Apple music-- can I play my own music?

[rwiegand]

So I was excited at the prospect of Apple Music as an app in the car allowing me to play my large collection of tunes with a decent and consistent interface that I was used to using. I'm afraid I'm in for another disappointment, but perhaps you can point me in the right direction. I'm only interested in playing my own collection of music, I neither want nor need any streaming service (my musical tastes are, shall we say, weird, and there's little to nothing for me on the streaming apps, including Apple).

Hit a cold stop at the first step. The version on the Tesla is insisting that I log into my Apple Music account before it will do anything else. I don't have, and don't want an Apple Music account. Apple music works just fine with no account (and no monthly bill) on all of my other devices. Now I'm wondering whether if I pay them their $10/month or whatever, whether it will even work, or whether it is a crippled version that only does streaming. Anyone know?

Second, and perhaps irrelevant if I can't get past the first, I copied my iTunes folder with all my recordings in it onto a thumb drive (formatted in the Tesla, to be sure it was right) and I can't figure out how to access it. There's no USB choice in the Media Center. The car can apparently see the drive because the recording function seems happy. It's plugged in in the glove compartment, which I understood to be the port that reliably does data.

 

[jjrandorin]

Apple music is going to be like spotify so streaming only. It will require a subscription to apple music as well as a premium connectivity subscription from tesla.

Apple music used to work by either matching you with their version of songs or uploading yours if it didnt match, but I havent used it in so long I dont know if it works like that still.

I recently got airpods, and those come with 6mo free of apple music. I use spotify currently for ease of access (certainly not for quality of stream) in the car, but decided to activate apple music yesterday since its now available in the car and I can try it free to decide which one I want to use.

I dont use USB media but my recollection is that you have to both use a USB port that accepts data (the glovebox one does) not expect playlists or anything like that from other solutions to work, ensure your music is in a format the player recognizes, and ensure you have it in the appropriately created folder on your USB drive (I think its "Music" without the quotes but as I said I dont use USB music).

 

[groovyd]

So I was excited at the prospect of Apple Music as an app in the car allowing me to play my large collection of tunes with a decent and consistent interface that I was used to using. I'm afraid I'm in for another disappointment, but perhaps you can point me in the right direction. I'm only interested in playing my own collection of music, I neither want nor need any streaming service (my musical tastes are, shall we say, weird, and there's little to nothing for me on the streaming apps, including Apple).

Hit a cold stop at the first step. The version on the Tesla is insisting that I log into my Apple Music account before it will do anything else. I don't have, and don't want an Apple Music account. Apple music works just fine with no account (and no monthly bill) on all of my other devices. Now I'm wondering whether if I pay them their $10/month or whatever, whether it will even work, or whether it is a crippled version that only does streaming. Anyone know?

Second, and perhaps irrelevant if I can't get past the first, I copied my iTunes folder with all my recordings in it onto a thumb drive (formatted in the Tesla, to be sure it was right) and I can't figure out how to access it. There's no USB choice in the Media Center. The car can apparently see the drive because the recording function seems happy. It's plugged in in the glove compartment, which I understood to be the port that reliably does data.

the only reliable way i have found to play my apple music iMatch library in my car is to have it fully loaded on an old old ipod touch and connect to it via bluetooth and to turn off all wifi and updates on the ipod touch and keep it plugged into a cheap ebay chinese wireless charge pad for the ipod. i have to replace the battery every couple years since being on the charger all the time and in the sometime hot car tends to pillow out the batteries but it works. i even have a stack of 3 more old ipod touches waiting incase the first one ever dies for good. it's free this way but to be honest i might prefer to pay the $10 a month to have my match library delivered through the music app directly and not need the ipod if they allowed that which of course they never will.

 

[rwiegand]

Well, I can (and do) play bluetooth from my phone. I was hoping for a more integrated, hardwired solution where I could have arbitrarily large storage for uncompressed files. I guess I've been left behind by technology once more, I take it people no longer have libraries of recordings they'd like to play by genre or keywords. An app on the car that works like an antique ipod would be great. I wish the streaming services both had more music of the kinds I like, and compensated artists in a more appropriate way, but they don't. I'll keep handing band members cash in exchange for a CD as long as that works (not holding my breath).

 

[Scott7]

I think you are (understandably) conflating "Apple Music" which is a paid subscription service, and the "Music" app on Apple's devices, which includes both the "Apple Music" subscription service and the locally stored music library (which was formerly named iTunes) in the same app interface.

