The Apple Music bugs are piling up and it's infuriating

Apple Music is almost five months old. And the streaming service still riddled with bugs.

I have a Spotify Premium subscription — and much prefer it to Apple's offering, for many reasons — but I keep returning to Apple Music. There are a few Apple Music exclusives I can't get anywhere else, and I like to be able to control music from the Apple Watch.

But lately, the negatives of Apple Music have largely outweighed the positives. And personally, I've had it.

In recent weeks, I've noticed individual songs — two or three at a time — disappearing from my offline music cache on my iPhone. And it's totally random! I haven't been manually syncing anything across computers, but handfuls of songs are disappearing at a time, and there's no rhyme or reason for any of it.

The worst part is, it's not easy to get Apple Music songs that have disappeared back onto your iPhone. In fact, I still haven't been able to figure it out — my missing songs remain missing.

And recently, things have gotten worse.

Nothing syncs to my iPhone anymore. My desktop computers at work and home can sync without a problem. But of course, the device where I actually use Apple Music on the most won't work with the service.

It's frustrating for many reasons. Apple Music, like Spotify, is intended to help people constantly discover new music to keep things fresh. But that's impossible if you can't sync anything to all your devices. Apple did not return a request for comment.

Just look at this video. iCloud Music Library, the service that syncs all your music across your devices, is enabled on my desktop computers, but it toggles itself off in the iPhone's settings every time you leave the app.

Earlier this week, there was no way to toggle this feature on. What gives?

I'm not alone in my frustrations. Jim Dalrymple, editor of The Loop and someone who is generally really positive about all things Apple, wrote about similar frustrations he had with Apple Music a few months ago. He even called Apple Music a "nightmare." Apple has fixed some of those bugs, but in my experience, the service is still buggy enough to turn me off.

There are so many Apple Music bugs that have gone unanswered for months: syncing across devices, and even random interruptions during playback, are issues we've seen since the launch of Apple Music that have yet to be fixed. And the experience makes me want to pull my hair out.

Burma Votes in Historic Elections

In the shadow of a pagoda and a mosque, not long after dawn had broken in downtown Rangoon, a line of citizens shuffled forward to cast their votes in Burma’s most consequential election in a generation. Some in Burma’s commercial capital dressed in their best sarongs, others in embroidered veils and Muslim prayer caps. Still others chose the uniform of the tropics worldwide: shorts and t-shirts inscribed with a collection of random English words. War War Nandar Min, 20, chose a t-shirt speckled with red hearts. “I’m not supposed to say who I voted for,” she said. But she quickly pointed to the red on her shirt. “Red is my favorite color.”

Red is also the color of opposition in Burma, which is officially now known as Myanmar. The hue belongs to the National League for Democracy (NLD), the party of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. During the campaign period in Rangoon, NLD red flags, adorned with a fighting peacock and star, were draped from decrepit balconies and decorated sides of cars. In 1990, the NLD won a landslide victory in nationwide polls but the military regime ignored the result. Suu Kyi spent most of two decades under house arrest, only emerging in late 2010, shortly after a rigged election boycotted by the NLD installed the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), a military proxy, in power.

It is easy to list the ways in which the Nov. 8 elections are flawed. The generals who governed Burma for nearly half a century, ruining a land graced with natural bounty, stage-managed a transition to what they called “discipline-flourishing democracy.” Even if the NLD scores another landslide today, the 2008 constitution precludes Suu Kyi from the presidency and reserves one-quarter of parliament for the military.

While many political prisoners have been released, others have been thrown back in jail. A much-expected investment boom has failed to materialize, and cronies have snapped up the country’s choicest contracts. Corruption gnaws at society. Ethnic minorities, who make up at least one-third of Burma’s complex cultural patchwork, complain of no end to the discrimination that led some to pick up arms decades ago. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya, a Muslim ethnicity living in Burma’s far west, have been disenfranchised and sequestered in camps; the vote was also canceled in eastern ethnic zones where the Burmese army has attacked ethnic militias, despite a much-vaunted ceasefire. A virulent nationalist movement that claims Buddhist credentials is trying to rend Burma’s multicultural fabric.

