Apple Launches iTunes Match with Release of iTunes 10.5.1 [Updated]

[eliotw]

When I tested this in the 2nd beta I saw those songs purchased with different Apple ID show up in on other devices but they could not be played. I'm still getting the 4001 error so I can check if the resolved that or not.

Rumor has it that Apple is working on a way to merge iCloud accounts so I hope that will help fix this issue too. I've got songs purchased from 3 different Apple IDs.

Does anyone here know what happens with music purchased with other accounts when you do the match? does it sync those as well?

 

[mactmaster]

Ok - here's an example that would be challenging on iOS with match. Maybe I'm wrong.

I have 25000 songs. I want to listen to them as "shuffled". I don't want to download them all to my iphone. How do I do it?

Now - with streaming - I can just hit shuffle and on the server side - it plays random songs. No management whatsoever. It just works.

Again - different strokes for different folks. It really all depends on your listening habits.

You can listen shuffled to your iCloud music no problem. What iOS does is download while streaming. Rather than just caching part of the current song for playback, it leaves it as a local copy after you've played it. This is presumably because on a mobile device you may have limited connectivity and leaving it on your device will allow you access to that previously accessed music while you're offline.

 

[MacAddict1978]

Ok - here's an example that would be challenging on iOS with match. Maybe I'm wrong.

I have 25000 songs. I want to listen to them as "shuffled". I don't want to download them all to my iphone. How do I do it?

Now - with streaming - I can just hit shuffle and on the server side - it plays random songs. No management whatsoever. It just works.

Again - different strokes for different folks. It really all depends on your listening habits.

Devils advocate here... Maybe if you had an unlimited data plan on a cell phone that would be a great feature to have. Do you realize how much data that would consume if you didn't?

Not to mention, iPods don't have 3G and are wifi only.

So when exactly is the feature truly useful? Maybe in the car where you'll drop your signal on and off quite a bit as you travel.

If you're at home, you have full access on your computer, and all your devices can stream from your computer over wi-fi.

I can just understand why APple wouldn't invest in a streaming music service. Few people would actually use it to stream the songs they already have. For Pandora or Spotify streaming makes sense, but again, their major point of consumption is in the home or office, not on the go. For Spotify premium members, you can fill a hard drive with tracks to not stream them.

Not saying your view is wrong. To each their own, but its a very small minority that would find the feature useful/practical.

I'd love it to queue up a song for nostalgia sake on a road trip or something with friends, but I can lived without that 4 minutes too.

 

[Primejimbo]

I posted this tread a while back, does anyone know if this would be possible?

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1260950/

This is what it was asking:

I am not sure if this would go here, and not sure how much anyone can help since the iTunes Match isn't launched yet, but here I go...

My wife and I both have iPhones and our own laptops and I was planning on getting bigger hard drives for our laptops and getting Lion. We also have a Mac Mini for all of our media.

I started to think maybe we can combine all of our music, deleted all the duplicates, put them on the Mac Mini and we both use this for our music with iTunes music match. This way we both get about 85GB back on our laptops and not needed to get 2 new hard drives for them. I am thinking if I go this route I would either get a very big internal hard drive or even a bigger external one for the Mac Mini.

So now with this idea would we be able to sync with our own laptops for contacts, mail, and contacts while the music will technically come from another computer? I want to keep the contacts separate because 1. I love my wife, but she uses cute still around names (hearts with my name ) and 2. I have a lot of work contacts that I don't want messed up. Not to sound cheap but I figured since all the music was on 1 computer we would only pay $25 a year and not $50 a year for 2 music matches and maybe since we I can buy more iCloud storage if needed.

From what the beta people know and what we already know, could this be possible?

 

[louiek]

5282 songs were matches out of 75xx. thats not to bad. Im sure with a little cleaning up of the tagging, i will be able to get more. nice!

How much difference does the tagging make? I'd have thought this was a shazam type matching and it wouldnt bother looking at tags. Be interesting to see how far wrong the tag has to be before it fails to match if that is the case.

 

[CosmoPilot]

I think the big selling point for me was that I had multiple computers, all with libraries that were out of sync with each other. This one library thing, plus not having to have a computer on to listen to music on my Apple TV are huge in my listening world. People with a single computer, though, I'm not sure how useful it is other than upgrading your music.

Just be careful, you're only allowed to have 10 devices (this includes computers) using iTunes in the Cloud. My family is currently at 8 (iMac, MBP, 2 iPads, 3 iPhones, 1 iTouch). I don't know if my Apple TV counts or not. I heard 2 Apple TVs were authorized and didn't count against the 10.

 

[MacAddict1978]

When I tested this in the 2nd beta I saw those songs purchased with different Apple ID show up in on other devices but they could not be played. I'm still getting the 4001 error so I can check if the resolved that or not.

