Though I may seem like I'm against this service, I'm actually still going to get it. I have three iPhones sharing the same Apple ID for purchases (separate iCloud accounts, though). This will help all three devices maintain the same library of songs without having to sync from one computer. I only have just over 10,000 songs, but I would really like to see Apple offer a free scan before commitment... I had to wait 2+ weeks for Google to upload all of my music, that was a small beta. I can only imagine how Apple's servers will hold up in the first few weeks. If I have to upload 80% of my library, then I'll have to pass.
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Apple Activates iTunes Match Setting in iOS 5, Suggesting Imminent Launch
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Though I may seem like I'm against this service, I'm actually still going to get it. I have three iPhones sharing the same Apple ID for purchases (separate iCloud accounts, though). This will help all three devices maintain the same library of songs without having to sync from one computer. I only have just over 10,000 songs, but I would really like to see Apple offer a free scan before commitment... I had to wait 2+ weeks for Google to upload all of my music, that was a small beta. I can only imagine how Apple's servers will hold up in the first few weeks. If I have to upload 80% of my library, then I'll have to pass.
You have to download what you want beforehand. There is no streaming involved, so you don't need a sustained internet connection.
For my master iTunes:-
This is what upgrading your music with iTunes Match looks like:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaRNIUarqWw
(I'm located in Asia, and it's pretty damn quick to download, so have to believe these are actual iTunes Store versions).
For secondary iTunes, say on my laptop:-
It's an exact copy of my master collection, but downloads on the go. So, if I hit play on an album that isn't stored locally, it loads it there and then. You have it ready for next time.
iPad/iPhone:-
Exactly the same behavior. If the album or song isn't there, it stream downloads it and starts playing within a second or two.
This is what upgrading your music with iTunes Match looks like:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaRNIUarqWw
(I'm located in Asia, and it's pretty damn quick to download, so have to believe these are actual iTunes Store versions).
For secondary iTunes, say on my laptop:-
It's an exact copy of my master collection, but downloads on the go. So, if I hit play on an album that isn't stored locally, it loads it there and then. You have it ready for next time.
iPad/iPhone:-
Exactly the same behavior. If the album or song isn't there, it stream downloads it and starts playing within a second or two.
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In an earlier post, someone mentioned that the iTunes matching system worked similarly to the Store/Ping pane that comes out of the right-hand side of the screen.
Is this true? I have tracks that have correct metadata (well, correct from wherever CD rips get their metadata) that are in the iTunes store, but, for some reason, I get different versions mapped to that song. Other tracks in the album map correctly.
Is this true? I have tracks that have correct metadata (well, correct from wherever CD rips get their metadata) that are in the iTunes store, but, for some reason, I get different versions mapped to that song. Other tracks in the album map correctly.
Thanks for the info. So I guess that means if you have higher quality tracks, no way at all to get them onto the device? That will be a deal breaker for quite a few users.
So how do you select which songs/playlists actually have their files locally on the device? Do you have to go to the device and hit LOAD for each individual playlist?
And what about smart playlists? Do they update when the device is synced/connected? Can they update (and grab files) automatically? Or would you have to keep hitting LOAD over and over to have those files?
Up until now I've been able to just activate a sync and get all smart playlists updated. If it's going to require a bunch of manual nonsense that seems like a step backwards.
Thanks for the screenshots, although the error message in the second one makes it sound more like it is trying to sync the file from the mac but the file is missing on the mac (and needs to be downloaded from the cloud).
Sounds like there's no music when you first turn on Match, but once it's on you can go on the device and tell it to download specific songs, artists, or playlists (and probably everything, if you have the space and you want to). I assume you could just have it download a bunch of stuff before you leave home, then download more on the road (either 3G or wifi) if you need something else.