And while Rangoon has bustled with the trappings of democratic process — raucous campaign rallies, international election observers, first-time voters showing off their ink-stained pinkies — the NLD and other opposition parties complained of voter-list irregularities and suspicious numbers of advanced voters. On Saturday evening in Rangoon’s Kyauktada township, a polling station in a Buddhist hall welcomed advance voters. “Everything is going just fine,” said Kyaw Kyaw Lwin, a township electoral commission official. Yet no one had bothered to secure the five ballot boxes with yellow plastic locks, per regulation.

But all these complaints, all these caveats, cannot take away from voters cherishing their belated chance to choose. For hours on Sunday morning, Burmese citizens queued at polling stations, some amid rice paddies, others on streets stained with splashes of betel nut. “I have seen enough violence in my country,” said Su Yin Mon Zin, who came back to Burma last year after eight years studying in Australia. “I don’t want that anymore.”

Our minds are made for adaptation, constantly acclimatizing to new realities. Today, on the streets of Rangoon, known officially as Yangon, people, just like anywhere in the world, walk with their heads bowed over cellphones. In the cities, everyone seems to be on Facebook. Signboards advertise icons of global commerce: Coca-Cola, Land Rover and fancy Toto toilets. Newsstands sell stacks of papers, most bearing the smiling visage of Suu Kyi.

Yet just five years ago, to flaunt of a picture of Mother Suu, as she has been affectionately dubbed, could garner a jail sentence. SIM cards cost thousands of dollars, far more than what an average Burmese city-dweller made in a year. International sanctions — placed on the regime for its record of forced labor, rape and unfair imprisonment, among other crimes — left Burma to molder. Rangoon’s fleet of taxis included geriatric specimens so rusted that you could watch the potholed roads through the floor.

Suu Kyi bristles when people point out all those new cars snarling Rangoon traffic, what she calls “a veneer of change.” Poverty, she notes, is still rife, and an expanding middle class only makes the poor feel poorer. “I often ask foreign delegations who go on about the amazing reforms that are taking place, so I have asked them, ‘what do you think exactly has changed?’” says Suu Kyi. “I was told by one delegation that they see more Toyota cars on the streets. I said ‘that may be very well for the Toyota company but that doesn’t mean our country is doing better.’”

But the millions of Burmese taking part in today’s polls do believe that their voices matter, that their participation in a fundamental social contract counts. There are many questions of concern for the coming days. Will the vote be free and fair enough to past international muster? If the NLD prevails, will it be allowed to form a government — and even if it can form a government what can the party accomplish in a system so stacked in the military’s favor? How will a party so dependent on a single 70-year-old icon manage in an expanded role? Will the army really stay in the barracks? After all, in 2007, just meters from the polling station near the Sule pagoda and Bengali Sunni Jameh mosque, soldiers sprayed bullets on monks, students and ordinary Burmese who had gathered in
peaceful protest. Dozens are believed to have died in the junta’s massacre. That was only eight years ago.

On Sunday morning, a middle-aged female civil servant walked out of the Sule polling station and flashed her purpled little finger. She said that she had been forced a few days before to attend a rally for the ruling USDP, as were many of her fellow government-workers. “But, you know, I voted for the NLD,” she said. “All my friends will vote for the NLD, too.”

Still, an element of fear — a conditioning from decades of government repression and brutality — lingered. It was safer, the civil servant said, not to give her name, just in case something goes very wrong after the vote. Then she waggled her little finger and headed home to celebrate Burma’s historic elections. “My vote,” she said, as she walked away, “is my treasure.”

U.S. official: '99.9% certain' Russian plane was felled by bomb

Several senior administration officials in the intelligence, military and national security community told CNN the United States is almost positive a Russian passenger jet was brought down by a bomb.

