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Apple Launches iTunes Match with Release of iTunes 10.5.1 [Updated]
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If it says "Matched" and is less than 256kbps then you can delete the file and download the 256kbps file.
Out of 22,271 songs in my library, iTunes Match is now in the process of uploading 15,966. That's a 28.3% "hit rate"! Sadly, even many recently-purchased Amazon.com mp3's didn't match...less than 50%. Heck, even Alice in Chains' "Dirt" album (purchased last month) didn't make the cut. 
Does anybody know if an entire music library not stored locally on an iPhone can be shuffled without having to download each song onto the device?
I subscribe to the music subscription service MOG now mainly to free up disk space on my devices and carry my full collection with me though they still do not have a shuffle feature. Plus iTunes Match would be much cheaper though less convenient.
I subscribe to the music subscription service MOG now mainly to free up disk space on my devices and carry my full collection with me though they still do not have a shuffle feature. Plus iTunes Match would be much cheaper though less convenient.
I've read this entire thread, and have a few basic questions before I make the switch (I'm overseas now, so waiting until I get back to the States later this week). Hopefully the servers will cool down by then.
1. Playlists: If I have multiple playlists on my iTunes library, do those playlists move to the Cloud as well?
2. Playlists: If I add or delete a song from a playlist (assuming playlists work on the Cloud), will that song be downloaded across all my devices with the same playlist (and computers)? In other words, I add a great Justin Bieber song to my workout playlist via my iPhone, will it download the same song on my iMac and add it to that playlist? Or do I have to go manually manage playlists on all devices.
3. Multiple Computers: I currently have 2 computers (iMac & MBP). Both libraries are in sync. How does Matching handle both of these computers? Does one act as the master, and the other is considered a device? Or, do I just not turn on Matching on the non-primary computer...thoughts?
The reason playlists are an important topic for me, is my family of 4 shares the same iTunes library (and account). We separate our music likes/dislikes through playlists. My kids have their own playlists that they currently sync to. I have my playlists (typically all Justin Bieber stuff), for workouts, etc I sync to. Wife the same. If iTunes Match accepts playlist data, this would be great, because we quickly re-download our stuff via said playlists from the Cloud when we turn on Matching on our iDevices.
Thanks if advance!
1. Playlists: If I have multiple playlists on my iTunes library, do those playlists move to the Cloud as well?
2. Playlists: If I add or delete a song from a playlist (assuming playlists work on the Cloud), will that song be downloaded across all my devices with the same playlist (and computers)? In other words, I add a great Justin Bieber song to my workout playlist via my iPhone, will it download the same song on my iMac and add it to that playlist? Or do I have to go manually manage playlists on all devices.
3. Multiple Computers: I currently have 2 computers (iMac & MBP). Both libraries are in sync. How does Matching handle both of these computers? Does one act as the master, and the other is considered a device? Or, do I just not turn on Matching on the non-primary computer...thoughts?
The reason playlists are an important topic for me, is my family of 4 shares the same iTunes library (and account). We separate our music likes/dislikes through playlists. My kids have their own playlists that they currently sync to. I have my playlists (typically all Justin Bieber stuff), for workouts, etc I sync to. Wife the same. If iTunes Match accepts playlist data, this would be great, because we quickly re-download our stuff via said playlists from the Cloud when we turn on Matching on our iDevices.
Thanks if advance!
Out of 22,271 songs in my library, iTunes Match is now in the process of uploading 15,966. That's a 28.3% "hit rate"! Sadly, even many recently-purchased Amazon.com mp3's didn't match...less than 50%. Heck, even Alice in Chains' "Dirt" album (purchased last month) didn't make the cut.
Wow, really? I started ~6pm, took about 15 minutes with the library "pre-scan", now it chugging through about 2500 songs (I'll be adding another 8-10K from our central media server). Doing about a song-a-second.
It's already hit Black Gives Way to Blue, Greatest Hits and Unplugged (all AIC) and matched 'em. Dirt getting missed is _very_ surprising.
