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iTunes Match crippled in iOS 6

iTunes Match functionality seems to be crippled in iOS 6:

You cannot swipe delete an individual song from your iPhone
You cannot swipe delete an entire album from your iPhone
You cannot download an individual track from an album, only the entire album
When 'Show all music' is selected, you cannot tell which songs / albums are stored on your phone as it shows them all with no indication of whether they're stored locally or in the cloud.

The impacts of all of this are:

Once you have downloaded music to your iPhone, you can no longer delete it. Which means that eventually your iPhone will be full.
You cannot decide to download just the tracks you want to listen to from an album any more. It's the whole thing or nothing.

These are serious changes to the way iTunes Match works on iOS devices and there has been nothing from Apple explaining the changes, users have been left to figure it out themselves. I'm not sure I want to pay for this service any more. Anyone else feel the same?

iPhone 4S, iOS 6

Posted on Sep 20, 2012 2:03 PM

185 replies

Spreadly

Level 1

0 points

Jan 28, 2013 11:09 PM in response to gmansc1

... Yep sorry, you could always keep the music on your phone, misinformed genius I'm afraid.

ejpre

Level 3

810 points

Jan 29, 2013 7:50 AM in response to Spreadly

No, it at least got very buggy with iOS 6. When I turned on iTM with iOS 5 on my iPhone, it warned me it was going to delete all my music, but then didn't do it. When I "upgraded" to iOS 6, for some reason it came up with iTM turned off. When I turned it on, it again warned me it was going to delete all my music - only this time it did, and I had to redownload the local copies through Match.

People have been reporting mixed experiences toggling Match since iOS 6 came out. If it's working consistently now, it would fall into the category with the rest of the stuff they broke with iOS 6 and fixed with 6.1 (individual downloads, album artwork, March madness calendar bug, etc). I hate to get too enthusiastic about it, because I'd hate for Apple to get the message that the way to keep customers happy is to break stuff and then fix it later.

gmansc1

Level 1

1 points

Jan 29, 2013 8:28 AM in response to ejpre

What @ejpre reports is what happened with me, as well. My phone was loaded with music, but after turning on ITM and going back to the IT app, I was greeted with the message "no content," or something like that. All songs were definitely wiped from the device. Others in this thread find similar experiences. This "correct" behavior was acknowledged by both a genius at an apple store and an apple engineer during over the phone help. Let's hope it is now working smoothly and consistently.

Jan 29, 2013 8:40 AM in response to ejpre

I think it's good everyone is sharing their personal experiences with iTunes Match as it manifested itself TO THEM when iOS 6 first came out and how it seems to have repaired itself with iOS 6.1. So, even if Spreadly is right, the fact that it didn't work like it should for some probably means it didn't for others. Documenting that here may help folks who come to this forum looking for answers to their questions.

For example, after reading gmansc1's post, a reader of this forum who has a problem similar to what Gmansc1 had with ITM would know to UPDATE to iOS 6.1 as that appears to HIS problem. (Not everyone is so conscientious about updating as folks who are active readers of Apple's Support Forum!)

I'm still feelin' the Love baby!

(But, I hope Apple doesn't know because they stil have "promises to keep and many miles to go before they sleep.")

Cheers, Mr. Luigi

bapisk

Level 1

13 points

Nov 2, 2015 8:33 PM in response to steve.lawrence

iTunes Match crippled in iOS 6