Apple Music, iTunes Match, and DRM

I’ve been neck deep in Apple Music this week as we prepare for a Mac Power Users episode devoted to the topic. One issue, that is worth sharing right now are the evolving questions about digital rights management (DRM). DRM has been largely missing from iTunes tracks for several years now. With Apple Music (a subscription service), it’s back. That makes sense. The music industry doesn’t expect you to be able to download and keep the entire iTunes music library for a single month’s subscription. When you stop paying the subscription fee, you lose the rights.

The problem arises when you first set up iCloud Music Library and it overlaps with your prior iTunes Match tracks (that you presumably purchased and should be DRM free). Early tests, including this one from Kirk McElhearn, are indicating some of your iTunes Match tracks are getting DRM applied to them when they shouldn’t.

The point of this post is that I want you to download and save copies of all your music on a spare drive before diving in with Apple Music. This may get all sorted out but I think having your own DRM-free copy of the music you’ve purchased is a good idea on most days (and an outstanding idea today).

MacSparky Fields Guides Now Available on iPhone


With the release of iOS 8.4, iBooks on the iPhone can now display iBooks Author rich media books like the MacSparky Field Guides. Hooray!

Often I receive emails from readers asking to read my books on the iPhone. Now you can. The books look great on the iPhone. Paperless, Email, Markdown, and 60 Tips all display in the alternative format (pictured). This allows you to also change the type size. Presentations displays in its original format, which looks great but doesn’t allow you to change type size.

Either way, I’m thrilled to have millions of potential new customers. If you’ve already purchased the books, they’ll load just fine on your iPhone today. If you’ve been waiting for them to become iPhone compatible, today is your lucky day. I’m already making changes to the next MacSparky Field Guide to make it even more iPhone friendly.

Sponsor: HoudahSpot




This week I’m pleased to welcome a new sponsor to MacSparky, HoudahSpot. Imagine if there were a group of engineers at Apple that wanted to turn up the Spotlight search a notch or two and had nobody in management to tell them “no”. That’s what you get with HoudahSpot. 

HoudahSpot lets you search your Mac like a boss. It improves upon Spotlight to let you find files by multiple criteria, like name, text, content kind, author, recipient, and pixel count just to name a few. You can combine these search criteria to drill in quickly and choose which locations HoudahSpot looks in and which locations it ignores. You can even set up templates for repeat searches.

I’ve used HoudahSpot for years and if you haven’t tried it yet, you should. Here’s a quick war story. In a recent trial I had things go a little bit wonky with some PDFs I wanted to use as exhibits. I suddenly found myself with a “needle in the haystack” scenario with 10 minutes to find the documents. I knew they were there …somewhere… and I cooked up a quick HoudahSpot query that found them with time to spare.

Anyway, don’t take my word for it, go try out the app. If you like it you can get 20% off with the coupon code MACSPARKY or purchase through this link. There’s no better way to search your Mac.


Directions On My Wrist


As you can probably tell from all the recent travel-related posts, I’m on the road a lot as of late. One of the nicest surprises for me with the Apple Watch in my travels is walking directions on the Apple Watch. 

I’ve always felt like walking around with my phone out for directions was like painting a sign over my head that says “I’m a lost tourist. Please come mug me.” This was particularly true in San Francisco as I walked around at all hours of the day.

The Apple Watch removes that. Once you set a destination on your phone (or on your Watch via Siri), you can put your phone in your pocket and not look so obvious. Your directions will then begin showing up on your wrist. 

The screen shows your estimated time of arrival and distance to your next turn. It’s really quite nice. It gets better though.

As you are walking down the street, Apple Watch talks to you in secret code. If you are coming up on a right turn, you get a steady stream of 12 taps on your wrist. If you need to turn left you get three series of two taps to turn left. If you aren’t sure, just look at your watch like you are checking the time when, in reality, you are getting directions like a secret agent in cold-war Berlin.

Once you arrive at your destination the watch vibrates again. Force tap your screen to stop the directions. Having done this now for several weeks, I can’t imagine going back to getting walking direction on my phone. 

Apple’s Teaching Swift Materials


John Weatherford sleuthed out these Swift training materials published by Apple. (I found the link through MacStories.) I think Apple is going to push hard to make Swift a “beginning” programming language. Why not get people started on their platform? I’m pretty excited about this as a hobbyist. I’ve been working my way through the Lynda.com programming fundamentals and beginning Swift materials the past several months in my free time. I’m only a hobbyist but I still get a kick out of making things happen on my screens with a little bit of code.