iCloud Music Library: Store all your music in iCloud just like iCloud Photo Library

Posted:
in iCloud edited June 2015

I recently spotted in the music settings of iOS 9 beta iTunes Match has renamed to iCloud Music Library.  This made me to have a new idea about cloud music storage.

 

Firstly, Apple should get rid of iTunes Match and iTunes Radio (I believe the service offered by iTunes Radio are now relocated to Apple Music, so no point of having 2 same services to cause confusion; Apple Music should be the one and only music related services).

After that, Apple should rebrand the iTunes Match service into iCloud Music Library.  The experience should mirror that of iCloud Photo Library and the service integrated into iTunes on OS X, Windows PC and music app in iOS.  Once enabled, you put a song into the iTunes library, it will automatically upload to iCloud in their original formats and automatically downloaded to other devices.  Update the album art of a track, and all devices will reflect that change etc.

 

What makes this different is you get some options like 'download all music into iPhone/iPad' or 'stream from iCloud' option, very similar to iCloud Photo Library.  I know it may be still quite similar to what iTunes Match does but I believe the key feature is that this could allow a more familiar experience to users that are accustomed to iCloud Photo Library.  It seems you have to manually download songs that you want for offline listening with iTunes Match; whilst that is no problem I just find it not really intuitive to use compared to iCloud Photo Library.  Everything should be automatic and seamless.

 

With that in mind, Apple could make iCloud Music Library use up iCloud storage spaces instead.  The prices now are quite decent ($48 per year for 200GB is not too bad, so people shouldn't really complain about that).  This could also prompt people to buy iCloud storage and earn a little bit more money for Apple.  Apple should also re-engineer iTunes to support more file formats to accompany with this service (e.g. FLAC) and make sure all songs can be uploaded to iCloud (I know some users can't have their songs uploaded with iTunes Match for some strange reasons).  iTunes Extra should also be reengineered to be supported in iOS devices.  Apple should also tweet iTunes app to make it able to scan what songs are purchased from iTunes music store and not having counting them towards used iCloud storage (only count what is not from iTunes music store into iCloud storage).

 

I can't possibly think of every aspect that needs rework at the moment, but I will edit my post if I come across any new ideas.  In conclusion, I think Apple should offer a cloud music service that is much alike iCloud Photo Library with everything automatic and seamless.  Tell me what you think?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 1
    pmzpmz Posts: 3,433member

    I think this is exactly the direction they are going. Very sensible, user friendly, and powerful. Completely agree that there is little reason to maintain "iTunes Match" and "iTunes Radio", when iCloud Music Library / Apple Music roll it all in together.

     

    And, Apple supporting FLAC natively (both 16 and 24 bit), even if they don't sell it, would be a dream come true.  But I think there is an obstacle when it comes to the cloud....

     

    VOX is an app for Mac and iOS that supports FLAC, and recently started an iCloud-type syncing service which you can subscribe to. I trialled the service, but won't be subscribing, as it suffers from the same obstacle that Apple would...data size and syncing speed.

     

    The iCloud Music Library/iTunes Match concept works well for small, compressed AAC files. 24-bit FLAC on the other hand, can be massive by comparison. Many of my live albums in 24 bit FLAC are around 3 GB in size. Even with unrestricted bandwidth and average-to-good upload speeds, uploading the whole 3 GB album to the VOX cloud is just impractical. And then, your choice is to stream those lossless tracks on your iPhone, or download that whole 3 GB album again. Such obscene use of bandwidth, when I could have transferred it via USB in seconds.

     

    I don't think we are quite there in terms of bandwidth infrastructure. Cloud syncing of lossless audio still has a ways to go before it is as practical as iTunes Match / iCloud Music Library is today.

Sign In or Register to comment.