Apple's most recent update to its iPhone music app upset a lot of users last week because it killed off an incredibly useful feature: Home Sharing.
It's a way to share your library around your WiFi network: You could play your MacBook's music from your iPad, your iPhone's from your Mac Pro, and so on. But with iOS 8.4, the feature was stripped out of iPhones and iPads without warning.
We still don't know for sure why this happened — we've reached out to Apple and will update when it responds — but there has been speculation it is to do with rights issues surrounding Apple Music. The update also included the first version of Apple's new music streaming service, so it's possible that the Cupertino company was unable to secure the necessary rights from the labels to offer streaming across multiple devices.
A fix may be imminent, however. Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of internet software and services, tweeted last night that the company is "working to have Home Sharing in iOS 9." We first saw the tweet over on 9to5Mac.
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Hey @cue, I hope I don't have to be @taylorswift13 to get you to restore Home Sharing for music! #ios84
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https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/618194438444048384
@inklake We are working to have Home Sharing in iOS 9.
This lends further weight to the theory that it is a rights issue: It's unlikely Apple would so quickly and so publicly go back on itself if it had taken the deliberate decision to remove Home Sharing from iOS. The removal had caused a strong negative reaction from Twitter users, who were dismayed to see the useful tool suddenly disappear.
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https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/616519712923521028
Are you kidding @tim_cook? Home Sharing is just gone from my iOS Devices? What could you possibly be thinking?
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https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/616418305704919041
iOS 8.4 Removes Home Sharing for Music. I Hate Everything.
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https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/616216525356310528
iOS 8.4 removed Home Sharing from the music app. Damnit, #Apple! You always do this. How about a warning next time?
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