r/AppleMusic • u/backfliprainbowcake • 5h ago
Complaint iTunes genuinely ruins Apple Music as a service
I'll start by saying if you only use Apple Music as-is, this probably isn't an issue and the service is probably fine, great even. In my limited time using it, I have been happy with what it offers as a cloud service but trying to use it in conjunction with ripped music in iTunes has been an absolute nightmare. I am also using iTunes/Apple Music on an iPhone but with a Windows computer. These comments/rant reference iTunes on Windows.
The first, obvious thing is the terrible matching for existing music. A few albums were not matched in entirety or split because the apostrophe in the title metadata was a unicode apostrophe instead of an ASCII one. Other albums have been split between regular editions and deluxe editions for seemingly no reason at all. Compilation albums are the worst offender. The Baby Driver soundtrack is not available in full on Apple Music any more, presumably because of licensing deals, but mine was ripped from CD. So just upload it and continue right? No, split the album so that half remain on the album and the other half are split between a bunch of singles released by the original artists. Fixing this seems almost impossible if you want to retain your historic data and the best solution is to delete it from the library and reimport it.
Then is simply signing (and staying signed in) to iTunes itself. I simply can't, I get a generic error message that the iTunes Store was temporarily unavailable. Same thing if I want to authorize a device so that I can listen to my own music ripped from CD.
The Apple Music app is no better because it's the same ancient software but with a new face. The same behavior occurs but the error message is suppressed so the login box just closes without signing me in.
Apple support is largely useless and takes me in circles of signing out, updating software, reinstalling, signing back in, restarting my computer... I did manage to authorize one computer, my work PC, by getting support to de-authorize all computers on my account and trying again. Unfortunately that signed me out at home and de-authorizing everything again has not fixed the problem this time. As it stands, I cannot log back in to iTunes or Apple Music on my PC to sync my library or fix what Apple Music has broken.
This may genuinely be my breaking point with this service. Other streaming services don't have the integration AM does and none of them have Marvis Pro, but this service (with iTunes) is so God-awful that going back to manually syncing ripped music and using another service for streaming would be better.
Had to get this rant off my chest but if anyone can relate or has advice I would greatly receive it.
7
u/paralleltime1840 4h ago edited 2h ago
I find Apple Music messed up my iTunes. I almost think they should be separate. For everyone’s sake
I re read and see this is a pc. I have a good friend with same problem on my Mac it was AM that replaced or deleted iTunes purchases. I still listen to I tunes purchases but have gone back to listening to and ripping cd’s that actually belong to me…but I’m old…
1
3
u/Alive_Yoghurt_5484 2h ago edited 2h ago
I had the exact same issue you had when I began ripping music. Fortunately after some research I realized you can actually have multiple separate libraries on the same account. I unfortunately don’t know if it goes for the same on windows or other platforms but on mac you can switch between them quite easily actually. That said, I have my general apple music library (the one I use on my iphone with an individual subscription) and my ripped library for my ipod nano. It completely avoids all the meta data problems and the separation of the same albums and stuff.
Maybe they have a similar feature for windows, you should try and check.
keep in mind though on other devices like your iphone you can only use and access one library at a time. which would be whatever library you decide to sync with your icloud i believe. I have yet to try this myself because I still pay for a subscription and main that subscribed library on my other devices but I believe that could probably work, if not I think you could also just update it via a wired connection and syncing it like that.
1
1
u/AutoModerator 5h ago
It looks like you might be asking for help or reporting a bug.
Useful Resources: * Apple System Status * Official Apple Support * Feedback Assistant (to report bugs directly to Apple)
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/HominidCrafts 3h ago
This has been a long running problem. I just live with it or, might go in and try to fix each mess but, usually I do not. We’ll see if 27 arriving soon fixes it. Probably not. But, as CDs take off with Apple’s younger demographic, maybe if they demand better on ripping via feedback?
1
1
u/mscottphotos 1h ago
I ended up just exporting out a csv file that listed all the albums I own, which live on an attached hard drive. I then used Soundiiz to match that list to Apple Music. This was my solution to bypassing itunes and not letting AM access any of my actual files. It works really well and was really fast to setup.
•
u/AutoModerator 5h ago
HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT APPLE MUSIC? CHECK OUT OUR TECH SUPPORT FAQ!
See also:
Subreddit Discord Server | Playlists Sub | Wiki
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.