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HomePods represent modern-day Apple quite poignantly: great hardware and truly awful software. I find Apple Music awful. It has a terrible UX on both mobile a

HomePods represent modern-day Apple quite poignantly: great hardware and truly awful software. I find Apple Music awful. It has a terrible UX on both mobile and Desktop that I've tried and failed to get used to several times now. From what I recall, simple behaviors like buffering the next song in local cache hardly worked (or weren't even implemented). There have been plenty critiques of Siri, the large one being in my mind: the 3rd party development support is super limited, especially if you compete directly with Apple in any capacity (e.g. Spotify). Crippling consumer choice as a way of coercing consumers to your inferior products is such an awful part of the Apple ethos.

vinceguidry 9y ago
I refuse to use Apple Music as well, preferring instead to maintain a library of music local to my iPhone. It's more than unreasonably difficult to manage, it's insane. Apple refuses to allow you to migrate music tracks from one phone to another. They demand that you re-download them from iTunes. But iTunes as music library management software is utterly unreliable and can't be trusted. As a result, whenever I buy a new iPhone, I manually make a list of all the music on my current phone, by literally typing out song names and artists into a text editor. Software tools to do this have proven unreliable. I then, on the new phone, download every single track individually. I then run down my checklist and make sure that every single track is accounted for. I've been collecting ideas in my head for a phone music player that allows you to safely store your library externally. I doubt I could ever get it into the App Store, unfortunately, but at least it would fix my personal problem.
- dfee 9y ago
  This is either satire, or I'm concerned about your sanity. Reading and re-reading your process leaves me baffled. I would recommend just about any other process – including, not using iTunes, or not using an iPhone. The amount of effort you're investing seems far too great for the reward you reap: parity. I've read that the average number of songs in a library is somewhere around 7000. Assuming you're quite efficient at 1) manually recording every song in a text file, 2) re-downloading the song, and 3) verifying that song has been downloaded, maybe it would take you 60s / song. That's 116 hours dedicated to this process, or nearly 5 full days non-stop. Seriously, the opportunity cost (even at a minimum-wage salary) is more than a new iPhone costs brand new. This is very peculiar, indeed.
  - vinceguidry 9y ago
    I have around 550 tracks in my library. Last time I had to do it, it took me a few days of after-hours work. More time was spent trying to avoid actually doing manual copying by trying out different software tools than in just doing it the hard way. I won't make that mistake next time. I was hating life at the time, but after it was all said and done I didn't consider the hassle worth the drastic step of switching platforms. I have a much, much, much larger library of tracks that I don't keep in active rotation. Apple's inability to provide me with a reliable way to keep those two libraries separate is the source of my frustration. I've considered stopping buying iPhones, but the user experience of Android phones is just nowhere close. Polish matters in a small, complicated device. I may have to eventually because I don't use MacBooks anymore. After spilling liquid on one twice in a year I decided I needed to wean myself off of them. I thoroughly love MacBooks, but developing the habits to use one safely has eluded me. Without a OSX device, music management on an iPhone is truly impossible. As it is right now, I will need to use my work machine in order to move my library next time. If I really have to, I suppose I could acquire a Mac Mini.
  - Angostura 9y ago
    The process which baffles you is 1. Make a playlist in iTunes 2. Sync the playlist to your phone 3. Sync it to any other phones you may have. How is that baffling?
    - vinceguidry 9y ago
      If iTunes wasn't so unreliable I would use it. But it's burned me too many times.
      - Angostura 9y ago
        I’ve been using it since there has been an iTunes. It’s cocked up maybe twice in 10 years. No idea what you’re doing to cause problems.
- tqkxzugoaupvwqr 9y ago
  Use VLC on iOS to manage audio/video files on your phone. Once VLC is installed on your phone, you can add files to and share files from it via AirDrop (among other methods). It’s very convenient.
  - vinceguidry 9y ago
    Downloaded, thanks for the pointer.
    - vinceguidry 9y ago
      Sadly, it doesn't play iTunes music files, so it's a no go.
