Apple Music wish list: iTunes needs a "mismatch and force upload" button

I've been really lucky when it comes to my library working well with iTunes Match and Apple Music, but other users haven't been so lucky. One of the biggest complaints I've heard since Match's launch—and echoed with more force after Apple Music debuted—is the "mismatch" problem: Essentially, you have one song in your library, and when Apple Music or iTunes Match analyzes it, the services accidentally match it with a different song in their collection.

Learning curves

As bugs go, this is actually not very surprising: Apple's matching algorithms are smart, but they're going to make mistakes—all services of this type do. Live tracks seem to continually give Apple's music matching feature trouble, as do tracks that are differently mastered (the Beatles Mono set comes to mind; iTunes Match insists on matching it with the iTunes Store's stereo copies).

Here's the problem: Apple currently offers users no way to easily report this issue. The best you can really do as a non-developer is to go the Apple Service and Support page and let the company know, but that's cumbersome and involved. Developers and beta-testers have access to Apple's Bug Report radar system, but even that requires submission of several written steps and device information.

Apple does suggest resetting your iCloud Music Library{.nofollow} as one way to fix temporarily mismatched tracks, but it's not addressing the root of the problem—tracks the algorithm simply fails to match properly.

Solution: Take a page from Maps

When Apple was premiering Maps, the company knew its map tiles were inevitably going to have mistakes, bad directions, and incorrect places data. As a result, the company built a "Report an Issue" button right into the main section of the Maps app. If users find something that's incorrect, they have only to tap the button at the bottom of a place-of-interest pop-up, or via the information button on the main Maps screen itself.

There are still a few questions to answer, yes, but it's an easy way for users who care about this stuff to give Apple information, in-app, and hopefully get their problem fixed.

Apple has this system in place for the Maps app. Why couldn't the company bring it over to the Music app and iTunes on the Mac?

In a perfect world...

I add a new live version of the Mountain Goats's "Cotton" to my Mac's iTunes library. iCloud sees this, and scans the track, accidentally matching it to the studio version from We Shall All Be Healed.

I see the error, right-click on the song, and select "Report an issue with Matching". iTunes submits the report, then a pop-up asks me if I'd like to replace the match error by forcing iCloud to manually upload the track, rather than match it.

I say yes, the live track uploads, and I go on with my day.

Doesn't that sound a whole lot nicer and easier than our current situation, Apple?

If you agree with me, or you're an Apple engineer who can make this magic happen: