Despite Apple's Denial, iTunes Match is Streaming

bengtc said:

So will you have to manually delete the song after you are done listening to it???

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No. Not if you are just "Streaming" the song.

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bushido said:

still see no point in the whole thing besides making legal files out of your pirated tunes. i dont think i can be bothered downloading a song/whole album while i'm outside, i might as well just put it on while i'm still at home. people sure can't be that lazy? the fact that u can now even sync wireless makes it even less exciting imo

i only find it useful for when i want to hear a single random song i want to hear desperately thats not on my iPhone/iPad ... oh wait i cant bc i dont own it and therefore cant listen to it anyway ...

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How about when you have your phone fillled already with apps, music, and movies, plus have tons of music left on itunes that couldn't fit on your phone. This way you can listen to those songs without sacraficing adding more songs to your phone

basesloaded190 said:

No. Not if you are just "Streaming" the song.

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How about when you have your phone fillled already with apps, music, and movies, plus have tons of music left on itunes that couldn't fit on your phone. This way you can listen to those songs without sacraficing adding more songs to your phone

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that's exactly my point, according to apple u just download the song again, so if your iPhone is already full u can't even "stream" "cloud" or whatever they call it . their whole music match in the cloud thing is basically just letting u play/redownload everything that u already have again from the iTunes store without having to pay for it again. they basically just replace the "buy" button on the iTunes app with a "cloud" button for redownloading for free on stuff u apparently "own" from whatever original source

is it just me or does anyone else think the video guy's demonstration skills suck?

In other words this works exactly how the Apple TV2 works and is also the reason why "streaming" movies and tv shows from the iTunes service on the Apple TV works so much better than traditional streaming services.

The files are actually downloaded to the built in flash storage. That way, you can skip all around the file, fast forward, rewind, leave it and come back within a reasonable time and it feels more like the file is stored on the device than just streaming... because it actually is.

bushido said:

that's exactly my point, according to apple u just download the song again, so if your iPhone is already full u can't even "stream" "cloud" or whatever they call it . their whole music match in the cloud thing is basically just letting u play/redownload everything that u already have again from the iTunes store without having to pay for it again. they basically just replace the "buy" button on the iTunes app with a "cloud" button for redownloading for free on stuff u apparently "own" from whatever original source

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Leave a measly 50 MB free on your iPhone. Now you can get all the music you want.

You seem to think accessing your whole library from anywhere is nothing notable. Well, that's what iTunes Match is, like it or lump it.

bushido said:

that's exactly my point, according to apple u just download the song again, so if your iPhone is already full u can't even "stream" "cloud" or whatever they call it . their whole music match in the cloud thing is basically just letting u play/redownload everything that u already have again from the iTunes store without having to pay for it again. they basically just replace the "buy" button on the iTunes app with a "cloud" button for redownloading for free on stuff u apparently "own" from whatever original source

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No, as long as you have space to fit ONE song on the iOS device then you can use this feature.

If you have NO songs on your iOS device because it is otherwise filled with movies, photos and apps then you can still have 25,000 songs in your Music app and see everything you have in the cloud... You can then play any song as long as you have the space for ONE song... You can make a playlist of 10,000 songs if you want because the data is stored in a temporary cache that will presumably be overwritten when you run out of space or that space is needed.

So you can have a few megabytes of space left on the iOS device, have NO songs actually stored locally and play a 25,000 song playlist without issue as long as you have an internet connection.

What it is actually good for is so you can put only your most listened to favorite songs on the iOS device but keep the obscure stuff on the cloud instead of wasting local hard drive space.

For me I have hundreds of albums that I only regularly listen to a few songs but still have all the tracks and don't want to give them up... So now I can store the favorites locally and keep the rest in the cloud so I can still see them in my library, stream them when I'm in the mood but not waste the space keeping them there permanently.

I like the implementation. It's not like its unique but given the situation and the need of the service, it seems to be well justified. The only issue is that sometimes I don't need to hear the complete song; I might just skip to the next one in b/w a particular song. This might take a toll on the limited bandwidth if I'm on 3G.

I haven't used this as of now, but can someone explain how one would be able to play the entire album or a playlist without 'downloading'?

Not streaming.

I checked my usage- Under music I had used 680mb- Did not sync any music to my ipad only "streame" so it does download the file.

itunes match is pretty sweet for my apple eco system (ipad, mbp)

It only read 700 of my 3011 tracks

This is EXACTLY the streaming/caching implementation I described in a post back in June. Apparently Apple read by post and tweaked their 'download only' implementation (kidding, don't flame me):

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1176906/

Basically what we have here is Apple redefining "streaming".

Perhaps this is part of/the beginning of that "new technology" Apple is working on ?

Go ahead. Give me them -1

arn said:

If that's the case, then Apple TV isn't streaming either, and Apple calls that streaming.

arn

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I don't have an Apple TV, so I'm not positive about how that works. I thought that on an Apple TV, rental videos start playing nearly immediately (after a short buffer builds up based on available bandwidth), while rentals on other iOS devices have to download/buffer the entire video before starting playing. So, that could actually be streaming on an Apple TV.

Again, the difference is minor and with smaller music files might almost be negligible to users.

