Okay, Apple, this is getting out of hand. It’s bad enough that when I sync my music to my iPhone, you think you have the right to replace some of my album art. But now you’re changing my tags. And they’re wrong.
I was listening to my music on shuffle today, when walking on my treadmill. I was using my iPhone, which is running iOS 8.3. I was very surprised to see the name of the artist when I looked at my phone and this track was playing:
Now, Bob Dylan has played with the Grateful Dead, and even recorded an album with them. But the Dead didn’t play on Blood on the Tracks. I checked all the Bob Dylan tracks on my iPhone, and they all say Bob Dylan & Grateful Dead. But if I look in iTunes, here’s what I see:
I don’t see anything about the Grateful Dead there. The only way this change could have been (incorrectly) made was during the sync. As I showed in the article I link to above, about album art, iOS devices connect to the iTunes Store during the sync, and they must now be changing tags, not only album artwork.
Note that I do not have iTunes Match turned on. I do not have any music in my iTunes library listed as Bob Dylan & Grateful Dead (I have the Dylan and the Dead album listed under Bob Dylan). And on my iPhone, as you can see to the left, there is no Bob Dylan & Grateful Dead listed as an artist. The only possibility is that iOS is contacting the iTunes Store and getting incorrect information.
Bob Dylan & Grateful Dead – in that exact spelling, with the ampersand – is an artist name on the iTunes Store. That’s how the Dylan & The Dead album from 1989 is listed. But, again, I don’t list that album under that artist title:
THIS SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING. There is no scenario where Apple should be changing the tags on my music files, any more than they should change its album artwork.
What about you, dear readers? Are you seeing similar tag changes on your music with iOS 8.3? This is the only one I’ve spotted so far; there may be others on my iPhone.