paul4work

You beat me to it.  I had to stop reading the article, because it threw me off so much to see "strabe" so many times.

The "scharfes s" is traditionally represented in English as two s's.   So rather than writing the embarrassing "strabe", it should say "Strasse".

If you were actually IN the store, as the writer claims to have been... then SURELY, you MUST have heard the pronunciation of "Strasse".

My rule of thumb when I need to include something I'm unsure of in a presentation, is to actually look it up.  I use this thing called "Google".

There is ONLY ONE feature I want added to "Memories"... the ability to turn it OFF -- opt out -- STOP IT!!!  

I, along with almost everyone I know, find it invasive and creepy.  No matter how many times I hit the "stop showing me things like this" -- which is already too much interaction for me -- it continues to show me pictures related to my parents' funerals, with a terrific table like "good times in (town name)".  I'm also more likely than not to get pictures of my dead cat with "furry friends" on it.  I have old photos I scanned in 2007, that constantly come up with labels about 2007 -- the photos span 1940's - 2000's.  Yes, I know I can change the metadata on the scans - but why should I have to?  I also don't want to delete pictures of my dearly departed cat -- but I equally don't necessarily want to see them every day.

I am perfectly capable of making albums if I want to.  Having them forced upon me - NEVER in a manner I'd welcome - is invasive, unnecessary, and WILDLY unwanted.

For the love of chocolate -- GIVE US an "opt out" of this horrifyingly flawed invasion.  I don't care if the processing is local, I don't care what the algorithm is... I find in invasive.  For the "privacy" company, I think the "Memories" feature is an EPIC failure.

LET US TURN IT OFF!

StrangeDays said:

paul4work said:

Likewise, when I plug the phone into the car, with nothing at all playing... the phone will choose a random track from my entire library, and stream it over cellular, and play it in the car.  This, in SPITE of the fact that I have all settings related to Music and streaming set to OFF, and NO cellular.  The tracks it picks are so random, and unwanted, too.  Look, I have 35 nieces and nephews.  My library has some Barney and Sesame Street in it... that DOES NOT mean I want to hear it when they're not present, yet that's all that the phone does.  

I've spent hours on the phone with Care, and it's always the same line... this is unexpected behavior, and it will be escalated to the next tier - who will (NEVER) call you back. Not once.  

In my experience, it it is the car's head unit that makes the requests to a plugged-in iPhone, which they may also recognize as an iPod instead, but in either case use the iPod Music Controls API to request music off the device. 

I don't know that it's possible for your iPhone to playback from cellular if you have that feature off. Note that this setting is not in "Settings > iTunes & App Store > Use Cellular Data", but is instead:

Settings > Cellular > [scroll down to Music] > off...once you turn Music off from cellular there, it cannot use cellular data.

Ahh... but it does.  I know quite well the songs that are in my playlists on my phone, and with great certainty, some that are not.  For example, I downloaded a bunch of Hawaiian songs for a luau themed party we had 10 years ago.  I paid for them, so I'm not deleting them from my library.  I know they exist.  I also know for absolute CERTAIN that they are NOT present on my phone, or in any playlist.  ALL settings related to streaming of music are OFF (as I originally said)... yet, if I connect this phone in my sister-in-law's Ford Escape, we're dancing the hula within a minute.

I'm VERY well aware that it should NOT be behaving this way... but it is.  As I said in my original post, I've spent HOURS on the phone with Care, they hear the behavior, and even see the behavior through phone screen sharing... they ALWAYS say it will be escalated to engineering, and I'll get a call back... there has NEVER been a call back.  Not once.

I have similar problems with the watch.  It is SO HARD to get it just the shuffle the ONLY playlist I have on the watch.  If I'm playing from the watch, it's to work out.  If I'm working out, I ONLY want the one playlist.  If I walk close enough to the locker room in the gym, that has my phone in the pocket of my jeans... out of nowhere, I've got some totally random song that is not only NOT on the watch playlist, but not on ANY playlist on my phone!  

I'm a 25 year  consultant... I know my way around the ecosystem VERY well, and I APPLAUD you for this piece.  I have found the implementation of music to be mystifying.  I do not subscribe to Music, and don't perceive that I will.  I spend a large amount of time on planes and ships that are outside of data reach, or where it is prohibitively slow and expensive... thus, I NEVER want to stream anything!  I do, however, have multiple computers, in different locations, so I use iTunes Match on land.  Everything, including the watch worked beautifully, until about 2 years ago.  At that point, my carefully cultivated playlists meant nothing, and the phone started streaming rather than playing directly... same with the watch, it will only stream from the phone, and I can almost never get it to play directly from the playlist loaded on the watch.  

Likewise, when I plug the phone into the car, with nothing at all playing... the phone will choose a random track from my entire library, and stream it over cellular, and play it in the car.  This, in SPITE of the fact that I have all settings related to Music and streaming set to OFF, and NO cellular.  The tracks it picks are so random, and unwanted, too.  Look, I have 35 nieces and nephews.  My library has some Barney and Sesame Street in it... that DOES NOT mean I want to hear it when they're not present, yet that's all that the phone does.  

I've spent hours on the phone with Care, and it's always the same line... this is unexpected behavior, and it will be escalated to the next tier - who will (NEVER) call you back. Not once.  

The music space on both devices has become so unnecessarily obtuse.  It fells like they've just said, "hey, we've moved on to streaming... so either do that, or we don't care."  Two years ago, there was a simple setting:  ONLY use music on my phone.  That's gone.  I do know that there is now a menu item in the iPhone music app for "Downloaded Only"... but it is not the default, and takes several layers to get to.  If I quit the app, that selection is gone, and has to be reselected.  The simple system wide setting was the perfect solution, but it's long gone.  Likewise, FINDING a song is maddening.  I ONLY want to look through the music I have chosen to download to the phone or watch... but you can't do that... it forces you through your entire library!