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How get offline with itunes & PLaylist disappearin
#57652 01/22/21 05:21 PM
Joined: Dec 2009
kevs Offline OP
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Joined: Dec 2009
Three questions with itunes or Music

1) on iphone, even though I only use it with my own music I upload, that I see some dynamic stuff on home screen. Is Music/itunes going online? Is this costing / using data? Anyway to shut that off?
2) I have playlist, and they all seem to disappear eventually, It's like itunes can't get them to stick there more than few days. Any theory why they keep getting knocked off to default? Frustrating. Have go back to library, select playlist and find where you were.
3) in car, when I plug into Alpine receiver, I itunes on pause, and even when I do to do anything, play CD or play through another app, itunes release to play, even though I did not choose to play, anyway to control that? thanks.

Re: How get offline with itunes & PLaylist disappearin
kevs #57657 01/23/21 05:53 PM
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Originally Posted by kevs
Three questions with itunes or Music

1) on iphone, even though I only use it with my own music I upload, that I see some dynamic stuff on home screen. Is Music/itunes going online? Is this costing / using data? Anyway to shut that off?
If you upload an album or even a single tune and that album or tune is available in Apple's Music library your music is not stored and Apple's music library copy is used instead. This saves space in your iCloud Drive as well s on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, AppleTV, and Home Pod.

If the music has been downloaded to your iPhone there is no reason to stream it from iCloud or the Apple Music Library so there is no data transferred and therefore no charge for data transmission. The dynamic stuff on the screen I suspect is Animated Cover Art. That can be disabled by changing Settings > Music > Animated Cover Art to Off or Wi-Fi only

To cut off any other remaining Music data charges go to Settings > Music and turn Cellular Data > Off

Originally Posted by kevs
2) I have playlist, and they all seem to disappear eventually, It's like itunes can't get them to stick there more than few days. Any theory why they keep getting knocked off to default? Frustrating. Have go back to library, select playlist and find where you were.
As a guess only, I suspect Music on your iPhone is synching with Music on your Mac thereby creating the "disappearing" playlists. To prevent that, on your Mac go to Music > Preferences > General and UNcheck Sync Library. That means all of your devices Music will be totally independent of any other Device on your Apple ID.

Originally Posted by kevs
3) in car, when I plug into Alpine receiver, I itunes on pause, and even when I do to do anything, play CD or play through another app, itunes release to play, even though I did not choose to play, anyway to control that? thanks.
I chose to drink tea this morning instead of my usual 12 or 16 ounce cup of Starbuck's dark roast single origin Coffee, so I am a little slow on the uptake but "release to play" is just blowing right past me. 🤔 I am guessing your Alpine receiver is not Car-Play enabled? There are several Alpine apps for the iPhone in the App Store, if you can find one that is compatible with your Apine receiver, you may be able to control it there.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: How get offline with itunes & PLaylist disappearin
joemikeb #57658 01/23/21 11:03 PM
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kevs Offline OP
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Thanks Joe,

1- Kind of lost. Again, all music is uploaded, from my computer to the iphone, to the iphone should not be getting involved. But there might be data charges? Or not sure. Now today, I'm not seeing what I saw on screen before, now just sterile list which I like, but sometimes during day working out outside, I'll see info about new music, so just thinking maybe Itune/music is going online, have no idea.

Does animated cover art or using their library cost data?

I don't sync when I upload my music to the phone.

I don't think the Apine app is a good idea but who know.. would seem to complicate things. May be better for me to make annoying habit of just quitting Music every time I use it in the car with other apps, like Podcast or CD etc. For some reason, if Music is on pause, and even if I want hear podcast, Music unpauses and songs start playing over podcast.

As for playlist always not sticking, well sometimes stay paused and stick for days between workouts, but 1/2 time just gone/vanished.

Honestly, I find Music, be really hard app to deal with interface, and often have to quit out and relaunch just to know what going on.

Re: How get offline with itunes & PLaylist disappearin
kevs #57661 01/24/21 02:47 PM
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Originally Posted by kevs
1- Kind of lost. Again, all music is uploaded, from my computer to the iphone, to the iphone should not be getting involved. But there might be data charges? Or not sure. Now today, I'm not seeing what I saw on screen before, now just sterile list which I like, but sometimes during day working out outside, I'll see info about new music, so just thinking maybe Itune/music is going online, have no idea.
If you are seeing info about new Music and if the Music app has cellular data enabled and if you are not connected to WiFi, then you are being charged for data usage. However, if any one of those factors is not true then you are not being charged for data. So I repeat:
Originally Posted by joemikeb
To cut off any other remaining Music data charges go to Settings > Music and turn Cellular Data > Off
tithe will eliminate any possibility of your being charged for data associated with Music.

Originally Posted by keys
Does animated cover art or using their library cost data?
See the previous suggestion.

Originally Posted by keys
I don't sync when I upload my music to the phone.
That is what I would call synching.

Originally Posted by keys
I don't think the Apine app is a good idea but who know.. would seem to complicate things. May be better for me to make annoying habit of just quitting Music every time I use it in the car with other apps, like Podcast or CD etc. For some reason, if Music is on pause, and even if I want hear podcast, Music unpauses and songs start playing over podcast.
The radios in our vehicles are all CarPlay enabled and immediately switch into CARplay mode the instant they are connected to an iPhone, so I cannot replicate what you are encountering, but it sounds like a compatibility issue between your Alpine receiver and iPhone.

