me that option that I've never wanted. Not much of a power user are you?
Re: (Score:2)
Adobe's UI are *amazing*.
You do realize when you make such statements, everyone instantly knows you don't use any Adobe UIs, right?
Re: (Score:2)
I realize you are an AC troll. If you were actually serious we would have a new picture to put in the dictionary next to patheti-sad
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How many ways does your car offer to do something? Or your TV?
Choice is not necessarily a good thing. Read The Paradox of Choice. Some choices are worth having, most are not. Extra UI always comes at a cost, and repeating functionality with various different UI methods is adding extra UI. Sometimes it's worth it, sometimes it's not. OSX strikes a good balance. "As many way's as possible" isn't a balance at all, and is a recipe for UI hell.
Re: (Score:3)
if apple doesn't care about macs anymore how come it just released a brand new macbook this year and a brand new mac pro just 2 years ago?
Re: (Score:2)
Think about what you're saying.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Advanced users and Apple don't really mix (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're only claim to being an advanced user is your ability to customize your system, then you aren't an advanced user. You're just a person who wastes their time customizing their software, and who will waste even more time trying to figure out how to use the default configuration on other people's systems.
People who actually know how to use their software, even if it is to better organize their music collection, have a better claim to being an advanced user. Personally, I'd set the bar a fair bit higher than that. On the other hand, at least they are actually using their knowledge to do something productive.
No, Apple doesn't restore some user metadata (Score:5, Informative)
Apple destroys user data
oops
No, Apple doesn't restore some user data. You don't get Apple's version of the file unless you delete your copy or never had it on a particular device in the first place.
Apple looks for matches in your library with Apple's library. If it finds a match it makes note of it. If it does not find a match it uploads your copy of the file to Apple's servers. When you restore files you get Apple's copy for matches and your copy for non-matches.
The issue is that Apple only analyzes the music to determine a match. It does not consider the meta data. So the same music with different metadata is a match according to Apple so your edited copy is not saved on Apple's servers. This makes sense given that there is no standard metadata for ripped songs. When ripping a CD one often finds multiple incarnations of metadata to apply.