Amazon Cloud Player Upgraded with Scan and Match, 256 Kbps Audio

[mactmaster]

You're quite right. Tracks that are already in the iTunes database(?) do not count against your 25K. This includes tracks you bought in iTunes, at other music sites or ripped from a CD.

I'm not sure how likely it is that your average consumer will have more than 25,000 songs that iTunes doesn't know about.

And I'm not sure how they ever talked the record companies into it.

Matched tracks DO count towards your 25k limit. The only tracks which are excluded are those purchased from the iTunes Music store and whose iCloud status show purchased in your library.

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If you have higher quality files, does iTunes match or Cloud Player replace them with lower quality 256k files?

iTunes Match will not replace anything on your local library automatically. If you have add a lossless file locally you will keep that but the file send to iCloud will be 256k so if you play the same file from your iPad via iTunes Match it will be a 256k version.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Apple had to fight so much to bring this service because of the record labels. How can amazon achieve the same so freely?

The same way they have strong-armed the Publishing Markets. They push huge volumes.

 

[MacDav]

THIS is a very key difference. Many serious music lovers have more than 25,000 songs, but even the most avid music collectors usually don't have 250,000 songs. So this opens up Amazon's service to a whole segment of potential customers that aren't able to make use of the iTunes Match service.

Yeah, that huge, vast market of people who have more than 25,000 songs?
I'd be interested in knowing how many people have more than 25,000 songs.
I admit I'm older and may be out of touch on this. I think my library has about
1,000 songs. I rarely play most of them. Over 25,000 songs?

 

[Aragornii]

I had similar issues like you, what I finally ended up doing was moving my entire library out of itunes. Removed songs from itunes, updated itunes match, made sure 0 songs in the cloud. Moved everything back, updated itunes match. Now everything is perfect. I haven't had 1 issue, songs play quick, no lag in itunes match for the most part. Might be worth a shot.

I'm very curious about this since I have similar problems with iTunes lag on my iPhone. Do you lose all your playlists and ratings etc when you zero out your library?

 

[D.T.]

the fact that they offer true streaming

Even though I haven't heard it discussed recently, I recall talk that one of the iOS betas could stream and/or download to the device (vs. the stream-while-it-downloads model of 5.1).

You're quite right. Tracks that are already in the iTunes database(?) do not count against your 25K. This includes tracks you bought in iTunes, at other music sites or ripped from a CD.

I'm not sure how likely it is that your average consumer will have more than 25,000 songs that iTunes doesn't know about.

And I'm not sure how they ever talked the record companies into it.

Is that the case? I thought only iTunes purchased content didn't count towards the 25K total[?] Though it's been some time since I've looked at the iTunes Match "rules".

 

[faroZ06]

Hopefully we can STOP posting news about AMAZON on the FRONT page...



lame

Hopefully they can continue posting news about Amazon that is relevant to my Mac on the front page.

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THIS is a very key difference. Many serious music lovers have more than 25,000 songs, but even the most avid music collectors usually don't have 250,000 songs. So this opens up Amazon's service to a whole segment of potential customers that aren't able to make use of the iTunes Match service.

I'm guessing it's because Amazon is a real cloud corporation. Apple actually hosts some of their stuff on Amazon.

 

[Mr. Gates]

Awfully similar ... They even chose a computer that has the same color scheme as a MacBook Pro.

Image

That's either an HP DV900 ot an HP Envy from 2010-11 If you see it up close its nothing like a Macbook.

I see how a keyboard, a screen and a touchpad are confusingly similar to the Mac you just happen to have.....but only from a distance

 

[gnasher729]

> All matched songs - even music purchased from iTunes or ripped from CDs - are instantly made available in Cloud Player

Has anyone ever managed to get iTunes match to match anything other than songs purchased via iTunes? I tried it on a few beatles songs and there was no match. At that point, I figured it was a scam.

Strange how you could "try it on a few beatles songs". There is no trial version of iTunes Match. You either paid your money for a full year and it would have matched or tried to match your whole library, or you didn't pay and you didn't try it.

