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I only keep a small set of music on my phone of my otherwise large iTunes purchase history, and consequently if I picked a random album or song out of my music app there is a high likelihood that it has to be downloaded. In the past there have been settings that I could configure to only show downloaded music, but with the latest update I can't find anything that works. Any help? Here is the closest thing I could find:
However even with it off I still see this:
The easiest way I've found to do this is in the iPhone iTunes app click on the "my music" button, then it will say Artist in red and there's a red down pointing arrow next to it. If you click that, there is a drop down to turn on " Only Downloaded Music". Turn that button to green and the music that isn't downloaded will disappear. Hope this helps.
You're quite right; an "offline" mode would help make Apple Music just a little bit better! However -- as you found out yourself -- nothing like that is baked into iOS.
However, there is a workaround: create a smart playlist in iTunes instead. This method assumes that you have a computer with iTunes installed, that both your computer and iDevice are linked to Apple Music, and that you're connected to the internet on both devices.
To get started, open iTunes on your PC or Mac, click Playlists,
click the small plus sign in the lower left-hand side of the screen,
and click New smart playlist....
In the new window that pops up, click the drop-down menu that currently shows Artist,
select Location,
and simply use the default settings as shown.
From there, your iDevice should automatically sync with your new playlist. What's great is that the playlist only shows which songs you currently have downloaded to a particular device.
I hope this helps, and feel free to ask away if you don't understand something or run into any issues!
