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Apple Music is the last library focused music service

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Re: Apple Music is the last library focused music service

#131
post #63

Google Play Music was extremely album-focused, but their move over to YouTube Music has basically scrapped that. GPM even let you modify the metadata for albums; I had used this to strip out things like "(2020 Remaster Special Gold Edition)" from album names, and to cut "bonus" tracks off of albums (nothing as fun as playing an album and then getting a two hour long spoken word interview with Quincy Jones), and final…

Remember Grooveshark?

Grooveshark was better than any other service - including Pandora - at exposing me to music that I wasn't expecting to love but did anyway.

Re: Apple Music is the last library focused music service

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Play was ideal because I could upload any of my own music and it was part of my library, accessible anywhere in the world. Does any service like that still exist? I'm stuck with Spotify, which lacks dozens and dozens of albums that are important to me, and it won't let me upload them myself.

That’s exactly what Apple Music does, and the article even mentioned. I switched from GPM to Apple Music and not Spotify because I have a lot of tracks that don’t exist on streaming services. I can have playlists consisting of apple Music songs and my own songs, and get full Siri integration, play on HomePods etc

Hmm around 18-24 months ago I gave Apple Music a try but found there were TONS of tracks from my personal library that the service would not play. Perhaps they’ve improved things since then? I went all-in using Plex as a personal media server since then and while the UI isn’t as nice, it lets me steam my personal library anywhere from any device.

Re: Apple Music is the last library focused music service

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the features of "iTunes Match" are included in Apple Music as long as you have "Sync Library" turned on. For a while there was a subtle difference in that music uploaded to Apple Music would have DRM applied to it, and iTunes Match would not, but this is no longer the case.

Is DRM applied to iTunes Match too now? That's unfortunate.

I just checked - not so far as I can see.

Re: Apple Music is the last library focused music service

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Play was ideal because I could upload any of my own music and it was part of my library, accessible anywhere in the world. Does any service like that still exist? I'm stuck with Spotify, which lacks dozens and dozens of albums that are important to me, and it won't let me upload them myself.

Apple offers iTunes Match [1], a service that is separate from Apple Music. It is something like $25 a year and does more or less what you're asking for here, especially in conjunction with Apple Music. [1]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204146

also itunes match is included in apple music and you can mix and match apple music and match (or local songs and if they are not local), you can also sync these with any device

Re: Apple Music is the last library focused music service

#135
Until they're not anymore. Let's get off this stupid ride, we don't need big centralized services to tell us how to consume the content we're ostensibly paying for.

Navidrome on a home server, hooked up to a big ol hardrive, ultrasonic on your phone connected to navidrome (offlining supported), support artists you really like by buying their shit off bandcamp, rip everything else cause let's be honest these artists aren't seeing stream money anyway.

People will gripe and complain about how much "work" it is to maintain these things, but let's be real: every single person in here has at least one friend who'd be willing to host something like this for them. What it comes down to is that we're in the habit of relying on big tech companies rather than the folks around us. But habits can be broken.

Re: Apple Music is the last library focused music service

#136
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is DRM applied to iTunes Match too now? That's unfortunate.

Oh wow… If it is, I will probably rethink my subscription. I have uploaded a lot of music I bought in other services or ripped legally from CDs I physically own, adding DRM to things I own feels immoral to me. Wish there were more alternative mobile OSs and platforms. Apple is getting on my nerves too much lately.

Likewise. IIRC Apple Music is a lot more (3x?) expensive than iTunes Match so not sure if the price increase would be worth it to me. But my thinking it wouldn't track my library was what made Apple Music a nonstarter for me.

Re: Apple Music is the last library focused music service

#137
Since I don't listen to much music on my phone, I've actually taken in a step further: my Apple Music local library music files are stored in a .sparsebundle on my NAS. I wrote a little Obj-C app to automatically mount and unmount that sparsebundle when I open and close Apple Music (née iTunes) on MacOS. This prevents the sparsebundle from becoming corrupted, as they tend to do.

Then, I use that same little Obj-C app to detect when I'm away from home and open a VPN connection to my NAS's network. So, wherever I am, I can stream music on my laptop from my local library.

After doing this for a few years instead of paying for Apple Music, it has already saved the cost of the NAS and its hard drives.

Re: Apple Music is the last library focused music service

#138

Until they're not anymore. Let's get off this stupid ride, we don't need big centralized services to tell us how to consume the content we're ostensibly paying for. Navidrome on a home server, hooked up to a big ol hardrive, ultrasonic on your phone connected to navidrome (offlining supported), support artists you really like by buying their shit off bandcamp, rip everything else cause let's be honest these artists a…

You're incredibly wrong, but in a very classic way: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

I'm a senior engineer, and a pretty technical geek. I'm also plenty social, and am that one techie friend for a lot of non-technical people and field regular "Hey what kind of should I buy", or "Can you help me configure ".

I've never heard of Navidrome or Ultrasonic.

Could I figure it out in 30 minutes of googling or reading? Sure. But the point is that these concepts are not nearly as ubiquitous as you might think.

I'm also not interested in hosting a music server for my friends, and dealing with all the tech support concerns that would come with it.

Re: Apple Music is the last library focused music service

#139

Until they're not anymore. Let's get off this stupid ride, we don't need big centralized services to tell us how to consume the content we're ostensibly paying for. Navidrome on a home server, hooked up to a big ol hardrive, ultrasonic on your phone connected to navidrome (offlining supported), support artists you really like by buying their shit off bandcamp, rip everything else cause let's be honest these artists a…

Bandcamp all the way. Their revenue share is extremely fair, their site is tasteful and functional, and they've been blessing the world with flac since their beginning.

Re: Apple Music is the last library focused music service

#140

Google Play Music was extremely album-focused, but their move over to YouTube Music has basically scrapped that. GPM even let you modify the metadata for albums; I had used this to strip out things like "(2020 Remaster Special Gold Edition)" from album names, and to cut "bonus" tracks off of albums (nothing as fun as playing an album and then getting a two hour long spoken word interview with Quincy Jones), and final…

Everything is worse under Youtube Music. Embarrassing product.

I have to disagree. One of the reasons I use YouTube Music is because their search includes all the random music uploaded to youtube.com. This means that a lot of really rare tracks that YTM never received officially from the labels can be integrated into your library. I guess YTM then tries to sort out the royalty issues as they do through youtube.com.
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