Rumor has it that Apple is working on a way to merge iCloud accounts so I hope that will help fix this issue too. I've got songs purchased from 3 different Apple IDs.

That would only be an issue with older purchases from before Apple ditched DRM. (Those tracks can be authorized for play on 5 machines.)

Now, here's something I don't know. Will iTunes Match replace your old DRM iTunes purchases with a higher quality file as well? The replacement would be DRM free if it did, and a non issue. I opted into to pay the upgrade a few years back to have tem replaced as higher quality, non DRM tracks, so I don't have any left to test it.

 

[mactmaster]

Woah.... that is so not correct. If itunes were analyzing the audio of your tracks, do you realize that the process would take an eternity???

PS. Why would you take the time to re-rip into lossless just to get iTunes to match to give you a LOWER quality file? You claim to have been a beta tester??? And you have no idea how the matching actually works?

Even if an album is reissued (they don't usually travel to another label, just the artist) the meta data is still going to produce a match. Most people aren't having entire albumbs not matching, just random tracks on an album that everything else matched up on.

It sounds like a bug (and there were LOTS of those in the beta, that you should remember).

Everyone is cramming the servers. Wait a few days and try again. But don't rerip into lossless! For the love of God, you wouldn't need to bother to match the song anymore

Try this, add a track to that you know to your library but add it without any metadata, no track title, album leave EVERYTHING blank and you'll be surprised that it matches it. iTunes match is not looking at just metadata...

Notice I did not say that it's comparing waveforms of the tracks, it's using the same or similar song analyzing as Genius and that's part of the matching process. It may also use metadata but that is not as important.

 

[KeithJenner]

Try this, add a track to that you know to your library but add it without any metadata, no track title, album leave EVERYTHING blank and you'll be surprised that it matches it. iTunes match is not looking at just metadata...

Notice I did not say that it's comparing waveforms of the tracks, it's using the same or similar song analyzing as Genius and that's part of the matching process. It may also use metadata but that is not as important.

I think you can go further than this and tag it as a different song.

I haven't tried it, but I've heard it reported that it still works.

----------

Now, here's something I don't know. Will iTunes Match replace your old DRM iTunes purchases with a higher quality file as well? The replacement would be DRM free if it did, and a non issue. I opted into to pay the upgrade a few years back to have tem replaced as higher quality, non DRM tracks, so I don't have any left to test it.

Seeing as it will give you DRM free files of songs which it has no idea of where you got the song from, I'd be surprised if it left you lumbered with old DRM files for ones that it knows you bought from iTunes.

I'm sure someone can confirm though.

 

[japanime]

Was able to match 8,000 out of 12,000 songs. Not too shabby. On par with LaLa when I used that service before Apple bought it.

 

[mactmaster]

That would only be an issue with older purchases from before Apple ditched DRM. (Those tracks can be authorized for play on 5 machines.)

Now, here's something I don't know. Will iTunes Match replace your old DRM iTunes purchases with a higher quality file as well? The replacement would be DRM free if it did, and a non issue. I opted into to pay the upgrade a few years back to have tem replaced as higher quality, non DRM tracks, so I don't have any left to test it.

I found that if it was a protected track, it simply uploads it. Back in the day though I took my protected tracks and removed the DRM with one of the non-destructive tools that were available. Once it's DRM-free iTunes will match it and upgrade the old 128kbps version to 256kbps.

 

[charlituna]

This seems to happen quite often whenever Apple releases something that requires activation. This, iPhones, etc. I wonder why Apple has such a hard time gauging need for this. Can't they realize "Hmm, we're on the verge of a big release, maybe we should rent more server space" or something?

While I can understand how limiting, whether artificially or not, supply could increase demand, this is ridiculous. Just my 2¢

It's not always about space. Sometimes it's the bandwidth to get not the system. And Apple has limited control there

 

[davez0r]

Multiple IDs?

Before I subscribe to iTunes Match, I wanted to check on how this would work.

My situation:

1. Have pretty old Apple ID used to purchase all content from iTMS
2. Have separate iCloud ID.

Which ID should I use to subscribe to iTunes Match?
Does it matter?
If I use my iCloud ID will I have problems listening to songs purchased with my iTunes ID?

 

[khull]

finally match is music done right! i have been frustrated having to use amazon to organize and keep my music in sync and google was just plain hopeless without a proper iOS app.

for those who are wondering, I kept iTunes apple ID purchases separate from iCloud. my match subscription was done using the itunes id and not the mobileme/icloud one.

 

[ryanstewart]

Just to be sure, iTunes isn't currently letting you get a subscription right now, right? I'm still getting the notice that "New subscriptions are currently unavailable."

 

[kavika411]

I assume that "Waiting" in the iCloud Status column simply means the servers are getting hammered, or is it "waiting" on me to take some action? Thanks.

