If you’re really not in it for the money, HOW ABOUT YOU LET VOICE CONTROLS ON THE HOMEPOD CONTROL AN ITUNES LIBRARY OF MUSIC RATHER THAN JUST APPLE MUSIC, THEN.
That’s $350 they’re never going to see from me (hell, I was going to get two of them), because I’m not using streaming services. Ever. Local content, only and always. Fix the HomePod, Apple.
Even when you do migrate your iTunes library into Apple Music, the songs are replaced with Apple's versions -- yeh, it's the same song and same artist, but a different version. I have older songs in my library that got replaced with remakes from 30 years later -- totally different. And, if Apple doesn't have that particular song in its library, it then disappears from yours.
What you’re referring to is the matching functionality built into Apple Music. As far as I can tell, AM attempts to match songs by name and length, which sometimes means a song you have can be matched incorrectly. If you subscribe to iTunes Match that won’t happen.
I ran into that problem a few years ago. I have a bunch of “custom” songs in my iTunes library. As an example, I may have a song where the song starts normally through the first verse and chorus, then starts again from the beginning and plays through to the end. I have a version of Praise You by Fatboy Slim that falls into a category like that. It is essential I have that specific version. But AM “matched” the version I have to a very different remix of that song that was unusable for my needs, but had the same title and almost the same length.
Switching to iTunes Match solves that. The version I have has been uploaded and is the one I get when I need it.
I'm not sure I get that: "iTunes Match", by its very name suggests that they match your particular version of a song to something in their library --- which means that you get back what's in their library rather than yours.
I just want my own library back with its own version of the songs and the genre's that I assigned them to.
Yes, iTunes Match matches the exact songs or uploads yours if there isn’t an exact match. Apple Music doesn’t do that, it just finds a close match
Ahh! Now that makes sense: When I originally subscribed to Apple Music my library (at least on my phone) was replaced with the streaming version (if it existed) from THEIR library. But they fixed that and I can start over with the various procedures listed in the article. Cool! Thanks!
Yeah, but take a backup of your music library first.
does that mean apple will distribute all profits directly back to the artist.
I dont't think so: a CEO never make a controversial statement without a very specific reason
I understand the comment of Cook as follows: we make a very low profit (or even a loss) with Apple Music, and we are preparing the public for an announcement about it in the near future.
Of course I can be wrong, but history has shown that CEOs typically come with such statements if they do not make a profit with a product.
Well, yes, you’re usually wrong. To begin with, Apple doesn’t have to announce figures for any single product or service, and usually doesn’t unless they feel the need to dispel some analyst bull crap [such as the iPhoneX being a failure).
The streaming service is part of their services division, so as far as Apple is concerned, as long as it brings people to the ecosystem then it is bringing in and helping them retain more users.
Here are a few other products Apple is probably not making much money on: Pages Numbers Keynote MacOS.
How hard is it for you dullards screaming, ``Not in it for the profits!'' that Tim is referring to their cut on the Streaming end? He's not talking about the hardware end or other services end that Apple has large profit margins on. He's talking about taking less from the artists.
If they plan on having me buy one, it’d better be.
it will also (directly, via Siri) play any song you've purchased from iTunes. So while it is correct to say that HomePod's version of Siri doesn't play local files…
I’m an old fart. A lot of my music comes from ALAC rips of CDs, as well as other, non-iTunes Store sources. It’s all in iTunes, though. It’s just utterly baffling that my content, which is STORED IN ITUNES, isn’t controllable from another Apple device. Remote.app does it; why can’t the HomePod? It must entirely be Siri’s fault, and the lack of connectivity it has with software functionality on devices. Siri refuses to search through LOCAL LIBRARIES on the Apple TV, too. This behavior utterly disproves Cook’s abject lie that “Apple isn’t in the streaming business for the money.” I WOULD HAVE TO BUY ALL MY CONTENT ALL OVER AGAIN to get an ecosystem of nothing but Apple hardware and software to work “properly” with itself. They may not be getting their cash from the streaming itself, but they sure as hell get it from hardware that people have to use to use the streaming.