How convinced are they?

One official said "it's 99.9% certain." 

Another official told CNN on Saturday: "We believe it was likely brought down by a bomb." 

Russia-bound Metrojet Flight 9268 crashed in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula last weekend, killing all 224 people aboard.

The evidence that it might have been a bomb centers to a large extent on British and U.S. intercepts of chatter after the crash from the ISIS affiliate in Sinai to ISIS operatives in Syria around Raqqa. 

U.S. and British intelligence have been analyzing the specific language in the chatter to determine to what extent the operatives were talking about the type of bomb and detonator used, and whether that language was a true representation of what happened, one official told CNN. 

Several officials said it's the specificity of the chatter that has directly contributed to the U.S. and British view that a bomb likely was used.

Egypt considering all possibilities 

Egyptian officials gave the impression Saturday they are not ready to say there was a bombing. 

A noise was heard in the final second of the cockpit voice recording on Metrojet Flight 9268 as it ascended on autopilot before apparently breaking up about 23 minutes after takeoff, the head of Egypt's investigation said Saturday.

No conclusion as to what brought down the flight has been reached, Ayman al-Muqaddam told reporters.

"All the scenarios are out on the table," he said. "We don't know what happened exactly."

In-flight breakup

European investigators who analyzed the two flight recorders are saying the crash is not an accident, CNN affiliate France 2 reported Friday.

Muqaddam said Egyptian authorities have not been provided any information or evidence tied to reports suggesting that a bomb took down the flight. He urged the sources of the reports to pass along related evidence to Egyptian investigators.

Muqaddam did not describe the noise investigators picked up from the cockpit voice recorder when the flight disintegrated midair while traveling at 281 knots (323 mph) at about 30,000 feet and climbing. 

"A spectral analysis will be carried out by specialized labs in order to identify the nature of this noise," he said.

The investigation includes experts from Egypt, Russia, France, Germany and Ireland. In recent days the probe has been hampered by bad weather, Muqaddam said. 

Debris from the plane was scattered over an area more than 13 kilometers long, suggesting an in-flight breakup, according to Muqaddam. 

"Maybe it's a lithium battery, maybe it's an explosion, maybe it's ... a mechanical issue," he said the possible cause of the crash. 

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said the international community had not heeded Egypt's calls to deal seriously with terrorism. 

Other countries "did not show a level of cooperation and direct targeting of these organizations that we hoped for," Shoukry said. "I can say these calls were not heeded by many of the parties who are now working to protect the interests of their citizens."

While couched as a complaint, the statement appeared to mark a significant reversal for Egypt, where officials, perhaps concerned about the fate of the tourist industry, had spent a week rejecting the idea that the Russian plane fell victim to terrorism.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told CNN's Barbara Starr that officials were taking "precautionary interim steps" to increase security on international flights into the United States during the investigation of the Egypt air disaster. 

"ISIL is out there now active in a lot of different areas and, while this investigation is pending and because we have this group claiming responsibility, we believe it's significant to do these things on an interim basis," he said, referring to claims of responsibility by the Sinai branch of the terror group also known as ISIS.

Johnson said authorities are evaluating whether additional measures were necessary. DHS chief seeks to reassure American fliers after downing of Russian plane

What we know, don't know

Egypt's announcement

Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended Russian air traffic with Egypt on Friday until the cause of the crash is determined, the Kremlin said.

The United States and Britain shared their intelligence with Russia before Putin decided to suspend flights, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN's Matthew Chance.

Putin spoke with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi about the security situation in Egypt. 

"The two leaders agreed to strengthen cooperation between the relevant security authorities in the two countries," el-Sisi's office said.

Bergen: Why ISIS is on a roll

Russia's resistance

Russia had resisted the theory that a bomb brought down the airliner, but with Friday's indefinite suspension of flights it seemed to be moving toward acceptance of the speculation.

The jet, carrying mostly Russian families returning from Red Sea vacations, was 23 minutes into its flight last Saturday from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg when it disappeared from radar over the Sinai Peninsula.