- hanklazard 9y ago
  I’d strongly recommend you look into synology NAS products. Their music and movie phone apps allow you to stream your home library from anywhere, assuming you don’t mind using data. You can also download to your phone if you’d prefer not to stream. Really smooth software, just requires some port forwarding on your router. I’m a big fan.
  - vinceguidry 9y ago
    It doesn't allow you to actually use the phone's dedicated music storage, does it? I would rather not be handcuffed to one music player if I can avoid it.
    - hanklazard 9y ago
      I use it on an iphone. I haven't tried to access that music through another music app ... I think what the synology app does is carve out storage space to be used for downloaded music based on the configuration you give it. For instance, if you're okay with 10 gigs of storage being used for music storage, it will do that, either in archival formats live .wav or .flac or in transcoded .mp3 and other compressed formats. You wouldn't really be handcuffed to the player if you wanted to switch in the future ... all the music is still yours and is housed on your NAS (with RAID for redundancy and preferably some off-site back-up as well). As someone else mentioned, VLC does the job as well (I use VLC for movie playback on my phone and love it). Synology is just really nice and easy to use, so I prefer it for music.
- ihuman 9y ago
  An alternative to your method is to store the list of songs in a playlist. In iTunes (desktop), make a playlist that contains the songs you want to sync over. When your phone is connected, drag the playlist over to the phone. When you get a new phone and want to transfer the songs over, just plug in your new phone and drag the playlist over.
  - vinceguidry 9y ago
    That requires me to keep two copies of my music library manually synced, the playlist and the phone library. If I buy a track, I need to remember to add it to the playlist. I prefer one big inconvenience that I can get out of the way all at once to throwing sand into my daily habits.
    - thirdsun 9y ago
      I think you're wrong. Or you consider the step of adding a song to your sync playlist harder than checking for every song manually when changing phones? I find that hard to believe. If you select a playlist to be synced you only need to maintain that playlist on the Mac. Any change will be synced to the iPhone. You could also create a smart playlist with conditions that cover any song / album you'd like to include. But at that point why not snyc the whole library? I either misunderstand you or you are making this way more complicating than it is.
      - vinceguidry 9y ago
        My workaround is not complicated, it's just time consuming. I usually skip years, I went from 6+ to 7+, skipped the 6s, I'm skipping this round of iPhones and possibly the next round too. So it's not something I have to do often. > Or you consider the step of adding a song to your sync playlist harder than checking for every song manually when changing phones? I find that hard to believe. I tried briefly. I don't always buy new music when I'm sitting next to my laptop. I usually buy music on my phone, immediately after I've Shazam'ed the track. If I don't remember to add it to the playlist later, then it goes unadded, and the next time I sync the playlist, it'll be gone. I only get the urge to manage my music playlist when I'm listening to it. I usually don't have my laptop handy when I'm listening to it. You're not misunderstanding and I'm not making this more complicated than it is. Apple simply refuses to make music library management reliable and easy by allowing me to move files from one phone to another, or by allowing third party apps to manage the music library, necessitating a workaround. It's that simple. There is only one source of truth for my music library, the actual files on my phone. I don't want two sources of truth to manage, especially one that's in a totally different place from where I do my listening. My music library needs to live in one and only one place. I can accept syncing, but I need to be able to manage the process on my phone.
- jxdxbx 9y ago
  Dude, there are loads of third-party music apps out there, including plenty that let you copy music to your phone any way you please—from a USB drive, from SFTP, etc. Check out nPlayer for a power-user media player. Personally I keep my personal music in Plex, and my Plex server is available to me at any time. I can locally sync whatever music I like. I’d gladly use iCloud Music library but I’m well north of 100k tracks. I actually sort and organize my music and its metadata with Swinsian.
- earenndil 9y ago
  > I've been collecting ideas in my head for a phone music player that allows you to safely store your library externally. I doubt I could ever get it into the App Store, unfortunately, but at least it would fix my personal problem Plex?
- thirdsun 9y ago
  I use a large local music colelction too and it's much easier to get your music to a new phone: - Get an iPhone that has enough storage to store your entire music collection. Sicne mine is lossless that phone doesn't exist, but luckily iTuens has an option to transcode to a lossy format on the fly before syncing to your iPhone. - Alternatively and if storage is a concern, just put everything you'd like to sync in a playlist and only sync this palylist. There's really no need to write everything down.

vinceguidry 9y ago

I refuse to use Apple Music as well, preferring instead to maintain a library of music local to my iPhone. It's more than unreasonably difficult to manage, it's insane. Apple refuses to allow you to migrate music tracks from one phone to another. They demand that you re-download them from iTunes. But iTunes as music library management software is utterly unreliable and can't be trusted. As a result, whenever I buy a new iPhone, I manually make a list of all the music on my current phone, by literally typing out song names and artists into a text editor. Software tools to do this have proven unreliable. I then, on the new phone, download every single track individually. I then run down my checklist and make sure that every single track is accounted for. I've been collecting ideas in my head for a phone music player that allows you to safely store your library externally. I doubt I could ever get it into the App Store, unfortunately, but at least it would fix my personal problem.

dfee 9y ago
This is either satire, or I'm concerned about your sanity. Reading and re-reading your process leaves me baffled. I would recommend just about any other process – including, not using iTunes, or not using an iPhone. The amount of effort you're investing seems far too great for the reward you reap: parity. I've read that the average number of songs in a library is somewhere around 7000. Assuming you're quite efficient at 1) manually recording every song in a text file, 2) re-downloading the song, and 3) verifying that song has been downloaded, maybe it would take you 60s / song. That's 116 hours dedicated to this process, or nearly 5 full days non-stop. Seriously, the opportunity cost (even at a minimum-wage salary) is more than a new iPhone costs brand new. This is very peculiar, indeed.
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  I have around 550 tracks in my library. Last time I had to do it, it took me a few days of after-hours work. More time was spent trying to avoid actually doing manual copying by trying out different software tools than in just doing it the hard way. I won't make that mistake next time. I was hating life at the time, but after it was all said and done I didn't consider the hassle worth the drastic step of switching platforms. I have a much, much, much larger library of tracks that I don't keep in active rotation. Apple's inability to provide me with a reliable way to keep those two libraries separate is the source of my frustration. I've considered stopping buying iPhones, but the user experience of Android phones is just nowhere close. Polish matters in a small, complicated device. I may have to eventually because I don't use MacBooks anymore. After spilling liquid on one twice in a year I decided I needed to wean myself off of them. I thoroughly love MacBooks, but developing the habits to use one safely has eluded me. Without a OSX device, music management on an iPhone is truly impossible. As it is right now, I will need to use my work machine in order to move my library next time. If I really have to, I suppose I could acquire a Mac Mini.
- Angostura 9y ago
  The process which baffles you is 1. Make a playlist in iTunes 2. Sync the playlist to your phone 3. Sync it to any other phones you may have. How is that baffling?
  - vinceguidry 9y ago
    If iTunes wasn't so unreliable I would use it. But it's burned me too many times.
    - Angostura 9y ago
      I’ve been using it since there has been an iTunes. It’s cocked up maybe twice in 10 years. No idea what you’re doing to cause problems.
tqkxzugoaupvwqr 9y ago
Use VLC on iOS to manage audio/video files on your phone. Once VLC is installed on your phone, you can add files to and share files from it via AirDrop (among other methods). It’s very convenient.
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  Downloaded, thanks for the pointer.
  - vinceguidry 9y ago
    Sadly, it doesn't play iTunes music files, so it's a no go.
hanklazard 9y ago
I’d strongly recommend you look into synology NAS products. Their music and movie phone apps allow you to stream your home library from anywhere, assuming you don’t mind using data. You can also download to your phone if you’d prefer not to stream. Really smooth software, just requires some port forwarding on your router. I’m a big fan.