Originally Posted by keys
As for playlist always not sticking, well sometimes stay paused and stick for days between workouts, but 1/2 time just gone/vanished.
🤷‍♂️

Originally Posted by keys
Honestly, I find Music, be really hard app to deal with interface, and often have to quit out and relaunch just to know what going on.
Music (ne. iTunes) has some quirks, but as it is the only music player app I have any experience with and have used it for 21 years it seems pretty intuitive to me. It seems to me you might be overthinking Music and perhaps trying too hard to control what is going on and when it happens. For me, I just stick the music in either from a CD or most often from Apple's Music Library. From there I only download those tunes I want to play on my iPhone or Watch when I am out of range of WiFi. I have the minimal data plan and most months I only use an insignificant portion of that, and most of that is for navigation. Not permitting Music to use cellular data assures that I never have any charge for playing music.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: How get offline with itunes & PLaylist disappearin
joemikeb #57664 01/24/21 04:59 PM
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kevs Offline OP
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Thanks Joe great!
Since got my first iphone 5 years ago, I never used it to play music outside. Preferred the old clicking ipod. But that no longer works because of the new IOS, forced obsolescence.

So that is why never aware or thinking, until last week, hey am I being charged data just running around outside. So thanks, I went in Music, settings and turned Cell data off.

So you have the cell data turned off for music? If so, then Apple does not do the substitute/ music swap? Of course don't need that if you have actual mp3 on the iphone. Maybe one day if I stream, which I don't do yet, I would have to switch that back on?

Finally, isn't bummer that they change name from itunes to Music. I mean, music is a pretty generic term, so talking about the app now, kind of hard.

Re: How get offline with itunes & PLaylist disappearin
kevs #57666 01/24/21 08:16 PM
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Switching off cellular data in Music does not prevent everything else from happening any time you are in an area where there is a WiFi available and your phone logs on. All it does is prevent any use of chargeable cellular data downloads.

If you haven't looked at Apple's Music offerings, you should. I started out buying albums and tunes from Apple because it was easier and cheaper than buying a CD or vinyl but I have since switched to subscribing to the music. One month's subscription costs the same as a single album and I sometimes add three or four or more albums to my library in a single month, so I am saving $20 to $30 or more each month by subscribing. I can then stream the music when I have WiFi and/or download it to play when streaming is not available or the potential cellular data cost is too high. I have some old out of print albums that I have uploaded and to my surprise, not only are they in Apple's Library, their copy is far superior than what I uploaded. Music recognized the album as being in their library and uses that rather than wasting my iCloud disk space storing my inferior transcription.

I honestly have no idea why your iPhone playlists go away unless you have removed the tunes in the playlist from your iPhone. If you ant to pursue that further, start with this:
  • go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage —
  • How much storage do you have?
  • How much storage have you used?
  • Scroll down the list of apps and find Music —
  • What is the size shown for Music?
  • Touch Music —
  • What is the size shown for Documents & Data?
  • What is the size shown for All songs?


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: How get offline with itunes & PLaylist disappearin
joemikeb #57670 01/25/21 06:00 PM
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kevs Offline OP
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Thanks JOe is itunes subscription better than competition for albums?

Now you don't get to keep the albums on hardrive though with real mps on disc correct?

Re: How get offline with itunes & PLaylist disappearin
kevs #57672 01/25/21 06:15 PM
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Originally Posted by kevs
Thanks JOe is itunes subscription better than competition for albums?
For me it saves significant money.

Originally Posted by keys
Now you don't get to keep the albums on hardrive though with real mps on disc correct?
Aú contraire, you can download them to your iPhone, Mac, or Watch, just like purchased albums, but your device will periodically check in with Apple to be sure your payments are up to date, and if not, the tunes will not play.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: How get offline with itunes & PLaylist disappearin
joemikeb #57675 01/25/21 06:29 PM
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kevs Offline OP
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Thanks Joe, I meant have you tested Apples streaming, (that what this is correct vs others.. ie Spotify etc ..)

Ok I can download to my computer, mp3s and mix them in with my current 20k collection of song I have? But if then unsubscribe, they vanish? And they can be part of playlist I make and trim/ tailor? What is it about $10 month?

Re: How get offline with itunes & PLaylist disappearin
kevs #57677 01/26/21 05:20 PM
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Actually all I do is stream to my iPhone, Mac, iPad, Apple TV, and homePod. I don't store any music on any of my devices unless I am going to be traveling, and then I only download enough music to keep me entertained until I get to the next place that has WiFi and I can download more music without incurring any data charges at all. The one exception is my Apple Watch where I keep some music to accompany walking for health and relaxation. The rest, including music added from CDs or Vinyl, is all stored either on iCloud or Apple's music Library. (Actually there is very little stored on iCloud, to the best of my knowledge only one album, Dave Brubeck's oratorio Light In The Wilderness. Everything else I have uploaded has turned out to be in the Apple Library so instead of storing my upload a pointer to Apple's Library copy and a notation that I own that tune or album is stored. So far it has worked flawlessly for ME and MY needs. YMMV.

If you cancel our subscription, you will not be able to play the tunes you "subscribed to" but other than that, they are pretty much the same as those you upload from a CD or other media. The monthly plan is the most expensive option at $7.99/month.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein

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