So you'd want to keep usage over 3G to a minimum. Personally I would probably only be using it for an individual song or album here and there. But you said you have good wifi at work, this would allow you to do big syncing there without using 3G data. Same if you're out of town but able to get to wifi hotspots here and there. Plus the service would give you access to your library on your work computer (including synced play counts and ratings).
Exactly, the heavy use is meant to be done over wifi. If you are traveling but won't have access to wifi then you're one of the people who wouldn't benefit as much. But lots of people are able to find decent wifi when traveling, that's who is going to get the most out of this.
Heavy syncing over 3G just isn't practical (but that's more a limitation of 3G than the service). Typical use will be light downloads over 3G and heavy syncing when the user gets to a wifi hotspot.
But it sounds like you can do exactly that. When you're home, you can swap out playlists on the device (either downloading or removing files from entire playlists at a time, or updating smart playlists which can swap out the contents of entire playlists if that's how they're set up). And add a few songs here and there on the road. I'm not convinced the method of swapping out playlists will be as handy as it is now, but it sounds like the functionality is there, if more convoluted.
Another followup to this - when the device syncs via the cloud, if it's hooked up to USB will it get the data from the cloud over the USB cable, or still wireless?
Always downloading a song from the internet seems totally crazy. Loading up a 16 or 32 gig iPod with music isn't fast, but doing it by loading 16 or 32 gigs from the internet could take days with a slower connection. Not to mention that's a vast amount of wasted bandwidth sending the same files over and over when they're already sitting on a local hard drive. Plus it seems like doing it that way would cost Apple much much more in terms of bandwidth, but at this point those costs may be next to nothing for them.
it sounds like the only way to get music on your iOS device is to download it from the cloud. however, once it is downloaded, it stays on your device until you specifically delete. then, if you want it back, you have to download it again. so, for the most part, it is a one-time download.
but yes, filling up a 32GB iPhone with music would take a long time over wifi initially...
all in all, it sounds like there are some advantages to using iTunes Match, and of course some disadvantages.
if you have a larger iTunes library than can fit on your iDevice, you now have a mobile option to manage your iDevice library. before you had to either sync a few select playlists or manually drag and drop songs while you are plugged into your computer. so with iTunes Match you can add/remove songs on the go.
if your iTunes library is small enough that all your songs fit on your iDevice then there really isn't any advantage to using iTunes Match, unless you prefer to only keep a subset on your iDevice for whatever reason, that you want to manage on the go.
if you acquired a bunch of your library from the Napster days (or whatever source) and they are of mixed/low mp3 quality, you get to upgrade the songs (at least the ones matched in the iTunes store) to 256kbs AAC.
the disadvantages are the initial long download times if you have a larger capacity iDevice, and, if you haven't fully downloaded everything yet, when using smart playlists or shuffling, songs that haven't downloaded will be skipped. it also appears as though you lose the Genius playlist options?
as for me, I have a 32GB iPhone and my music library doesn't all fit. but I do have a fairly efficient method of dealing with this with the traditional sync options available. and I only have one device to manage. I make use of the "only sync checked songs" method and simply uncheck the songs in my library that I don't want on my phone. it is a pretty easy way to manage my iPhone music, and since my library isn't significantly larger than 32GB (actually only ~24GB is for music), I have most of my music on my phone, at least enough that I am never missing what isn't on there. so I'm probably not going to use Match since it doesn't really offer me any advantages for the annual cost. and I would end up fitting less music because it would all be 256k whereas I rip my CDs at 160k AAC because it is a good balance of file size to sound quality for me. I also convert my purchased music to 160k as well, after I backup the original (which is a bit tedious, but it is either smaller files, fewer files, or a bigger iPhone, which wasn't available until the new 4S).
