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How Apple Music Can Disrupt Users' iTunes Libraries
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.
> 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.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
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.
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.
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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.
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.