[edit]
OK, slowed way down, people must be getting off from work and firing up the service!
iTunes Match is a streaming music service, not a music-bandwidth-auto-upgrader service. By "matching" their copy with yours, it saves you the hassle of having to upload everything from your library to their servers. Their local copy just happens to be 256kbps.
With respect to playlists (and perhaps everything in the Match equation), the cloud is the source for everything. If you create a playlist on any of your Match-enabled devices, it will show up on all of the other devices (although you may have to manually download the songs on each device).
No, it's 10 devices *per account*. Your family shouldn't all be sharing off of the same account (unless you want everyone's music in one jumbled pot).
iTunes matched 2/3 of my collection. The other third has been uploading for about five hours. Hopefully, it'll be finished or near doing so when I come back from dinner.
Thanks for your detailed and thorough explanation. My main concern was with adding songs after matching and you explained that very well.
I was able to retest this with the new iTunes and they now aren't matching those tracks that were purchased with a different Apple ID. Not ideal since I can't get those tracks into iTunes Match but at least everything that shows up on my devices I know I can play.
Error 4001
I did not read past page 10 but, I deleted my entire library (not the actual files) and then added them back to iTunes and that fixed that error for me. I'm on lion 10.7.2 and it started the error 4001 on iTunes 10.5.1 beta 2.
Good luck
I did not read past page 10 but, I deleted my entire library (not the actual files) and then added them back to iTunes and that fixed that error for me. I'm on lion 10.7.2 and it started the error 4001 on iTunes 10.5.1 beta 2.
Good luck
Still getting "iTunes Match is temporarily not accepting new subscribers. Check back later."
Been trying for over 5 hours. Something fishy is going on....
Been trying for over 5 hours. Something fishy is going on....
Ok I have a weird issue.
iTunes Match was cranking along and then I saw a "could not save iTunes Library error".
Now it won't let me exit iTunes.
iTunes is not locked, it just won't let me exit and it doesn't seem to be progressing further.
Even odder, in my Music Library, the Apple Lossless files I had just added this week show matched and changed to 256k.
I thought Match wasn't supposed to touch the files I have on my computer?
iTunes Match was cranking along and then I saw a "could not save iTunes Library error".
Now it won't let me exit iTunes.
iTunes is not locked, it just won't let me exit and it doesn't seem to be progressing further.
Even odder, in my Music Library, the Apple Lossless files I had just added this week show matched and changed to 256k.
I thought Match wasn't supposed to touch the files I have on my computer?
I would be careful about characterizing it as a streaming service. Apple has repeatedly said it is not a streaming service. This is especially true of iDevices. In order to play on an iPhone you have to download it to the phone. It will play while it downloads, but is also copies it to the phone. You have to delete it if you don't want it.
On the other hand on my Mac I can start a song playing that is on the cloud and it plays it, then moves to the next. But each time it hits a new song I can see it download the file. The difference is that it downloads it to some cache so that after it plays it is not in my library.
So, on the Mac it acts like it is streaming, but in reality it isn't. It is just putting the song in a cache and I have no idea when and how often it empties the cache.
I prefer to think of Match as a "Personal Music Distribution System." It makes your music available to you where ever you are, but you have to download it. While the Mac in some respects acts like it is streaming, my guess is that people who have used true music streaming services will complain about how crappy the streaming is if you try to characterize iTunes as something it is not.
Huh. This made me decide to make a smart playlist to filter out those songs so I could upgrade just the ones under 256kbps, and I found this:
I thought songs under 100kbps were not eligible? I certainly have some that are ineligible and under 100kbps, but what about these?
This is obvious!
Most families share an iTunes account so they don't have to pay more than once for a song/app/book/etc to share with the entire family. Having separate accounts would require purchasing the same app/song twice as Apple doesn't allow merging accounts. I understand home sharing, etc., but that isn't the best solution for us. We don't mind having a library full of stuff we don't like. We have a smart list built to show most recent (30 days) worth of purchases. That way, if my wife purchases a song I also like, I can just add it to my personal playlist. Vice versa.
