Contributor I

Answered

No artist pictures shown in Apple Music for MY OWN library using Sonos S2 app

8 replies
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Hi

Yesterday I bought a Sonos Port so I could be using my streamingservices Apple Music and Tidal on my own stereo.

Unfortunately I have an issue using Apple Music, as none of the artist in my own library are shown with pictures but only the dull round white icon with a red microphone inside.

I do know that the artists can be shown with pictures, because if I do a search for an artist f.ex. James Taylor I can see the artist correctly in Apple Music but without pictures in my own library inside Apple Music.

What can I do to fix the issue?

Thanks in advance.

Kind regards

Flemming Andreassen

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Ken_GriffithsAnswer

Ahhh, so the conclusion are that the Apple Music service DO have the images of the artists when using the Music app by Apple but is not allowed to share the images with Sonos Apple Music service because of rights issues.

Sonos apparently publish an API for third parties to use/access and add their music services to - so the music service added by Apple is mostly in their realm and presumably their developers are responsible for the interface within the boundaries of what Sonos tools were made available to them.

I currently use the Apple, YouTube, Spotify and Amazon music services and have uploaded some of my own tracks to their respective cloud service. This is what I see in the Sonos App:

In Apple Music, I see a default icon for each Artist
in Amazon Music, I see what I believe is a randomly chosen Album cover for each Artist
In YouTube Music, I see what I believe is a randomly chosen Album cover for each Artist
in Spotify, I don’t see ‘Artists’ in my Library … I just see Playlists, Songs & Albums?

So the service providers do clearly have interfaces that vary and so in this case it is ‘perhaps’ down to Apple to provide an image (of some sort) for each Artist listed.

F

FandreassenAuthor

Contributor I

Forgot to mention that all the albums are there and grouped under the artists and all showing the Album Art just fine. Only the artists themselfes are missing pictures.

controlav

Lead Maestro

There is no provision to display artist pictures when using local files, only music services can do this.

Think about it: where is the app supposed to get an artist graphic from, given an mp3/aac file of a single track from an album? That file only contains the album artwork.

Author of the leading independent Sonos apps for Android, MacOS, iOS, Windows and Xbox.

F

FandreassenAuthor

Contributor I

Thanks for helping me :-)

I might not have explained my issue clearly enough.

My own Apple Music library are not made of local files, as all music are stored in the cloud at Apple Music.

I just added Apple Music as a service in the Sonos S2 app, as I have a family-account at Apple Music.

All my favorite artists and albums are being shown in the Sonos S2 app, but only the albums are shown with graphics when I click on a artist name (with no picture).

Does that make my issue more easy to understand?

If I do a search after a known artist in the Sonos S2 app it shows the artist with graphics belonging to Apple Music service and also shows the artist belonging to my favorites in Apple Music but WITHOUT graphics.

I do not have any local music file library.

Ken_Griffiths

Thanks for helping me :-)

I might not have explained my issue clearly enough.

My own Apple Music library are not made of local files, as all music are stored in the cloud at Apple Music.

I just added Apple Music as a service in the Sonos S2 app, as I have a family-account at Apple Music.

All my favorite artists and albums are being shown in the Sonos S2 app, but only the albums are shown with graphics when I click on a artist name (with no picture).

Does that make my issue more easy to understand?

I see the same thing and not sure if this is ‘by design’ as displaying an image of an Artist would likely need a central database of artists photographs as their photo may not necessarily appear on an album cover - my thoughts are sonos (or Apple) have decided it’s easier/quicker to display a default icon instead - it would explain why album covers work, but artists photos don’t.

controlav

Lead Maestro

Oh, so if you are talking about the Apple Music service then icons (or the lack of them) is entirely up to Apple to deliver (or not).

They still need to associate an image with an artist, somehow, and perhaps their lawyers decided that getting the rights for those was too much effort/cost.

Author of the leading independent Sonos apps for Android, MacOS, iOS, Windows and Xbox.

F

FandreassenAuthor

Contributor I

Ahhh, so the conclusion are that the Apple Music service DO have the images of the artists when using the Music app by Apple but is not allowed to share the images with Sonos Apple Music service because of rights issues.

controlav

Lead Maestro

Ahhh, so the conclusion are that the Apple Music service DO have the images of the artists when using the Music app by Apple but is not allowed to share the images with Sonos Apple Music service because of rights issues.

Maybe. Or maybe the developers were lazy when they implemented the Apple SMAPI service. Or maybe some Program Manager forgot to include it in the spec. Software development is an art, not a science.

Author of the leading independent Sonos apps for Android, MacOS, iOS, Windows and Xbox.

Ken_GriffithsAnswer

Ahhh, so the conclusion are that the Apple Music service DO have the images of the artists when using the Music app by Apple but is not allowed to share the images with Sonos Apple Music service because of rights issues.

Sonos apparently publish an API for third parties to use/access and add their music services to - so the music service added by Apple is mostly in their realm and presumably their developers are responsible for the interface within the boundaries of what Sonos tools were made available to them.

I currently use the Apple, YouTube, Spotify and Amazon music services and have uploaded some of my own tracks to their respective cloud service. This is what I see in the Sonos App:

In Apple Music, I see a default icon for each Artist
in Amazon Music, I see what I believe is a randomly chosen Album cover for each Artist
In YouTube Music, I see what I believe is a randomly chosen Album cover for each Artist
in Spotify, I don’t see ‘Artists’ in my Library … I just see Playlists, Songs & Albums?

So the service providers do clearly have interfaces that vary and so in this case it is ‘perhaps’ down to Apple to provide an image (of some sort) for each Artist listed.

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