Apples "Music" App...

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Is it me or is this thing a train wreck?

iTunes ws never my favorite program but it seems like breaking it out to Music and TV and has only made it worse. Also seems like it totally focused on pushing everything you do towards Apple Music. Except I don't want Apple Music, I want my library that I've created over the years. Shaking my head wondering what the heck the software folks at Apple are thinking at this. Steve would beat them all senseless if he were still around....
 

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I'm not finding the current setup any more/less difficult than it was before. It seems a little faster nu that could be my imagination. Are there any particular things you are finding annoying?

Haven't seen you around in a while. Where ya been?
 
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Music seems to work pretty much exactly the way it did as iTunes (loss of cover art aside during the migrations thanks to bugginess, which was annoying but dealt with). I know there's one feature that was dropped that DJs in particular relied on, so hopefully Apple will bring it back for them. But I don't get the feeling that they are pushing Apple Music. Not at all. I'm also not bothered by them breaking videos apart to another app. If anything, I prefer it. I liked using iTunes just fine for music but not for videos, opting instead for a Plex-centric home theater system.
 

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I suggested some time ago on anther forum that there various functions of iTunes should be split up into component parts. At that time Kirk "the iTunes Guy" of MacWorld fame didn't seem to think it would produce much improvement in the overall performance if I remember the exchange correctly.

When Apple split iTunes as they've done under Catalina they almost followed what I thought they would do. The only real difference is I thought there would be a sort of mini launcher. Click on that and it brought up icons for each of the relevant apps/components and you choose the one you wanted. Their current method cuts out that step.

Not to derail the thread here but has the speed/performance of the program improved for you guys?
 
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I'm not finding the current setup any more/less difficult than it was before. It seems a little faster nu that could be my imagination. Are there any particular things you are finding annoying?

Haven't seen you around in a while. Where ya been?

Several things actuallY:

1) The ability to show all music by Genre, Artis and Album in 3 sections at the top of the Window with the music underneath was of particular worth to me. I have a large library (150k+ songs) and losing that one view option makes managing and finding music quickly far more difficult than it should be.

2) Also seems to me like the loss of ability to drag individual songs from your library to a device (iPhone or iPad) without having to resort to a playlist isn't particularly user friendly. I manually manage my music on my devices and this just makes it that more difficult.

3) Speaking of devices, managing them in the Finder is a PITA. Not being able to see what playlists/files are on the devices in iTunes or TV feels like a step backward. I can manage, backup or restore my devices as before, I just can't see their playlists.
 

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Several things actuallY:

1) The ability to show all music by Genre, Artis and Album in 3 sections at the top of the Window with the music underneath was of particular worth to me. I have a large library (150k+ songs) and losing that one view option makes managing and finding music quickly far more difficult than it should be.

I think you are referring to the Column view mode. I don't use it often but I do find it useful. Try this and see if it gets you to a happy place.
1. Make sure you are viewing your music in "song" mode. This doesn't seem to work in album or artist mode.
2. Go to View Menu>Column Browser>Show Column Browser

2) Also seems to me like the loss of ability to drag individual songs from your library to a device (iPhone or iPad) without having to resort to a playlist isn't particularly user friendly. I manually manage my music on my devices and this just makes it that more difficult.

Here's a work around for that issue. Make sure your device is visible in iTunes. When you right click a song/group of songs one of the options says something like "Send to Devce". I've tried this in album mode but not in other modes. I'd try them now but my phone isn't playing nice connecting by wire right now.

Afraid I can't help with number 3.
 
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Several things actuallY:

1) The ability to show all music by Genre, Artis and Album in 3 sections at the top of the Window with the music underneath was of particular worth to me. I have a large library (150k+ songs) and losing that one view option makes managing and finding music quickly far more difficult than it should be.

Reportedly coming back in 10.15.2.
Music - Missing Features, Bugs, Issues & Troubleshooting | MacRumors Forums

2) Also seems to me like the loss of ability to drag individual songs from your library to a device (iPhone or iPad) without having to resort to a playlist isn't particularly user friendly. I manually manage my music on my devices and this just makes it that more difficult.

You most certainly can do this. I just did it. My iPhone shows up wirelessly in Finder and Music, so I tried dragging a music track in Music to my iPhone in the Music sidebar. Synced right up.

3) Speaking of devices, managing them in the Finder is a PITA. Not being able to see what playlists/files are on the devices in iTunes or TV feels like a step backward. I can manage, backup or restore my devices as before, I just can't see their playlists.

Visible via the Music app. Just select your iPhone from the sidebar.
EDIT: slight correction here. You can see what music is on your iPhone via the Music app by selecting it from Music's sidebar. To see what playlists are being synced, that is visible via the Sync settings for the iPhone in Finder. While in looking at the tracks on your iPhone via Music, you can click on "Sync Settings" to quickly go to that section in Finder.
 
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I think you are referring to the Column view mode. I don't use it often but I do find it useful. Try this and see if it gets you to a happy place.
1. Make sure you are viewing your music in "song" mode. This doesn't seem to work in album or artist mode.
2. Go to View Menu>Column Browser>Show Column Browser

Therein lies th problem. In Music 1.0.1.37 that option no longer exists. Colum browser isn't in the menu....