(I know there is the auto 128k option for my iPhone, but it doesn't work well for me because I would only want songs 256k or higher to be re-converted and a lot of my songs are 160k which is already plenty compressed.)
if you have a larger iTunes library than can fit on your iDevice, you now have a mobile option to manage your iDevice library. before you had to either sync a few select playlists or manually drag and drop songs while you are plugged into your computer. so with iTunes Match you can add/remove songs on the go.
if your iTunes library is small enough that all your songs fit on your iDevice then there really isn't any advantage to using iTunes Match, unless you prefer to only keep a subset on your iDevice for whatever reason, that you want to manage on the go.
if you acquired a bunch of your library from the Napster days (or whatever source) and they are of mixed/low mp3 quality, you get to upgrade the songs (at least the ones matched in the iTunes store) to 256kbs AAC.
the disadvantages are the initial long download times if you have a larger capacity iDevice, and, if you haven't fully downloaded everything yet, when using smart playlists or shuffling, songs that haven't downloaded will be skipped. it also appears as though you lose the Genius playlist options?
as for me, I have a 32GB iPhone and my music library doesn't all fit. but I do have a fairly efficient method of dealing with this with the traditional sync options available. and I only have one device to manage. I make use of the "only sync checked songs" method and simply uncheck the songs in my library that I don't want on my phone. it is a pretty easy way to manage my iPhone music, and since my library isn't significantly larger than 32GB (actually only ~24GB is for music), I have most of my music on my phone, at least enough that I am never missing what isn't on there. so I'm probably not going to use Match since it doesn't really offer me any advantages for the annual cost. and I would end up fitting less music because it would all be 256k whereas I rip my CDs at 160k AAC because it is a good balance of file size to sound quality for me. I also convert my purchased music to 160k as well, after I backup the original (which is a bit tedious, but it is either smaller files, fewer files, or a bigger iPhone, which wasn't available until the new 4S).
(I know there is the auto 128k option for my iPhone, but it doesn't work well for me because I would only want songs 256k or higher to be re-converted and a lot of my songs are 160k which is already plenty compressed.)
Eddie Cue said during the keynote iTunes match will "stream immediately" and "cache the songs you listen to most" with the slide saying "Intelligently Stored on Device" making it seem like they expect you not worry about song management, unless your going on that plane trip with no internet connection I guess.
ok, then I guess I didn't understand it fully. I'm glad there are users on this forum who have used it in the beta stages so we can figure out the specifics!
just a heads-up. i could be wrong, but i believe apple is also storing a backend database of user uploaded music that isn't available direct from itunes. which makes sense as it would cut down on their storage requirements. my suspicions stem from me wanting to start with a small library with music not available on itunes to see how well it worked. to my surprise i had about 5gb of music that was "uploaded" to icloud in less then two minutes. i was then able to immediately download that to my ipad 2. obviously the bandwidth requirement to do that is astronomical, so my guess is that music was being matched to songs uploaded previously. also, if you delete music from your itunes library that you have uploaded when you re-download it, it is a "matched aac audio file" @ 256kbps. very cleaver apple... but makes me wonder if that "matched aac audio file" is somehow protected and can only be used if your itunes match account is active?
Anything it gives you in AAC 256 (that wasn't in the first place) was matched, not downloaded. Sounds like the vast majority of your music was matched and very little uploaded. And they're not doing a second set of "user match" songs, that would just be redundant from regular matching.
Also, the downloaded files are not protected and will continue to work regardless of whether you renew Match.
the songs i am referring to started out as 320k mp3s of artists not available on the itunes store. and you are correct, it would be redundant because it is, but necessary. itunes does not carry every artist or song in the world. you mean to tell me that they plan on storing 10,000+ copies of the same exact song from from artist they don't sell that was upload by every user? absolutely not. they are storing a single 256k aac version that is being matched behind the scene against the users library just like songs stored in the itunes store. if the songs life started out as an mp3, and those songs are not sold in the itunes music store. how did they become a "match aac @256k"?
how do you know? has you itunes match subscription expire yet? the only real way to test it would be to copy one of the songs to a separate computer without that apple id on it and try and sync it with an iphone or ipod and see if it transfers over.