I'm not going to get into a semantics discussion about this; we already had a 50 page argument about this in another topic. Whatever you wish to call it, your reply missed the point... the poster I was responding to was not using the service as intended.
A Good Start, and a Walk in the Black Forest (of Piracy..)
I'd have to give Apple a solid "A" for their introduction of iTunes Match today. Sure, it was a couple of weeks late, but it seems to work pretty well.
Its not "magical" in the way that Siri is, but it seems to be well implemented, well thought-out, and relatively intuitive - considering what a complicated concept the whole thing is.
It scanned, matched, and uploaded my entire collection of about 5000 tunes in a little under three hours. No frustrating delays like I experienced the (one) time I tried downloading some music from Amazon (the latest Lady Gaga disc.)
Which tells you a lot about Apple. I'm sure a couple of million other geeks are running iTunes Match today for the first time too - and Apple's servers didn't crash. Big ups to Apple.
Some oddities: Why some songs are not matched, I don't understand. I can see some weird crap from Vic Chesnutt or the mashup Banksy did of Paris Hilton not matching. But U2's New Years Day? Ripped of a US store-bought CD? when all the other songs from the album DID match? Strange indeed.
One surprise: Songs ripped below 96K are ineligible. Which brings up a thorny dilemma:
I have a few songs, dating back from the very dawn of the digital age, that fall into this category. A rip I made of a pre-recorded cassette I used to have of a golden-oldie my parents used to play: Horst Jankowski's Walk in the Black Forest. Not eligible, because back in 2002 (or whatever) I didn't know what I was doing, and recorded it a 56K - before I lost my tape.
So what to do?
A) Buy a fresh new copy from iTunes for 99 cents.
B) Go out and locate a (ahem) unprotected version from the dingier corners of the Internets. Or
C) Not worry about it. Until I find myself stuck in Kuala Lumpur or Buenos Aires, with just my iPhone, and the burning desire to rock out to some mid-60s easy-listening Deutschepop?
Decisions, decisions.....
I'd have to give Apple a solid "A" for their introduction of iTunes Match today. Sure, it was a couple of weeks late, but it seems to work pretty well.
Its not "magical" in the way that Siri is, but it seems to be well implemented, well thought-out, and relatively intuitive - considering what a complicated concept the whole thing is.
It scanned, matched, and uploaded my entire collection of about 5000 tunes in a little under three hours. No frustrating delays like I experienced the (one) time I tried downloading some music from Amazon (the latest Lady Gaga disc.)
Which tells you a lot about Apple. I'm sure a couple of million other geeks are running iTunes Match today for the first time too - and Apple's servers didn't crash. Big ups to Apple.
Some oddities: Why some songs are not matched, I don't understand. I can see some weird crap from Vic Chesnutt or the mashup Banksy did of Paris Hilton not matching. But U2's New Years Day? Ripped of a US store-bought CD? when all the other songs from the album DID match? Strange indeed.
One surprise: Songs ripped below 96K are ineligible. Which brings up a thorny dilemma:
I have a few songs, dating back from the very dawn of the digital age, that fall into this category. A rip I made of a pre-recorded cassette I used to have of a golden-oldie my parents used to play: Horst Jankowski's Walk in the Black Forest. Not eligible, because back in 2002 (or whatever) I didn't know what I was doing, and recorded it a 56K - before I lost my tape.
So what to do?
A) Buy a fresh new copy from iTunes for 99 cents.
B) Go out and locate a (ahem) unprotected version from the dingier corners of the Internets. Or
C) Not worry about it. Until I find myself stuck in Kuala Lumpur or Buenos Aires, with just my iPhone, and the burning desire to rock out to some mid-60s easy-listening Deutschepop?
Decisions, decisions.....
Incorrect. iTunes Match can also upgrade your actual library with their versions. The explanation of it is right there on their website and has been since they announced this service months ago.