Here's a work around for that issue. Make sure your device is visible in iTunes. When you right click a song/group of songs one of the options says something like "Send to Devce". I've tried this in album mode but not in other modes. I'd try them now but my phone isn't playing nice connecting by wire right now.

Afraid I can't help with number 3.

I'll try that when I get finish reading my library...
 
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Excellent!



You most certainly can do this. I just did it. My iPhone shows up wirelessly in Finder and Music, so I tried dragging a music track in Music to my iPhone in the Music sidebar. Synced right up.

Have yet to be able to make it work with Music or Video.



Visible via the Music app. Just select your iPhone from the sidebar.

Doesn't work with my iPad at all. Nothing.

EDIT: Ok, I can see songs on the devices, but not the playlists.
 
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Therein lies th problem. In Music 1.0.1.37 that option no longer exists. Colum browser isn't in the menu....
My version of Music is 1.0.2.37. Probably because I downloaded the latest Catalina beta Friday night but I hadn't done that when I tested this. Make sure that you go to the Sidebar and put things in Song mode or the Column viewer option doesn't show in the menu at all.
 
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Have yet to be able to make it work with Music or Video.


Doesn't work with my iPad at all. Nothing.

I had issues getting my iDevices to show up wirelessly early on with Catalina despite having the wireless sync option enabled. The solution was to reboot both the Mac and the iDevices.
 
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My version of Music is 1.0.2.37. Probably because I downloaded the latest Catalina beta Friday night but I hadn't done that when I tested this. Make sure that you go to the Sidebar and put things in Song mode or the Column viewer option doesn't show in the menu at all.

Already in Song view. The option just isn't there.

Screen Shot 2019-12-08 at 21.jpg
 
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I've got a previous version of Catalina on an external drive. I'll try to boot into that tomorrow and see if it has a previous version of Music on it. Maybe this is something they re-added recently. That certainly seems to be s part of the MacRumors discussion linked to above.
 
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Therein lies th problem. In Music 1.0.1.37 that option no longer exists. Colum browser isn't in the menu....
Right click on the column headers bar. That pops up a window of all the column options. Is that what you are looking for?
 

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Right click on the column headers bar. That pops up a window of all the column options. Is that what you are looking for?

That's not quite it. He can't even get to the column view mode to do that. Apparently the option for column view isn't even available for him.

Edit: Last night I promised to boot from the previous Catalina versos to identify the version of Music to see if that made a difference n whether the column view option is there. For whatever reason can't boot from the clone right now even though the Startup pane says it's bootable.

When I have more time I'll try again.
 
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I'm using Catalina, and I just clicked on Songs in the sidebar and there it was. I can do a screenshot if anybody wants one.

EDIT: In post #12, he shows the Songs view in list. There is a header bar at the top. That's where I right clicked and all of the possible columns appeared.

EDIT 2: Here is a screenshot of Music, Songs view, right-clicked on menu bar and options visible.

Screen Shot 2019-12-09 at 7.43.44 PM.png
 
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You're right. He is already in song mode and he is in column view but there are two things wrong that I haven't quite figured out.

1. If you look at the menu in his screenshot (post #12) the option that toggles column view off and on isn't there. It s for me even though I'm already in column view mode.
2. In his screenshot and yours the feature he really wants is missing. I'm having trouble adding a screenshot at the moment but it's a look that shows info for several albums at once.

Edit: To see the view that he wants Go to the View menu and scroll down to Column browser. Several possible options appear in a pop out menu on the right. Make sure one or more options are checked and see how the view changes.
 
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1. If you look at the menu in his screenshot (post #12) the option that toggles column view off and on isn't there. It s for me even though I'm already in column view mode.
Can't say what you are looking at, but in Music, what is visible in post #12 is the menu for when you click on View on the top bar. And there is no Column view option because I think column view is only in Songs, as you said earlier.

2. In his screenshot and yours the feature he really wants is missing. I'm having trouble adding a screenshot at the moment but it's a look that shows info for several albums at once.
I'm not sure what that means. He said in post #5 he wanted Genre, artist and Album. So if he selected those three columns he could then sort on any of the three by clicking on the appropriate header.

Edit: To see the view that he wants Go to the View menu and scroll down to Column browser. Several possible options appear in a pop out menu on the right. Make sure one or more options are checked and see how the view changes.
When I click on View, there is no option for Column browser.

Screen Shot 2019-12-09 at 9.02.52 PM.png

Screen Shot 2019-12-09 at 9.00.28 PM.png
 
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Can't say what you are looking at, but in Music, what is visible in post #12 is the menu for when you click on View on the top bar. And there is no Column view option because I think column view is only in Songs, as you said earlier.

I'm not sure what that means. He said in post #5 he wanted Genre, artist and Album. So if he selected those three columns he could then sort on any of the three by clicking on the appropriate header.

When I click on View, there is no option for Column browser.

You see exactly what I see. Column Browser isn't an available option, but is was in all previous versions of iTunes. It was apparently omitted in the Music app. Supposedly it's coming back in the next update as mentioned earlier. Go follow the link in post 7, lots of folks there upset that the column browser is gone and very happy its coming back. Thats why it was my number 1 gripe in my previous post.
 
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Are these the options you're looking for?

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