So, I just finished downloading 18k tracks from iTunes as they were all matched with the iTunes store. After all is said and done, I have to wonder why would Apple give out their versions of the file (I'm assume they are superior to the tracks I had)? Sure it's nice to have all my 96-192k files replaced with their 256k versions (in which I can hear the difference between 128k and 256k), but I have to wonder what's in it for Apple?
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iTunes Match - why would Apple give you their files?
- Thread starter Razeus
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It is a great service that will make you buy an iPhone!
Also, they don't have to have hard drives full of your 92kbps version and my 97kbps version.
Also, they don't have to have hard drives full of your 92kbps version and my 97kbps version.
Most of the $25 goes to the record companies. Music Match (and iCloud) are like crack samples. The REAL reason is Apple is looking to hook you in the Apple ecosystem and continue to buy Apple hardware in the future.
And it would have been a good plan. I was considering switching to an iPhone for the promise of easy anywhere access to all my music. Unfortunately match is horribly and terribly broken on iOS devices in it's current form. At least that's been my experience with my iPad.
Because:
a) You're paying them for cloud space
b) Music libraries are huge and take up a lot of said space
c) They probably have many of your songs already ripped and ready to go in the iTunes store, thus saving tons of their own disk space.
Once you match and download your songs you may discontinue the service and keep them. And at any time you may use Google's free music service which is compatible with iDevices. So my personal opinion is that iTunes Match isn't a big plus compared to the rest of Apple's ecosystem.
Did you manually click on each file to download it? The only way I've found to download matched music is to delete the original file, then click the cloud icon to download. Takes about 5 clicks per song.
Curious if you used some shortcut to the above.
You can just delete the entire album, then re-download the entire album. About two clicks per album (plus a couple Enters)
Why not select all the tracks you want to replace, delete, select them all again, right click, and choose download from the contextual menu? That's what I did. Why do it track by track or album by album? Seems like a lot of extra work.
Exactly. And to make it even easier you can make a smart playlist for Matched and bitrate under 256. Just delete all the files in that playlist with one click and then download them all.
I disagree. The files you download from Apple are DRM free. Therefore it doesn't tie you into the ecosystem at all...
The paranoid conspiracy part of me almost makes me believe that this is not accidental.
I've had more than a handful of albums where only one song is not matched - completely random, from what I can tell.I actually beieve that they do want to keep you in the ecosystem. Not on the OS side since they do support Windows users, but on the mobile side. No Android version, for example, means that you'd need an iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad to make the best use of the mobile capabilities of iTunes Match.
As for the OP's original question, that one I can't answer. Why didn't they just do what Amazon and Google are doing, which is just allowing files to be uploaded as is? Or match with a better version, but NOT allow it to be downloaded? Maybe they felt that there are a significant number of people with older 128kps files of the CD rips, their legit eMusic files or that "questionable" stuff and that the Match / download offering would snatch a large number of these people from Amazon and Google.
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True but they're in AAC and live in iTunes and support iOS but not Android, which is more friendly to Apple hardware.
It's a hook and not a vault. Hooks do a good job of keeping the vast majority in place.
I see your point, but cubfan06's point was that, in essence, the downloaded Match files are DRM-free AAC's and can be used on any device / OS that supports the AAC format. But this assumes that the user downloads the songs and doesn't use iCloud itself, of course - if you want to use iCloud on a portable device, only Apple devices are supported.
AAC's themselves are supported on many non-Apple devices and software - Amazon Cloud Services, Cowon devices, even MS's Zune support the format. I actually fought against the format for a very long time as MP3's were more ubiquitous, but I've come to the point where AAC support is such that it's probably worth using, at least for me.
It's a hook and not a vault. Hooks do a good job of keeping the vast majority in place.
Exactly! You nailed it.