I have tons of respect for Jim Dalrymple. He is an inspiration to me.1
When he says what he said in Apple Music is a nightmare and I’m done with it I certainly take notice:
It’s not unreasonable to want to listen to an album in the context the artist wrote it, and then other times, just listen to their greatest hits. It’s my choice to make.
However, if I decide I really want those songs, when I click the “Add” button, nothing happens, which seemed odd to me. If adding the songs is an option, why won’t they add to the library. I went to my iPhone and tapped “Show Complete Album”–when I tapped on the song to add it, the option was to “Remove from My Music.” This means that my iPhone thinks it’s already added, but the song isn’t showing up. What I had to do is go through all of the songs, remove them from the library, and then click add to get them back in the library.
Based on what happened to Jim, as he reported in his 1200 word piece on The Loop, I am worried about how Apple Music will work out for people who are true music fans. He is highlighting what I (as someone who merely likes music) would consider edge cases. But I know from talking to him and listening to two of his podcasts that he truly loves music, and his interest in curating his music library is much keener than mine.
Jason Snell on SixColors.com enumerated the key points of Jim’s critique:
- Adding music to his library was inconsistent
- This inconsistency seems to be related to mismatches between Apple’s cloud library and Jim’s existing music collection
- Songs were sometimes duplicated in the Music app
- The library couldn’t differentiate between tracks on source albums and greatest-hits compilations
- Albums Jim owned didn’t show up in his library
- He got bad music recommendations
I hope that Jim gets the attention of senior executives at Apple who can mobilize the resources necessary to make his digital music collection what it once was.
1I understand that my reasons for saying that Jim Dalrymple is an inspiration to me are not clear. I haven’t stated them here on Operation Gadget. I will have more to say on why Jim Dalrymple inspires me in future posts.