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Apple Continues iTunes Match Developer Testing with iTunes 10.5.1 Beta

More Match questions for anyone who has used it.

Does it preserve customized tags (genre, lyrics etc)?
Does it preserve user star ratings when you get the song from the cloud?

How does it handle libraries with more than 25000 songs? Any options to exclude songs or playlists from Matching/upload? Or can you have it match just certain parts of the library or does it always insist on matching everything at once?
 
milo said:
More Match questions for anyone who has used it.

Does it preserve customized tags (genre, lyrics etc)?
Does it preserve user star ratings when you get the song from the cloud?

How does it handle libraries with more than 25000 songs? Any options to exclude songs or playlists from Matching/upload? Or can you have it match just certain parts of the library or does it always insist on matching everything at once?
Click to expand...

It keeps your originals in your iTunes library. If you redownload them, all of your data is intact (album art, play counts, lyrics, etc.) only the audio is upgraded to 256 AAC. If you want all of your songs to be upgraded, you have to delete them from iTunes, then a little cloud appears next to the song, click it, and it is replaced with the upgraded version (but all of your data - as stated above - is still intact).

Also, if you have over 25,000 non-itunes songs, you have to delete some stuff to get to under 25,000 or it won't let you use it. It just got rid of a bunch of duplicates. :)

I hope this makes sense.
 
I haven't had the best experience with match, out of the 9000 or so songs in my library, I estimate at least 8000 are in the store, 7000 worst case. I had to upload around 4500 songs, which is kind of slow, and what's weird is it would split up albums randomly (eg. Tracks 1-6, 12 match 7-11 don't). Any music already on your iDevice is deleted, I can I've with that... My biggest issues are:
1. When you turn on Match, there is no way to upload songs via usb or Wifi, all of your music has to be downloaded from the cloud. (There are 5 iOS devices in my house, everyone has different 8-10k song libraries, we have comcast so a 250gb/mo cap.. we usually use around 200 of it between the 5 of us...I can see this becoming a problem)
2. When I add new albums to iTunes it takes a while before it sends them to the cloud (i'm talking hours). Even if I force it, the process takes around 15 minutes, and out of the last 3 albums I have added to iTunes, all 3 of them are greyed out on my iDevices. So coupled with the fact that I can't sync my music I find myself running into the situation of, oh this free EP came out, let me throw it on my iPhone and listen to it on my way work... Oh wait, I can't.
3. Sometimes my albums become corrupted on my device and I have to delete it off my mac and my iPhone, sync Match, re add it, sync again, and then I might be able to download it. Like I had a full album listened to it a few times, went back later and it was split into 2 albums (one called unknown album), and half the songs didn't work.
4. I had the brilliant Idea of making a playlist of the music I want to load on each device.. it was around 2000 songs... I was on wifi and tried to download all... My phone was unresponsive for about 2 hours and a lot of the songs were not downloaded (another reason I want syncing)
5. Over 3g it's very slow to download a song on the go, it will constantly cut out. And I see this being a problem with people who are not lucky enough to have unlimited.



I'll try 5.1 later tonight, i'll post my findings if anyone is interested.
 
I wish what iTunes Match did, and maybe this will change, is completely replace your version of the song matched and replace it with a copy from the iTunes Store, only preserving the metadata such as song plays. Also, copyright data that is found in purchased songs aren't present for matched songs. This annoys my OCD, as I thought iTunes Match would scan your library and REPLACE those songs with those from the iTunes Store (hence the 256kbps convert). I like how play count is backed up in the cloud, but it seems that other metadata is preserved in a bad way. I could see this with uploaded songs, but matched songs should copy those tracks as if purchased from the Store, imo.

Album artwork doesn't seem to load for songs that are on the cloud through iTunes Match, only for purchased items.

As of right now, it seems difficult to tell what iTunes Match recognizes as a matched song and what needs to be uploaded.

Reuploading songs to the cloud also requires you to go through the ENTIRE process over again, which seems ridiculous for those who have 25,000 songs or such. You should be able to view what songs were matched and what ones weren't so you have an opportunity to possibly change the data on those songs to match songs in the iTunes Store.

Simply put, it seems like that those who purchased their music legit through the iTunes Store are going to have their library nice and neat throughout their entire army of Apple devices for free. For iTunes Match customers like myself, it seems that things might get a bit sticky.

Types of files associated with iTunes Match, for those who are interested:

Protected AAC audio file (purchased from iTunes Store)
Matched AAC audio file (matched from your library to iTunes Store)
Purchased MPEG-4 audio file (matched songs on iCloud)
MPEG-4 audio file (uploaded songs on iCloud)
 
Additionally, I have installed iTunes 10.5 and then 10.5.1 beta on a PowerMac G4 server successfully, even authorizing with my iTunes Match account and successfully downloading and streaming music from my iTunes Match account. Looks like there will be hope out there for Leopard users...

Looks like they also split updating iTunes Match and Genius in the new 10.5.1 beta. Before, iTunes Match and Genius updates were combined (I never used Genius so this is a nice change).
 