True streaming: the file is broken in to lots of smaller pieces and starts downloading at the initial point requested by the user. If this happens to be the beginning of the song, then it would almost be identical to the progressive download streaming below. However, in this scenario, the user could skip near the end of the song before the whole thing has been downloaded. If the stream download has not reached the point the user wants to hear, this normally clears out the cache of the portion of the song that's been downloaded and basically starts the stream over from scratch at the new point. As far as I know, most streaming protocols don't store any portion before the requested start point and usually ditch their cache as soon as possible.

Progressive download "streaming": the entire file is downloaded from start to finish. Playback can begin as soon as the required buffer is filled. You cannot skip/scrub past the farthest point that the file has been downloaded = you have to wait for the file to finish downloading before skipping to the end of a song.

Apple is using progressive download "streaming" and storing the file in a cache. Based on the video, it doesn't appear that the cache holds onto the file for much longer than app has interest in it. In the end, this is just a semantics argument, and to the user, Apple's solution feels nearly exactly the same as true streaming. Still, the 2 solutions use different protocols on the back end and Apple's is not streaming.

You say streaming I say downloading...

This has been said already, but streaming and downloading are the same thing!

If you stream something, using whichever service, it ALWAYS gets downloaded to the device you're using. The only difference is that in traditional streaming services there is no cache file or if there is, it's probably not the whole file.

Because I don't have access to this iCloud beta, my guess is that when you tap a track that's not on your current device, it starts to download to the cache and play. If you let it play all the way to the end, I would imagine that the track will then show up in your device library. If you don't let it play to the end, then I guess they would assume that you changed your mind about adding it, so then it would not appear and the cache would be overwritten by the next song?

Could someone with access to the beta please test this out?

arn said:

If that's the case, then Apple TV isn't streaming either, and Apple calls that streaming.

arn

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Streaming is like a river(or a stream), you can jump into it at any point and float down, then get off and jump into another spot. Downloading is like jumping into a river(or stream) at the beginning of a long tunnel. You can't get out till you're at the end, and you must start at the beginning. Most of you won't get this analogy though. Don't worry about it.

bushido said:

still see no point in the whole thing besides making legal files out of your pirated tunes. i dont think i can be bothered downloading a song/whole album while i'm outside, i might as well just put it on while i'm still at home. people sure can't be that lazy? the fact that u can now even sync wireless makes it even less exciting imo. and dont start the whole "but it saves space" well it doesnt as u apparently have to download it anyway. such a weird idea

I only find it useful for when i want to hear a single random song i want to hear desperately thats not on my iPhone/iPad ... oh wait i cant bc i dont own it and therefore cant listen to it anyway ...

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It saves space on your 16 Gb Ipad...and on your 16 to 32 Gb iphone 4...

You don't need to store 25000 songs on it anymore...just on your computer and then it ups to the cloud.

im more than happy on Google Music Beta.

you can stream, or download the song onto your phone. you know, choices.

oh and its free (up to 20,000 songs)

i have about 8 Google music invites so if anyone is interested pm me.

it even transcodes your lossless files to 320kbps. (i'm sure premium users will have more options in the future)

DESNOS said:

Streaming is like a river(or a stream), you can jump into it at any point and float down, then get off and jump into another spot. Downloading is like jumping into a river(or stream) at the beginning of a long tunnel. You can't get out till you're at the end, and you must start at the beginning. Most of you won't get this analogy though. Don't worry about it.

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Great analogy DESNOS, but you're right, most won't get it. Whatever it's called, this is probably the best solution for mobile devices, so I'm happy. The key thing is whether you'll be able to queue multiple files like this. As in, will I be able to play an album or make a playlist of songs that aren't on my device?

longofest said:

Apple is probably denying it because true streaming probably requires some sort of additional royalties from the music industry.

I like Apple's solution from both a technical and user experience point of view.

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Yup. It's just like browsing where the back button doesn't have to reload the previous page because it's cached. It's superior in every way in terms of usability with minimal resource usage. It appeals to the most basic principles of computer memory management techniques.

aohus said:

im more than happy on Google Music Beta.

you can stream, or download the song onto your phone. you know, choices.

oh and its free (up to 20,000 songs)

i have about 8 Google music invites so if anyone is interested pm me.

it even transcodes your lossless files to 320kbps. (i'm sure premium users will have more options in the future)

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apple is giving you the same choice!! they just dont call the first one streamimg

but yes google music is free up to a point but seen as this is MR Im not sure anyone cares

The "no streaming" angle makes sense, Apple makes more money selling devices with more GB's of local storage.

aohus said:

you can stream, or download the song onto your phone. you know, choices.

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The same choices that are available with iCloud - did you even read the article?

topmounter said:

The "no streaming" angle makes sense...

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Again, I don't get "no streaming" when the very headline says iTunes Match is Streaming

I don't really care right now because I have unlimited data but this is going to tear through data plans in record time.

They should at least compress the streamed version in some way... I don't know but how many songs can you listen to before you completely max out your plan?

logandzwon said:

eek! I guess that is why they opened the beta!

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No kidding, not to mention I'm fairly sure the 30 songs it did match were iTunes purchases, so in reality it "scanned and matched" a total of 0 of my music collection that was obtained outside iTunes. If it finds all the artwork and stuff for my albums, it should be able to match to their playlist just as easily.