A U.S. satellite detected a heat flash over Sinai. The plane broke apart and fell 30,000 feet. All aboard died.

Russia's about-face buttressed a theory about the cause of the crash. As investigators pick through the rubble of the Russian airliner, and as Western officials sift through their own intelligence reports, some suspect Flight 9268 was brought down by a bomb planted in its hold.

And some believe think the bomb may have been smuggled on board in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, from which the flight departed.

Since Friday, 1,200 Russian citizens have been evacuated from Egypt on 6 planes, Russian state broadcaster Russia 24 reported, quoting Oleg Safonov, the chief of Russia's Federal Agency for Tourism Oleg Safonov. The channel reported that the Egyptian military checked the passengers before they boarded the planes.

About 80,000 Russian tourists remain in Egypt, with 79,000 of them in Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh, he said. Hurghada, like Sharm el-Sheikh, is a Red Sea tourist city.

And UK officials were "urgently" working with Egyptian authorities on "permanent measures that will allow British tourists to come back to Sharm el-Sheikh as soon as possible," the British Embassy in Cairo said Saturday. The embassy statement said "Britain is not evacuating its tourists early from their holidays."

Opinion: What's at stake for Putin in investigation

Bomb theory

The bombing theory emerged Wednesday, when Britain suspended flights from Sharm el-Sheikh to the United Kingdom because of security fears.

It gained currency when it was expressed publicly by British Prime Minister David Cameron and U.S. President Barack Obama, though neither called it a certainly. 

Talks between the United States, Egypt and Russia could result in the FBI providing some experts, particularly bomb technicians, to assist in the investigation, according to a U.S. official.

Cameron said it was "more likely than not" that the cause of the crash was an onboard bomb. Obama said it was "certainly possible."

If plane was bombed, where might suspicion fall?

Does downing of plane mark ISIS' emergence as global threat?

EU turns to African leaders to stem migrant crisis

EU leaders will push their wary African counterparts to help tackle the migration crisis at a summit in Malta this week, offering them billions of euros in aid in exchange for cooperation.

Having recently pressed Turkey to stem the flow of Syrian refugees, Europe is turning its attention to the other main source of an unprecedented number of people fleeing across the Mediterranean.

The gathering of more than 50 leaders from both continents on Tuesday and Wednesday will see an overwhelmed Europe call on Africa to take back more people classed as economic migrants and not refugees from war.

In return, Europe will offer development funds in a fresh thrust by the wealthy EU to tackle the wars and poverty in Africa that are the root cause of nearly a quarter of the nearly 800,00 migrant arrivals in Europe this year.

"It's a new impetus we want to give," a European diplomat told AFP. The summit was first called months ago when the Mediterranean route from a lawless Libya was still the main springboard for migrants travelling to the EU in battered fishing boats and flimsy dinghies.

Since then the journey from Turkey over the hazardous Aegean Sea to the Greek islands, and then up through the Western Balkans, has become the principal route, but the EU wants to keep a focus on Africa.

Eritreans make up the bulk of nearly 140,000 migrants who arrived in Italy from Africa by sea in 2015, along with 18,000 Nigerians and 8,000 Sudanese, according to International Organization for Migration figures.

"Despite the current focus on Syria, the Valletta summit is very important for European capitals, because it is aimed at tackling a long-term problem," the diplomat said.

- 'Trust fund' for Africa -

He acknowledged the concerns of senior African officials like Khadim Diop, Senegal's minister for African integration. 

"We cannot tolerate double standards," Diop said, adding Europe admits people from the Middle East and central Asia as refugees while turning away Africans as economic migrants.

Invited to the meeting are leaders from more than 30 African countries, including Libya as well as Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan, the sources of many people fleeing conflict and repression.

Also due to attend are the leaders of Chad, Cameroon, Niger, and Nigeria in the drought-stricken Lake Chad basin, where 2.5 million people have been displaced by abject poverty and the Boko Haram Islamist militant movement.