If they plan on having me buy one, it’d better be.
it will also (directly, via Siri) play any song you've purchased from iTunes. So while it is correct to say that HomePod's version of Siri doesn't play local files…
I’m an old fart. A lot of my music comes from ALAC rips of CDs, as well as other, non-iTunes Store sources. It’s all in iTunes, though. It’s just utterly baffling that my content, which is STORED IN ITUNES, isn’t controllable from another Apple device. Remote.app does it; why can’t the HomePod? It must entirely be Siri’s fault, and the lack of connectivity it has with software functionality on devices. Siri refuses to search through LOCAL LIBRARIES on the Apple TV, too. This behavior utterly disproves Cook’s abject lie that “Apple isn’t in the streaming business for the money.” I WOULD HAVE TO BUY ALL MY CONTENT ALL OVER AGAIN to get an ecosystem of nothing but Apple hardware and software to work “properly” with itself. They may not be getting their cash from the streaming itself, but they sure as hell get it from hardware that people have to use to use the streaming.
It's apparently true, as we see from comments here, that Apple has been marginalizing personal libraries and pushing streaming music.
But, is that from a desire to maximize revenue and profit? Or, is it simply a single minded push of an philosophy/ideology --- that streaming is the future and personal digital libraries are for us old farts -- obsolete dinosaurs quickly fading away?
We don't know. In the past Apple has been "guilty" of both.
(I'm not sure though, without further detail, that I can agree with your assertion that it is to push hardware: Apple profits from storage enhancements ("value added") to iPhones. But streaming reduces the need to store a music library and makes the little 32Gb phones more viable.)
Apple CEO Tim Cook recently sat down to discuss Apple Music and its place in the burgeoning music streaming world, once again touting the service's human content curation as a key benefit over competitors like Spotify.
Speaking with Fast Company at his C-suite office at Apple Park, Cook expressed concern that the streaming industry's increasing reliance on song-suggesting computer algorithms is sucking the soul out of music.
"We worry about the humanity being drained out of music, about it becoming a bits-and-bytes kind of world instead of the art and craft," Cook said.
The executive was careful not to mention any one service in his critique, but the comments were clearly defined to paint Apple as a leader in the field. Contrasting the human approach to curation systems traditionally used by Spotify.
I haven't seen anyone in the thread mention that Spotify was doing human curation too in addition to algorithmic long before Apple Music was even a thing. When reading PR speak it often wants the reader to accept some assumptions and insert connections that might be implied but not stated. Not mentioning Spotify by name was by design IMO, plausible deniability if readers thought Apple was saying human curation proved Apple cared more about music than their competitors.
Comments
Yeah, but take a backup of your music library first.
The streaming service is part of their services division, so as far as Apple is concerned, as long as it brings people to the ecosystem then it is bringing in and helping them retain more users.
Here are a few other products Apple is probably not making much money on:
Pages
Numbers
Keynote
MacOS.
I’m an old fart. A lot of my music comes from ALAC rips of CDs, as well as other, non-iTunes Store sources. It’s all in iTunes, though. It’s just utterly baffling that my content, which is STORED IN ITUNES, isn’t controllable from another Apple device. Remote.app does it; why can’t the HomePod? It must entirely be Siri’s fault, and the lack of connectivity it has with software functionality on devices. Siri refuses to search through LOCAL LIBRARIES on the Apple TV, too. This behavior utterly disproves Cook’s abject lie that “Apple isn’t in the streaming business for the money.” I WOULD HAVE TO BUY ALL MY CONTENT ALL OVER AGAIN to get an ecosystem of nothing but Apple hardware and software to work “properly” with itself. They may not be getting their cash from the streaming itself, but they sure as hell get it from hardware that people have to use to use the streaming.
EDIT: Link to article about Spotify and human curation for those who weren't aware of it.
https://www.businessinsider.com/spotify-uses-human-music-curation-2015-10