 

[MacAddict1978]

How much difference does the tagging make? I'd have thought this was a shazam type matching and it wouldnt bother looking at tags. Be interesting to see how far wrong the tag has to be before it fails to match if that is the case.

Tagging makes a huge difference. Bad tags will throw the song back as unmatched.

The "Shazaam" feature everyone keeps taling about doesn't work exactly like Shaazam. iTunes isn't rendering 15 seconds samples of every song (it would take forever.) iTunes takes just a quick sliver to ensure it's the same track.

The reason is because someone could copy 1 song 1,000 times and then retag it to 1,000 songs they want and and itunes would serve them up.

There are a few checks and balances iTunes does though to speed the process: it verifies the length of the track If a song is only supposed to be 4:10 long, and you're is 5:00 long, it will reject it.

This is a problem is you had a cd with hidden tracks where 3 minutes of silence was inserted and another song would come on. The digital versions usually just had the tracks separate. This could cause your song not to match.

The Shazaamy part isn't as some people are portraying it to be. There are mix of things that Match will look at.

 

[mscbuck]

So I had my local music on my iPhone. I enabled iTunes Match, subscribed, and it's currently doing the uploading and such of all the files (it matched about 75%, not bad at all).

My question which may have been answered before: I noticed when I enabled iTunes Match it said my music library would be deleted. However, I still check my "available space" on my iPhone, and it says only 800MB, with 10GB of it being taken up by music. How can this be if it just erased my library? Did it remember which music I had locally and left them on the phone? If so, fantastic! If not, does it just take a while?

 

[mactmaster]

finally match is music done right! i have been frustrated having to use amazon to organize and keep my music in sync and google was just plain hopeless without a proper iOS app.

for those who are wondering, I kept iTunes apple ID purchases separate from iCloud. my match subscription was done using the itunes id and not the mobileme/icloud one.

Yeah much better than the other cloud music services available but then again they are not catering to the iOS cloud. What I find good is that all of the cloud tracks are seen just the same as local files even by third party apps. Apps like NowPlaying have full access to the icloud music.

 

[Patriot24]

I assume that "Waiting" in the iCloud Status column simply means the servers are getting hammered, or is it "waiting" on me to take some action? Thanks.

This is accurate. I have about 10 or so songs that weren't matched/uploaded the first time around due to being in MPEG format. I have since converted to AAC and told iTunes to add them to iCloud. It has been spinning for about 30 minutes with no progress.

The servers much be getting destroyed right now.

 

[Windlasher]

Interesting..

It Matched 13k songs and tried to upload 12K. I stopped it, because I KNOW most of them are on ITM. Still some bugs there.. Overall, still pretty cool.

 

[_Refurbished_]

Question?

If the "cloud" symbol is next to your track, does that mean it's the 256 bitrate version?

What's the "!" symbol? And lastly, what does it mean if it says it's not in the cloud with a dash going through it?

 

[sulliweb]

Can anyone clarify:

Once you turn on iTunes Match on an iDevice, can you do ANYTHING with that device and iTunes in reagards to manually dragging music/playlists over?

Or, once you go iTunes Match.....you can longer control anything on your iDevice via iTunes?!?

-Kevin

I'd love an answer to this too... I'm kind of holding off on enabling it on my iPhone until I know. I have data caps per day on my home internet and data caps per month on 3G, so having to download vs. sync from a computer is going to be a pain. I'd like the freedom on the run, but the initial setup is going to be a nightmare, I'm afraid...

 

[dljames9]

Already a Problem.

I just purchased iTunes match with my iCloud account. I'm one of the MobileMe users who ended up with two apple ids and no way to merge. After subscribing in iTunes, I go to my iPhone 4S and enable iTunes match. I get a message on my Phone:

This device is already associated with an Apple ID.
You can use iTunes Match on this device with just one Apple ID every 90 days. This device can be used with another Apple ID in 87 days.​

WTF. Now I just wasted three months of my subscription. Apple has got to fix the multiple Apple ID madness. This shouldn't be happening to customers just because they chose to buy MobleMe, and now are screwed.

 

[mactmaster]

I just purchased iTunes match with my iCloud account. I'm one of the MobileMe users who ended up with two apple ids and no way to merge. After subscribing in iTunes, I go to my iPhone 4S and enable iTunes match. I get a message on my Phone:

This device is already associated with an Apple ID.
You can use iTunes Match on this device with just one Apple ID every 90 days. This device can be used with another Apple ID in 87 days.​

WTF. Now I just wasted three months of my subscription. Apple has got to fix the multiple Apple ID madness. This shouldn't be happening to customers just because they chose to buy MobleMe, and now are screwed.

You should sign up for iTunes match with whatever account you've previously used for App Store purchases and music purchases. Hopefully you've only used one account for those purposes. Your MobileMe/iCloud account can be separate.