The 28 EU leaders will hold a second, separate summit on their own immediately after the EU-Africa meeting on Wednesday.

The African nations will be asked to approve an action plan aimed at tackling the root causes of mass migration, according to a draft obtained by AFP.

It calls for stepping up diplomatic efforts to ease or resolve conflicts, such as those in Libya and the regions of Sahel, Lake Chad and the Horn of Africa.

The plan also aims to boost economic and agricultural development.

The European Commission is also expected to announce a 1.8-billion-euro ($2.0-billion) emergency trust fund for Africa to underpin the plan, but member states have been slow to match that amount.

"How can we engage in a serious and responsible dialogue with our African cousins if we ourselves are unable to fulfil the promises we have made them," Commission President Jean-Claude Junker said last month.

The plan involves Europe sending many economic migrants back home while opening legal channels for a limited number of others to enter the EU, where joblessness has fuelled a growing popular backlash against migrants.

African countries are reluctant to take back nationals to avoid losing billions of euros in remittances, which exceed the value of development aid, a European diplomat said. 

The leaders are also asked to crack down on ruthless migrant smugglers with the help of international police agency Interpol.

Media tycoon & former Russian press minister Lesin dies from heart attack at 57

Mikhail Lesin, a prominent Russian political figure and mass media expert credited with inspiring the creation of Russia Today (now RT), has died in Washington, DC after a heart attack.

Lesin, a former press minister and ex-head of Gazprom-Media, Russia’s largest media holding, died at the age of 57 on Wednesday, according to family members. “Mikhail Lesin died from a heart stroke,” a family member told RIA Novosti.

Meanwhile, TASS has reported that Lesin was found dead in his hotel room in Washington, DC, citing the Russian Embassy in the US. Police found no signs of foul play, but a formal investigation has been launched. It has been reported that Lesin had been suffering from a prolonged unidentified illness.

Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his sincerest condolences to Lesin’s family early on Saturday.

“The president has a high appreciation for Mikhail Lesin’s massive contribution to the creation of modern Russian mass media,” the Kremlin’s press service said.

Lesin was born in Moscow on July 11, 1958. A graduate of Moscow State University with a degree in Civil Engineering, he served as Minister of Press and Mass Media from 1999 to 2004. He was also a presidential media adviser from 2004 to 2009.

Lesin became chief executive officer at Garprom-Media in 2013 and remained in the position until early 2015.

Lesin believed in making Russian views heard at the international level. “It’s been a long time since I was scared by the word propaganda,” Lesin said back in 2007. “We need to promote Russia internationally. Otherwise, we’d just look like roaring bears on the prowl.”

2015 Global Competitiveness Top 10 Brands from China Announced by IDG

The awarding ceremony of the internationally authoritative competition 2015 Global Competitiveness Brands Top 10 from China was held in San Francesco on November 6, 2015. Leading companies well known for their global competitiveness and sustainable growth received trophies on the ceremony. They are SinoPec, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank, China Life Insurance, China Mobile, Huawei, China Electronics Corporation, ZTE, Tencent and Alibaba. The three single prizes -- the Most Sustainably Competitive Brand, the Most Popular Brand with Core Competence, and the Brand with the Most Innovative Competence -- respectively went to SinoPec, Great Wall Technology and China Life Insurance, showcasing the competitiveness of Chinese companies.

A new structure of the world coupled with the rise of disruptive technologies has substantially changed the global landscape of branding power, unanimously agreed the judge panel of the 2015 competition. While China in this process has become a must-win market for the titanic multinational companies, the global influence and competitiveness of Chinese brands have also been largely bolstered. In the context that new information technologies like the mobile Internet and cloud computing are driving companies around the world to evolve to a new business model characterized by "market + the Internet + ecosystem," Senior Chinese Leadership put forward the idea "Internet Plus" at the National People's Congress in March 2015. This gave the booming Chinese brands a new impetus in exploiting the potentials of technology breakthroughs, product innovation, and communication and marketing. The winners of the 2015 Global Competitiveness Brands Top 10 from Chinaare those who kept sharpening the global competitive edge of their brands through developing new strategic thinking and offering excellent products, technology and services. They successfully captured business opportunities by upgrading the brand value and prepared themselves for future growth as both the pioneers and the locomotives in the "Internet Plus" age. 

Global Competitiveness Brands Top 10 from China, organized by IDG, has been successfully held for six years. Continuingly unfolding China's branding power to the rest of the world, this year's competition under the theme "Shaping the New Landscape of Internet Plus Brand" incorporates the new growth potentials enabled by future-oriented marketing competency of a brand as an important assessment criterion, to look into the new growth points of brands in the age of "Internet Plus."

In parallel with the awarding ceremony, the organizer held an Executive Leadership Training at University of California, Berkeley. The training helped the Chinese companies to develop a new strategic mindset in the Internet Plus Age, enhanced the overall capabilities of Chinese brands on their road to globalization in terms of sustainable competitiveness and sustaining development and strengthening global competitiveness with robust development.

In the Internet Plus Age, as companies around the world are embracing another wave of high-speed growth driven by e-commerce, industrial Internet and e-finance, Chinese brands are set for a new voyage. For instance, featured high safety performance, ZTE AXONwas a state gift Chairman Xi Jinping presented to UK Government. Global Competitiveness Brands Top 10 from Chinademonstrates the strength of Chinese brands, helps Chinese enterprises to make innovative breakthroughs in the Internet Plus Age to harness the potentials of future marketing. Ultimately the branding strengths will gear up the Chinese firms to succeed in the global market and realize the goal of sustainable development.

Apple's Respect For Music Challenged

Apple’s latest advert for Apple Music ran during the Country Music Association’s Awards ceremony. Fronted by singer-songwriter Kenny Chesney, he talked about the power of his music, and the effort that he puts in for his fans. He asked for a place where music has human element because “music is the last real thing we got”.

And in all of this talk of the special place that music has, of how music and creatives need be treasured, the final message of the advert screams that you can have ‘three months free’.

For all of the strong numbers posted by Apple, its adventures in the streaming music subscription space has been underwhelming. Given Apple’s size, Cupertino was always going to be able to capture a significant share of the market, but it still believed that it had to push hard to promote the service.

Apple Music was rolled into an iOS update, forcing the client onto every iOS handset. It overloaded the already clunky interface that makes up the music playing app on iPhone and iPad. It saw the Windows and OSX versions of iTunes forced to balance yet another bolt-on feature on top of the already sprawling code. If you use any Apple products, there was no way you would miss Apple pushing the service to you. Which was all the more painful because of the bugs in Apple Music that wrecked countless iTunes libraries around the world.

As Apple announced details of the service, it assumed that artists would be happy to see their music downloaded and consumed for three months without any recompense, presumably because of the amazing exposure that Apple Music would offer them. It is only now, some five months after the launch of the service, that many users will be seeing the impact of the first month’s subscription on their credit card bills. 

The free three months coupled with the typically long billing cycles in the credit card industry has kept the financial impact of Apple Music away from the consumers until now.

You could say this is to allow consumers to get a good feel for the service and the value for money it offers, but I’m more inclined to think that it gives users more time to download vast collections of music, build up playlists of content only available on subscription, and generally work to get lock-in through the emotive connections that music makes (and once that is sorted, do it all over again on Android).

 I’m not sure how a global radio station adds the human touch to everyone’s music collection. I’m not sure I can balance this altruistic view of music and the creative process with a reliance on star power to advertise the service, an all-you-can-listen to subscription model that was promoted by force to every Apple user, and the idea that every performer would be happy to have their work downloaded for free over the three-month trial period in exchange for the old chestnut of ‘exposure’. Chesney talks about a place that offers “real reverence and respect” for music.