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Keep in mind that not all music is at the same volume. It depends on how it was recorded and mastered. Also, volume is more about peaks than overall loudness. Some albums sound louder than others, due to the way they are mastered. Some mastering engineers like to boost the overall loudness of an album by using a lot of program compression. Don’t be surprised if, even with Volume Limit enabled, some music is louder than you expect. Sound Check is supposed to prevent this, but I have experienced the opposite and don’t recommend using it.
Change Album Sort Order
Certain aspects of the Apple Music user experience are puzzling. There are some good reasons for an app to have centralized settings (as opposed to settings within the app). For example, if you want to fine-tune Notifications, it is much easier to do so when all of the switches are in one place. Unfortunately, with Apple Music, they decided to put some app-specific settings in the Settings app.
If you want to do something as basic as changing the sort order of albums, you will need to do this in Settings. Tap on Settings > Music > Sort Album.
From here, you can sort albums by artist or title.
Hide Apple Music
Music offers two services in one app — Apple Music and Music, the latter being your iTunes collection. If you only want to see your iTunes music, tap on Settings > Music and turn off Show Apple Music.
When you open the Music app, you will see a much simpler interface. You can browse My Music, Playlists or listen to Radio. This is also what you will experience if you decide to cancel Apple Music. You can still listen to Radio for free, and this includes the Beats 1 radio station.
Only Show Music Stored on Your iPhone
The My Music collection shows music downloaded to your device as well as albums that you have added to My Music, but are stored on Apple’s servers. If you are on a plane (that doesn’t offer WiFi) or without an Internet connection, you may only wish to see music that is stored on the device. This can be accomplished by tapping My Music. There is a media selector at the top of this screen. It defaults to show Artists, but it may display Albums, Songs, Genres or Composers.
Tap this selector and then turn on the Music Available Offline switch.
You will now only see music stored on your device, which can be played without an Internet connection. Don’t worry — your favorite artists will still get compensated for every song you enjoy. Apple Music keeps track of what you are listening to, privately, so artists can be paid.
Conserve Data by Downloading Apple Music
Apple Music can stream songs over a cellular connection. This may come in handy when you are not near a WiFi hot spot. Most people don’t have unlimited cellular data plans. If you are one of the multitudes, you can conserve cellular data by downloading your favorite music. You can download an album or song by tapping the “…” next to the item and choosing Make Available Offline. This will download the music and add it to your My Music collection.
Playing downloaded songs in My Music won’t use as much cellular data. Keep in mind, the Apple Music app will still use some cellular data, unless you turn this off in two places. First, tap on Settings > Cellular and turn off Apple Music.
Next, tap on Settings > iTunes & App Store, and then turn off cellular data.
If you play Apple Music on your Apple TV using AirPlay, you should turn off the “Play from iTunes in the Cloud” feature on your Apple TV. This feature will steam music from iTunes in the Cloud instead of your downloaded music, even if you are playing a downloaded song on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.
If you wish to conserve data, turn it off. It is on by default. Go to Settings > AirPlay > Play from iTunes in the Cloud to turn this feature off. (continue…)