Tesla has implemented only the subscription service named "Apple Music". That service is fully independent from the native "Music" app from Apple devices. If you want to play locally stored files, your choices remain connecting your iPhone via BT or USB connection. If you think about it, there isn't any way for the car to receive your locally stored music over it's own LTE connection because that music isn't in the cloud so how would it access it?

This is one of the many reasons people are so adamant about wanting CarPlay in their Teslas; There you do get Apple's version of the Music app complete with support for both the "Apple Music" service as well as locally stored files on your device. And not only that, you don't have to pay for a separate LTE sub (Telsa Premium Connectivity) which is a rather big deal for those that already have unlimited data on their phones and don't need/want any of the other stuff premium connectivity provides.

 

[hugh_jassol]

Well, I can (and do) play bluetooth from my phone. I was hoping for a more integrated, hardwired solution where I could have arbitrarily large storage for uncompressed files.

That's a USB SSD drive. You can put all the music you want on a USB SSD drive and plug that in The car can play music direct from a USB stick/drive.

If you do want to stream them, If you subscribe to Apple Music, your locally ripped/recorded files get uploaded to the cloud and then you can stream them like any other music from the service. I do this all the time with stuff I have ripped from back in the 80's that Apple doesn't have in their streaming library. Once it's uploaded, I can play it just as if it was in the Apple Library.

 

[Brian Anderson]

Hit a cold stop at the first step. The version on the Tesla is insisting that I log into my Apple Music account before it will do anything else. I don't have, and don't want an Apple Music account. Apple music works just fine with no account (and no monthly bill) on all of my other devices. Now I'm wondering whether if I pay them their $10/month or whatever, whether it will even work, or whether it is a crippled version that only does streaming. Anyone know?

You can stream your own music using Apple Music, but you will need to pay for the subscription. This is the iCloud part of Apple Music that predates the subscription streaming aspect, but it is still there. Assuming you have playlists set up, those will sync and show up in the car. In addition, if Apple has a higher quality version of your music, you will automatically get that streamed to you. They are in the process of switching over to Apple Lossless format, which should be CD quality (no compression, so, no compression artifacts). Sounds like you may have a lot of content that Apple doesn’t have, in which case you will get your music streamed to you from iCloud.

 

[terrywhite]

My music library/playlists are there because I pay the annual $25 for iTunes Match and I have an Apple One subscription.

 

[tttt]

My music library/playlists are there because I pay the annual $25 for iTunes Match and I have an Apple One subscription.

You can drop iTunes Match since Apple One includes that feature!

 

[rwiegand]

I recall early on with apple streaming that if you had and uploaded a dozen different recordings of the same song, eg concert performances, that Apple would substitute their “better” version, also that they’d arbitrarily decide you were violating copyright, even when you weren’t and not allow you to listen to your own music. Is that still true?

 

[tttt]

No, from what I can tell your uploads remain intact. But that's just myobservation, I could be wrong.

 

[john ram]

So I was excited at the prospect of Apple Music as an app in the car allowing me to play my large collection of tunes with a decent and consistent interface that I was used to using. I'm afraid I'm in for another disappointment, but perhaps you can point me in the right direction. I'm only interested in playing my own collection of music, I neither want nor need any streaming service (my musical tastes are, shall we say, weird, and there's little to nothing for me on the streaming apps, including Apple).

Hit a cold stop at the first step. The version on the Tesla is insisting that I log into my Apple Music account before it will do anything else. I don't have, and don't want an Apple Music account. Apple music works just fine with no account (and no monthly bill) on all of my other devices. Now I'm wondering whether if I pay them their $10/month or whatever, whether it will even work, or whether it is a crippled version that only does streaming. Anyone know?

Second, and perhaps irrelevant if I can't get past the first, I copied my iTunes folder with all my recordings in it onto a thumb drive (formatted in the Tesla, to be sure it was right) and I can't figure out how to access it. There's no USB choice in the Media Center. The car can apparently see the drive because the recording function seems happy. It's plugged in in the glove compartment, which I understood to be the port that reliably does data.

I’ve had the same problems!

 

[Ned FP]

I think you are (understandably) conflating "Apple Music" which is a paid subscription service, and the "Music" app on Apple's devices, which includes both the "Apple Music" subscription service and the locally stored music library (which was formerly named iTunes) in the same app interface.