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  It doesn't allow you to actually use the phone's dedicated music storage, does it? I would rather not be handcuffed to one music player if I can avoid it.
  - hanklazard 9y ago
    I use it on an iphone. I haven't tried to access that music through another music app ... I think what the synology app does is carve out storage space to be used for downloaded music based on the configuration you give it. For instance, if you're okay with 10 gigs of storage being used for music storage, it will do that, either in archival formats live .wav or .flac or in transcoded .mp3 and other compressed formats. You wouldn't really be handcuffed to the player if you wanted to switch in the future ... all the music is still yours and is housed on your NAS (with RAID for redundancy and preferably some off-site back-up as well). As someone else mentioned, VLC does the job as well (I use VLC for movie playback on my phone and love it). Synology is just really nice and easy to use, so I prefer it for music.
ihuman 9y ago
An alternative to your method is to store the list of songs in a playlist. In iTunes (desktop), make a playlist that contains the songs you want to sync over. When your phone is connected, drag the playlist over to the phone. When you get a new phone and want to transfer the songs over, just plug in your new phone and drag the playlist over.
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  That requires me to keep two copies of my music library manually synced, the playlist and the phone library. If I buy a track, I need to remember to add it to the playlist. I prefer one big inconvenience that I can get out of the way all at once to throwing sand into my daily habits.
  - thirdsun 9y ago
    I think you're wrong. Or you consider the step of adding a song to your sync playlist harder than checking for every song manually when changing phones? I find that hard to believe. If you select a playlist to be synced you only need to maintain that playlist on the Mac. Any change will be synced to the iPhone. You could also create a smart playlist with conditions that cover any song / album you'd like to include. But at that point why not snyc the whole library? I either misunderstand you or you are making this way more complicating than it is.
    - vinceguidry 9y ago
      My workaround is not complicated, it's just time consuming. I usually skip years, I went from 6+ to 7+, skipped the 6s, I'm skipping this round of iPhones and possibly the next round too. So it's not something I have to do often. > Or you consider the step of adding a song to your sync playlist harder than checking for every song manually when changing phones? I find that hard to believe. I tried briefly. I don't always buy new music when I'm sitting next to my laptop. I usually buy music on my phone, immediately after I've Shazam'ed the track. If I don't remember to add it to the playlist later, then it goes unadded, and the next time I sync the playlist, it'll be gone. I only get the urge to manage my music playlist when I'm listening to it. I usually don't have my laptop handy when I'm listening to it. You're not misunderstanding and I'm not making this more complicated than it is. Apple simply refuses to make music library management reliable and easy by allowing me to move files from one phone to another, or by allowing third party apps to manage the music library, necessitating a workaround. It's that simple. There is only one source of truth for my music library, the actual files on my phone. I don't want two sources of truth to manage, especially one that's in a totally different place from where I do my listening. My music library needs to live in one and only one place. I can accept syncing, but I need to be able to manage the process on my phone.
jxdxbx 9y ago
Dude, there are loads of third-party music apps out there, including plenty that let you copy music to your phone any way you please—from a USB drive, from SFTP, etc. Check out nPlayer for a power-user media player. Personally I keep my personal music in Plex, and my Plex server is available to me at any time. I can locally sync whatever music I like. I’d gladly use iCloud Music library but I’m well north of 100k tracks. I actually sort and organize my music and its metadata with Swinsian.
earenndil 9y ago
> I've been collecting ideas in my head for a phone music player that allows you to safely store your library externally. I doubt I could ever get it into the App Store, unfortunately, but at least it would fix my personal problem Plex?
thirdsun 9y ago
I use a large local music colelction too and it's much easier to get your music to a new phone: - Get an iPhone that has enough storage to store your entire music collection. Sicne mine is lossless that phone doesn't exist, but luckily iTuens has an option to transcode to a lossy format on the fly before syncing to your iPhone. - Alternatively and if storage is a concern, just put everything you'd like to sync in a playlist and only sync this palylist. There's really no need to write everything down.