Last edited:
DanTesla1 said:
I wish what iTunes Match did, and maybe this will change, is completely replace your version of the song matched and replace it with a copy from the iTunes Store, only preserving the metadata such as song plays. Also, copyright data that is found in purchased songs aren't present for matched songs. This annoys my OCD, as I thought iTunes Match would scan your library and REPLACE those songs with those from the iTunes Store (hence the 256kbps convert).
Click to expand...

It'll never automatically do this. What about those who ripped their music as ALAC?

But anyway, for what you are asking: After you match, delete your local file, them download from the cloud.
 
Hiding Past Purchases

Has anyone else figured out that you can now hide past purchases / restore hidden purchases for your iTunes in the Cloud? (I sent MacRumors a tip on it, but they are seemingly not looking for stories.)
 
Anyone having problems with iTunes 10.5.1 locking up when it tries to run the Music Match? It has worked ok for me before today's update but now iTunes locks hard. I can only end the task. If I quickly disable music match it will run ok.
 
It's matching more files. However, I can't turn it on on my iPhone 4 running the GM. It's not even an option. I can turn it on on my iPad, but nothing appears in the Music.app.

Loving the new hide feature of iCloud though. I had a ton of free TV shows that were single episodes.
 
jaw04005 said:
It's matching more files. However, I can't turn it on on my iPhone 4 running the GM. It's not even an option. I can turn it on on my iPad, but nothing appears in the Music.app.

Loving the new hide feature of iCloud though. I had a ton of free TV shows that were single episodes.
Click to expand...


I'm having the same issue, anyone else figured this out?
 
"No Music"

I have all my software up-to-date, and my music library is synced through iTunes Match completely. However, on my iPhone the music app displays that there is no music in my library, and I have my iPhone set to display all music with iTunes match on.
 
jaw04005 said:
It's matching more files. However, I can't turn it on on my iPhone 4 running the GM. It's not even an option. I can turn it on on my iPad, but nothing appears in the Music.app.

Loving the new hide feature of iCloud though. I had a ton of free TV shows that were single episodes.
Click to expand...

Hide? Where is this at?
 
AHaefs said:
I have all my software up-to-date, and my music library is synced through iTunes Match completely. However, on my iPhone the music app displays that there is no music in my library, and I have my iPhone set to display all music with iTunes match on.
Click to expand...

Where are you setting this?
 
AHaefs said:
I have all my software up-to-date, and my music library is synced through iTunes Match completely. However, on my iPhone the music app displays that there is no music in my library, and I have my iPhone set to display all music with iTunes match on.
Click to expand...

I have the exact same problem. It's incredibly frustrating. I had everything on here the other day, and when iTunes Match went to 10.5.1 instead of 10.5, nothing is uploading. Now it won't even upload the music again in Step 2 of the process because it says that all of my music has already been scanned and uploaded. Anyone else have thoughts?
 
debo said:
Where are you setting this?
Click to expand...

I'm having the same issue on my wife's phone. It's in Settings/Music. My iPad and iPhone are working, but hers is not. I have iTunes match turned on, but when I go to the Music app it has the iCloud loading screen for a short bit and then goes away and shows nothing.
 
Windows

I know in the release notes it states it doesn't work with Windows, but why does it get all the way through step two and stop working? Doesn't make sense
 
jbryant705 said:
I'm having the same issue on my wife's phone. It's in Settings/Music. My iPad and iPhone are working, but hers is not. I have iTunes match turned on, but when I go to the Music app it has the iCloud loading screen for a short bit and then goes away and shows nothing.
Click to expand...

That's my scenario exactly. The cloud appears and then no content is displayed. I tried restoring my iPhone and iPad, and not my iPad works partially by displaying a small part of my library, however my iPhone remains the same.
 
I'm having the same music problem as everyone else, I've tried everything to remedy it, multiple restores in different forms and nothing seems to work.
 
jbryant705 said:
Guess we'll just have to wait until they release the next iOS 5 beta…
Click to expand...

With the accelerated time table for Math (less than 2 weeks), I doubt we see an iOS beta, either we'll see some server-side changes and 5.0 will just work, or 5.0.1 will just show up with Match and the stereotypical "improvements and bug fixes."
 
Senseotech said:
With the accelerated time table for Math (less than 2 weeks), I doubt we see an iOS beta, either we'll see some server-side changes and 5.0 will just work, or 5.0.1 will just show up with Match and the stereotypical "improvements and bug fixes."
Click to expand...

True…
 
I know others have had this problem as well but my iTunes Match gets stuck on matching songs and never moves past that same amount each and every time on two different computers. I got it to work completely for a week and it seems like it broke on Thursday or Friday of last week.

Because it never finishes matching songs, I can't use this on my iPhone and I have to sync music the old way.
 
kinda surprised we have not seen another beta because there must be issues to work out before release... or maybe they will just be fixed when iTunes 10.5.1 gm comes out.
 
Well, it seems we're getting closer, as my notebook iTunes suddenly no longer connects to iTunes Match as of today. Worked fine yesterday, but a reboot this morning has rendered it inoperable.
 
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