Tesla has implemented only the subscription service named "Apple Music". That service is fully independent from the native "Music" app from Apple devices. If you want to play locally stored files, your choices remain connecting your iPhone via BT or USB connection. If you think about it, there isn't any way for the car to receive your locally stored music over it's own LTE connection because that music isn't in the cloud so how would it access it?

This is one of the many reasons people are so adamant about wanting CarPlay in their Teslas; There you do get Apple's version of the Music app complete with support for both the "Apple Music" service as well as locally stored files on your device. And not only that, you don't have to pay for a separate LTE sub (Telsa Premium Connectivity) which is a rather big deal for those that already have unlimited data on their phones and don't need/want any of the other stuff premium connectivity provides.

Sorry, you obviously don't use Apple Music Match. It has nothing to do with local files/downloads. Music Match takes music that you may have that is not available (i.e. your favorite jam band's latest concert download form nugs.com), and then it uploads it to Apple's servers and makes it part of you iTunes music library as if it was native to the interface. It is a life saver for us in the jam band world, as it allows me to have literally hundreds of concerts (thousands of songs) available to stream in iTunes (and CarPlay). So not really talking about local files on an iPhone, iPod or iPad.

So: no true: it is called iTunes Music Match, and that is exactly what the OP is asking, and what the service ($25/year) does.

If you think about it, there isn't any way for the car to receive your locally stored music over it's own LTE connection because that music isn't in the cloud so how would it access it?

 

[jjrandorin]

Sorry, you obviously don't use Apple Music Match. It has nothing to do with local files/downloads. Music Match takes music that you may have that is not available (i.e. your favorite jam band's latest concert download form nugs.com), and then it uploads it to Apple's servers and makes it part of you iTunes music library as if it was native to the interface. It is a life saver for us in the jam band world, as it allows me to have literally hundreds of concerts (thousands of songs) available to stream in iTunes (and CarPlay). So not really talking about local files on an iPhone, iPod or iPad.

So: no true: it is called iTunes Music Match, and that is exactly what the OP is asking, and what the service ($25/year) does.

But that service is not what has been implemented into the tesla interface. You will need to play those from your phone via bluetooth.

 

[hugh_jassol]

But that service is not what has been implemented into the tesla interface. You will need to play those from your phone via bluetooth.

It is is you ALSO subscribe to Apple Music. Then you get your own unavailable tunes as well

 

[jjrandorin]

It is is you ALSO subscribe to Apple Music. Then you get your own unavailable tunes as well

Right... but someone who just subscribes to itunes match (and uses the apple music app to play their files) may be thinking that because Tesla now supports "apple music" they are good to go, and they arent. This OP for example, was talking about wanting to play their own music (which they are playing in the apple music app) via the new functionality, and they cant.

 

[mr-dmitry]

I could play 0 purchased songs and only 100 songs of 5,000 from Apple Music. Not a pleasant experience at all

 

[OldEvo]

I have about 1500 tunes on a flash drive. They are all MP3s and are arranged in folders by artist. When I connect the flash drive to the glove box USB port the USB device card appears and I can play whatever I want with Music Player. It reads the MP3 tags so I can sort by artist, album, etc. Works great.

A subset of those tunes is on my iPhone, copied to it using iTunes from my PC. When my iPhone is connected via Bluetooth the Music Player sees the library and I can play any of those tunes when using the Bluetooth device card. Work great also but I prefer playing from the flash drive.

 

[rwiegand]

With the help of folks here I subsequently discovered a set of controls that I didn't realize were there that allow me to play music from the USB just as I'd like-- typically for me, shuffled within a genre that I assigned when I imported the music. It's working just as I'd hoped.

Now if I could only get it to remember what I was playing between trips. Sometimes it does (about 1 in 10 times, cant predict when or why), the rest of the time I have to find the USB app, navigate to the genre folder I want and then initiate play, re-checking that shuffle is still enabled (ubfortunately usually after I've pulled out of my driveway). Sometimes my past choices show up in the little card on the lower left of the screen, which is much more convenient, mostly that screen is prodding me to sign up for premium connectivity. The bigger music control screen that shows up on the right side never shows my past USB choices.

 

[fredspasm]

I'm really missing something. I'm a new owner and when I switch from radio to bluetooth, it only plays the album that I currently have playing in my iTunes library on my phone. I don't know how to get my model 3 to display my entire library so I can choose a different album.
Can someone walk me through this?