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That's exactly what they're doing. Whatever format/bitrate the files are in is uploaded, and that's what comes back. If you edit one of those files or EQ it, that's what you get back in the case of unmatched files. Not to mention that sending out one "master" file in the case of match has a different contractual obligation than letting users download the files they upload. Which is exactly why guys like Amazon and Google are working without an agreement and not matching files.
I don't know, maybe they used to be sold in the iTunes store and are grandfathered in (which is what happened with purchased songs that are no longer available - users can still download them again even though they can no longer be bought new).
That's exactly what has been tested. The downloaded match songs can be copied to other machines (even shared although they have the user's info embedded), copied to non-apple devices, even converted to other file formats by iTunes and other apps. Not to mention that Apple announced that those files contain no DRM. But yes, it has been confirmed by users.
thats good, saves me the time of having to test it. have been debating wether or not to wipe all my <160k music out and just download the matched versions @ 256k. wonder if there is a way to remove the embedded user info?
i know they are using netapp storage in their data center, so if they are keeping multiple copies of user uploaded song, the filers dedupe will keep their storage requirements down.
i know they are using netapp storage in their data center, so if they are keeping multiple copies of user uploaded song, the filers dedupe will keep their storage requirements down.
I have used iTunes Match since it first was available in beta and it is not actually a "pick and download" thing. It just plays. So if you created, say, a "current songs" playlist and played it through they would be in all likelihood playable without an internet connection.
HOWEVER... if you scroll to the end of a playlist there is an option to "Download All." This should alleviate the fears about being away from a Net connection. Since we can now create playlists on-the-fly you could even create a quick playlist before, say, a flight and download it all before taking off. Downloads seem very fast, at least there seems to be no bottleneck on iCloud's side... yet (we all saw what happened when siri was opened up to the world).
A few other things...
You can see, when looking at your music in the Music app, whether songs are downloaded on the device, or only in the cloud. If you don't have Net access and are playing a playlist that is only partially downloaded it will skip the songs in the cloud. You can also, within Settings app, choose to only see music downloaded to the device.
Also, while iTunes Music synching is not available if iTunes Match is on, shared iTunes libraries are still available on the iOS device (local LAN only of course). But unlike iTunes sharing between PCs/Macs you cannot choose to download shared tracks to your own device.
Another thing... and I think this has been mentioned. But when you turn on iTunes match on an iOS device your current music library is NOT deleted at that time. Personally I don't think syncing to iTunes is all that important anymore so this is a good workaround to preload your cloud music onto iOS device: sync it up with music THEN turn on iTunes Match. Your synced music will be there for you until you sync to iTunes again.
Personally I am liking iTunes Match but YMMV.
BTW: For anyone still asking if iCloud music can come from iTunes when on the local LAN, whether WiFi or USB (really???), forget it! It's Internet only. But see above about preloading via iTunes before turning on iTunes Match.
Michael
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There are a couple reasons. Lyrics and files at higher bitrates. It's good to hear that you can do iTunes sync first and those files stay on when Match is enabled, but that's still not as good as being able to do real syncs when within access to the computer. Lyrics they could add to the Match (like ratings and other tags are already) but the higher bitrate files would have to be from a sync. And with a slower internet connection, wouldn't getting songs from match be much slower than syncing not to mention using a lot of extra download data?
I have to say I'm skeptical that it will work well and I wouldn't be surprised if Apple has to give in and sync songs locally when they are available.
Yes but that is essentially irrelevant to this thread. You can't sync music in iTunes with iTunes Match on.
So what does that leave? Contacts, calendars, etc.? Already handled by iCloud. Apps? No need for iTunes for that. Backups? Can do that with iCloud too.
So if you are syncing PIM data to iCloud (or another service), have iTunes match on, are backing up to iCloud, what do you need iTunes syncing for? To me it's a relic of the past.
Michael
You still need itunes to get the movies off your device. Worse still is you need a cable to do that...