If you’ve upgraded your iPhone or iPad to iOS 8.4 in order to take advantage of the insanely great Apple Music, you won’t be able to use Home Sharing to play the iTunes music from your Mac via your iOS device any more.
Several fans took to the Apple discussion pages to note that Home Sharing is no longer accessible on their mobile devices, killing their media setups.
“Before today,” writes forum user ddrucker, “I could bring up the entire library on my iPhone/iPad and play it through my earphones.”
He goes on to say that the update removes a key feature of his setup, but notes that Apple TV still can access the Home Sharing from his Mac.
“They better not remove this feature from that,” he continues, “or there wouldn’t be any point in owning it (here in Canada, most of all of those other icons are useless).”
Home Sharing came to iTunes in 2011, adding the ability to stream music that you have sitting on your Mac to any other Apple device in the house on the same network. It’s a great way to let everyone on your Wi-Fi listen to all of your carefully managed music files without having to physically copy them to their devices.
Home Sharing still works Mac to Mac, and Mac to Apple TV, but it looks like Apple decided that they would really like you to perhaps opt for the Apple Music family plan on your mobile device. That or they just forgot. Ahem.
It’s bugging a lot of Apple fans, though.
“When I had 8.3 installed on my iPhone 5s,” writes Apple Discussion user ktownman, “I could wander around the house and listen to my iTunes library via my Bluetooth headphones and life was good…This is upsetting!!!”
Source: Apple Discussions
Via: Reddit
Rob LeFebvre is an Anchorage, Alaska-based writer and editor who has contributed to various tech, gaming and iOS sites, including 148Apps, Creative Screenwriting, Shelf-Awareness, VentureBeat, and Paste Magazine. Feel free to find Rob on Twitter @roblef, and send him a cookie once in a while; he’ll really appreciate it.
17 responses to “Home Sharing taken out of iOS 8.4, confounding users”
I agree. People that use this feature need to make their voice heard and head over to Apple and give them some feedback.
You can do the same thing with iTune Match. @$25 a year, pretty much a no brainer. Plus I upgraded my old mp3s to AAC 256 and some of those old broken mp3s got the full versions. For the price of a burger and a beer once a year, you can stop complaining.
Apple fan boy defends Apple making something less functional. Home sharing was free and was part of the benefits of being in the Apple ecosystem. BTW, Apple ruined iTunes Match as far as I’m concerned by forcing it into iCloud Music Library. I lost lots of medadata from my iTunes library when I turned iCloud Music Library on. I’m not turning iCloud Music Library back on. Therefore I can’t use iTunes Match anymore. Even though I paid for it.
So much butthurt. Breathe…and learn to adapt with change instead of whining about it.
And iTunes Match is still fine. The only thing that’s confusing is there’s no settings for it anymore. iCloud Music Library turned on by default for me and I haven’t had a single issue with it.
Your point? Stripping features from an OS is never good. While I’m a Blackberry user, I was planning on getting an iPad to supplement my BB Leap.
Definitely a no-go. I don’t care about streaming tunes from the net and I will never use the new service. I have tons of tunes in my library.
The kicker is that this freezes upgrades – people who want to maintain their home music streaming will never again be able to upgrade the operating system.
This kind of thinking clearly does not reflect an appreciation for the range of customers. Making everything conform to one demographic group is a very narrow-minded approach.
Doesn’t freeze upgrades; that’s a gross exaggeration. You have no idea what you’re talking about. iTunes Match has this functionality and $2.08/month is dirt cheap.
Neither match nor Apple Music have the functionality that was removed–The ability to have all tracks already owned located on central private storage and listen to them on any IOS device WITHOUT using internet bandwidth, wasting storage on each device, or paying ANY additional fees. Enjoy your yearly shearing.
Wrong, moron. I have iTunes Match and I can stream my entire iTunes library on any of my devices. Enjoy the stick up your asshole!
There are several free educational programs on the internet these days. Feel free to avail yourself and possibly get a basic understanding of network technology and possibly improve your vocabulary as well.
I have an advanced understanding of networking, you asshole. Good to know you’re admitting I’m right, though. Your red herring is an admission of defeat.
I guess Apple Support and engineers are all morons as well since they agree with me. ;) I have to say they do have a stronger grasp on vocabulary.
Nope, only moron here is you; they don’t agree with you because you have no clue what you’re talking about. This is Apple’s play to get people to use iTunes Match and Apple Music (which isn’t a bad move considering how cheap both are). My first hand experience with this trumps anything you have to say to the contrary. Take your ad hominem attacks and stick them up your ass where they belong.
If you want to stream your iTunes from your Mac to your iOS device, you can’t upgrade to 8.4. That serves to freeze upgrades. If you want to upgrade and lose the ability to stream to iOS, feel free to do so.
This is a play to push people to Apple Music/iTunes Match. If you want to stream on iOS 8.4, you can. I do with iTunes Match.
Frurutan is right. If I want to keep the home share ability, the my OS upgrade options are frozen.
Most of my music is ripped either lossless or at high nitrates from my extensive CD collection. Many are digitized from rare or vintage vinyl. Even most of mo3’s come from private purchase and not iTunes. Why in the world would I pay for Match? It doesn’t give me anything I don’t already have.
Outside the home, I put what I want on my device at the time. Most streaming is blocked at the office and why should I burn my data at work or in the car? Beside, I’m rural enough that it’s not unusual to not have bandwidth available for effective streaming.
If you’re a kid that has mom and dad paying your bills, this might be good for you. For many of the rest of us? Not so much.
I’m sure some developer will create an app that replicates Home Sharing and hopefully renders Apple’s stupid new Music service impotent.