For the record: It has matched music for me that I recorded from LPs.

iTunes match will upload the songs it can't match, right? So is that really a scam?

There is no trial version of iTunes Match, so his whole story doesn't match up in the first place.

THIS is a very key difference. Many serious music lovers have more than 25,000 songs, but even the most avid music collectors usually don't have 250,000 songs. So this opens up Amazon's service to a whole segment of potential customers that aren't able to make use of the iTunes Match service.

True. On the other hand, it is a small segment (in percent of customers), and it is the most expensive segment.

 

[emvath]

hopefully apple can get itunes match to work better than it does now.

Amen. iTunes only matched about 15% of my 17,000 tracks.

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Yeah, that huge, vast market of people who have more than 25,000 songs?
I'd be interested in knowing how many people have more than 25,000 songs.
I admit I'm older and may be out of touch on this. I think my library has about
1,000 songs. I rarely play most of them. Over 25,000 songs?

Yes, you are older and out of touch. 1,000 songs? Expand your horizons man.

 

[D.T.]

For the record: It has matched music for me that I recorded from LPs.

*ouch*



I had pretty outstanding results too, and that's with a pretty wide range of music, a decent amount of indie/smaller/less know bands, some slightly obscure jazz, etc.

 

[gnasher729]

I have 5100 or so songs all ripped from CDs, Itunes matches less than 1,000 of the songs. Some of the artists Itunes was not able to match included Aerosmith, Korn, White Zombie, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and the Foo Fighters. Itunes match is pathetic and a waste of money.

That's interesting. I have 20,000 or so songs, collected over more than 30 years, and about 3,900 are not matched. So I'd say it was well worth the investment.

Amazon sell cheaper songs than iTunes. Just all you know, what ever songs on iTunes are on sale, Amazon always beat the prices.

For me, it has been quite mixed. Sometimes Apple is cheaper, sometimes Amazon. Quite often CDs are cheaper. Audiobooks are often significantly cheaper on iTunes. However, I usually manage to get iTunes gift cards with a 20% rebate, and then you'll find iTunes hard to beat.

But ML is free for those who bought a Mac after the WWDC keynote. But why should Apple make ML free to everyone who bought a Mac in the last 4 years? And, really, at $20 bucks it's pretty much free. What Microsoft Windows OS update was ever $20 for the general public?

Mountain Lion is £13.99 for me. And I paid £14.00 for the "free" upgrade to Puma (10.1) back in the day, for shipping and handling.

 

[slu]

You must be kidding. No body copies Apple. Apple did not invent 'Scan and Match' although they were the first ones to do it.

'Scan and Match' have been going on for years. Or simply Google it.

You Apple fanboys think Apple invented the world. Puff!!!

Now let me cite my rhetoric LG Prada B.S., The Story of the Almighty Xerox B.S., and more to come.

/idiotic_android_fanclub_member #666

Exactly. I had scan and match with Lala years ago. And the Apple bought them. Not sure how that makes Apple the developer of this for the world.

And I have been very happy with Google Music. Sure it took a while to upload all my songs, but now it automatically uploads anything new and I can stream to my iPhone/iPad using a 3rd Party app from the app store. Total cost: $1.99.

 

[koobcamuk]

Perhaps you would be so kind as to state the international restrictions?

i.e. Is this US only?

 

[nylonsteel]

re original aricle

cmon aapl fight the amzn machine

 

[genovelle]

Are you freaking kidding? Apple PURCHASED lala.com, which developed the "matching" software and featured it as one of the most important parts of their free streaming service, and then Apple shut down lala and charged everyone $25 a year for a less-effective iteration of the same functionality that pulled from Apple's databases instead of lala's.

They didn't "develop" anything. They bought out a competitor and re-packaged their product with a new logo on it and charged a fee.

You make a good point, they bought the right to use matching. Also keep in mind that the labels canceled all of the lala deals when they were acquired. They also integrated it into their products which cost money as well.

 

[Rocketman]

Let's see if I have this straight. Amazon is overtly copying Apple's music service features and benefits and promoting it with images of devices that themselves are blatant copies of Apple's appearance and operation. About right?

Rocketman

 

[Swift]

Apple had to fight so much to bring this service because of the record labels. How can amazon achieve the same so freely?

Because once they've fought down the objections, and Apple makes the deal with the labels, they're no longer virgins. They will probably make deals with the other players. Just like Amazon gladly stepped in and took the labels' offers on pricing that Jobs was resisting at one point. The labels gave Amazon DRM-free, but variable pricing they controlled.

 

[revelated]

On my account, Amazon is offering me 50GB of Cloud Storage with Cloud Player Premium for $25 per year, between this and the fact that they offer true streaming, even on the iPhone, this is a lot more appealing than iTunes Match.

Image

For some people's info...Amazon had an offering where if you bought a full album from them, they upgraded your Cloud storage for no additional charge. So I've got 50GB in mine that's hardly tapped as all of the music in there now is stuff I've bought from Amazon which I stream from Cloud Player...which of course takes none of the storage.

The reason I didn't bother uploading is waiting for this exact feature. I have a rather large offline library that only exists on a drive that is near failing (It's inside a VM for which I have a backup, but because it's an older drive, it hasn't been synchronized with any of my more recent music). They previously were part of my Zune library.

Now that this is out, I plan to set the iMac to task letting all those songs get scanned and matched. The only reason I hesitate is that it'll force me to start setting up playlists and filters, but oh well.

 

[scbrain]

Actually a downgrade

Amazon describes this as an "upgrade," but it's the opposite. I had an unlimited Cloud account and it's being unilaterally eliminated in favor of a yearly fee plan.

This might be better than iTunes match, or maybe not - but it's worse than what it replaces.

 

[revelated]

Amazon describes this as an "upgrade," but it's the opposite. I had an unlimited Cloud account and it's being unilaterally eliminated in favor of a yearly fee plan.

This might be better than iTunes match, or maybe not - but it's worse than what it replaces.

I think you misunderstood. The terms say that you have unlimited storage for music you buy from Amazon MP3. That hasn't changed from what I can tell.

The yearly fee plan covers imported and, from what I'm reading, matched songs that you didn't buy from Amazon above the 250 song limit.

Seems a fair deal. And in any case it's $25 frickin dollars a year. Instead of wasting that money on cigarettes killing you, invest it in something that makes sense and doesn't harm others.

 

[AustinIllini]

Let's see if I have this straight. Amazon is overtly copying Apple's music service features and benefits and promoting it with images of devices that themselves are blatant copies of Apple's appearance and operation. About right?

Rocketman

There are key differences. As of now you can stream from Amazon Cloud Player. And, most importantly, it's cross platform.

 

[Zimmy68]

I think you misunderstood. The terms say that you have unlimited storage for music you buy from Amazon MP3. That hasn't changed from what I can tell.

The yearly fee plan covers imported and, from what I'm reading, matched songs that you didn't buy from Amazon above the 250 song limit.

Seems a fair deal. And in any case it's $25 frickin dollars a year. Instead of wasting that money on cigarettes killing you, invest it in something that makes sense and doesn't harm others.

No, I think you misunderstood.

The guy had unlimited cloud storage meaning he could already upload all his songs without regard to whether they matched or not.

Now with the new system, Amazon has destroyed that model, split it and your Cloud drive storage is irrelevant to the Cloud player.

 

[jettredmont]

hopefully apple can get itunes match to work better than it does now.

Match has improved significantly since it first came out. I don't believe I have any mismatches which aren't due to poor-quality originals any more (and had LOTS of those when I first signed up).

It'd be nice if Amazon does as well or better (ie, better able to deal with a stutter or glitch in the file), but the on-the-face "advantage" for Amazon (that you can use it if you have more than 25,000 tracks to match) seems to be completely countered by the lack of integration (unless you use your Kindle Fire for music playback ...) which would be unbearable with >25k songs.

 

[ZeRoLiMiT]

itunes match is awesome for me! I just need streaming aswell and downloading both options and we are solid!

 

[Zimmy68]

Question:

Does the 30 days start from today or when I accept the trial?

It is unclear on Amazon's site.