Apple Raises iTunes Match and Apple Music Library Matching Limits to 100,000 Tracks

[akbarali.ch]

The most irritating part of iTunes to me was first it didn't match all the music of the same album ripped from same CD, Also, and because of that, the gapless playback would not function which is quite annoying if you listening to live albums. Upon further investigation (using some tools) i found that the ones that matched are also not matched from the same album. eg. some songs from one album would get to match from hits and other compilation album, which further would break the gapless. In all, my PRESTINE-LY managed library turned into a mess.

I did not renew my subscription which was due a week back. started working on my library again.

Also, a lot of music is censored here in India (not Apple's fault though)

 

[AbSoluTc]

I haven't seen anyone yet mention my biggest problem with iTunes Match, the 200MB per file limitation. I have more than several DJ set recordings that I have collected and love to listen to. These are single files that are generally >60 minutes and run in the 250-450MB range. I have had to do a clunky hack of making these files into Podcasts and syncing them over manually to my iPhone and then play them from the Podcasts app. I'm tempted to test, however expecting to be disappointed to find Apple has not yet increased the allowed file size for iTunes Match.

I understand you're issue but in reality, it's not a big problem at all. AM is for the masses. Most everyone will not have an issue with file size. Very, very FEW will have that issue, such as yourself. Nobody (with the exception of some) will have 200 MB music files or come close to anything like that.

Again, your problem isn't an issue. It's only an issue because you're the 1%.

 

[stanman64]

Why is this a topic of focus for Apple.. I would be willing to guess ~1% of Apple users actually care about being able to have 100,000 tracks. That's insane. Unless you're a music producer, I see no typical person having that much music... But maybe I'm wrong and I have no idea what I'm talking about.

But I also feel like they have better things that they could be fixing. Like how Apple Music/iTunes Match replaces my tracks with the wrong versions.

 

[robbyx]

Agreed. I wish Apple offered higher quality audio, even in Apple Lossless. Given the way they introduced iTunes Plus and allowed customers to upgrade to higher quality files, I've hoped for years that they'd do the same and offer lossless audio with an upgrade path. Still waiting.

I think Apple's audio strategy would be very different if Jobs were alive and in charge. He truly loved music. Cook and friends see it as a revenue stream first, a passion (a very distant) second. Given how Jobs railed against DRM, I don't think he'd ever have introduced Apple Music. Which is DRM, more or less. The service is antithetical to his belief that people should buy music. He would never have blown 3B on Beats in a craven attempt to reach a wider audience. If anything he would have bought Sonos. And we'd definitely have lossless audio on the iTunes Store by now.

Apple Music is yet another sign of the Microsoftification of Apple.

The only REAL feature I want out of iTunes and the music store is to offer truly uncompressed AIFF audio files of all tracks in their database. I don't care if Apple charges more or makes it a premium service. I can easily tell the audio quality difference in Apple's 256k AAC and a True 1411K AIFF file, the difference is tremendous if you use good speakers or headphones. Can't really tell squat difference if you are using iPod earbuds.

Beatport offers this service, but they don't carry the full spectrum of music that Apple carries. As of now, the only way to get this quality on some music is to buy the CDs and rip them, after all , whatI am talking about is the raw full quality 44.1k 16-bit AIFF file which contains 100% of the audio data. Apple's current 256k AAC is so compressed it only contains about one-eighth of the full audio data of the track.

It's almost 2016 and Apple should be doing this by now. The nation's carriers have the bandwidth and Apple has the server space...I just wonder why Apple won't carry a premium uncompressed file service. I am hoping they do make this an upcoming feature because I know I'm not the only one who wants full-quality uncompressed audio at the iTunes Music Store!!

 

[robbyx]

It's not the end of the world. But it *IS* an issue. And who do you think the masses are? Kids who love EDM music.

I understand you're issue but in reality, it's not a big problem at all. AM is for the masses. Most everyone will not have an issue with file size. Very, very FEW will have that issue, such as yourself. Nobody (with the exception of some) will have 200 MB music files or come close to anything like that.

Again, your problem isn't an issue. It's only an issue because you're the 1%.

 

[navaira]

If you don't care about the limit being over 25k, because your library is below 25k, why waste time talking about it? Your life hasn't been affected. Move on.

Similar with lossless. I don't care about it. But people do, and are willing to pay more for it. I honestly can't understand why Apple won't provide it. I see people literally re-enacting that "shut up and take my money" Futurama gif and Apple goes "nnn but here's Beats One".

The stories about Match, well, not matching keep on scaring me. I move my hand to the switch and move it back. Do I want to try? Is four backups enough? I just don't bloody know. For every "it works amazingly well" story comes a "it replaced my live versions with studio versions and album versions with single versions". My library is important to me.

 

[maxsix]

I appreciate their intentions and do understand the various reasons.

Yet that said, the execution is far less than what they're capable of.

They don't call it _competition_ without good reason.

Between the poor showings in the past, deep pockets they cannot deny, and woefully underestimating of _todays_ challenging consumer, Apple will remain a bit player.

 

[danielagos]

Well for one, not all albums are on AM - for example Adele's new one isn't, so if you bought the physical CD like millions have you can match it, or upload the songs to Match and listen to it anywhere, if you're just an AM subscriber then you can't.

Yes, you can. As an Apple Music subscriber you can match songs not available in the streaming service. The feature is called iCloud Music Library and it's similar to iTunes Match.

 

[John.B]

This decision is not green and not sustainable. I have 255 tracks and I think it's plenty.
Who really needs 100K tracks except for showing off or compulsive hoarding ?

I have far more than 255 Christmas tracks alone, and I only listen to those for a couple of weeks per year!

How old are you that 255 tracks seems like a lot of music?

 

[dwaltwhit]

absolutely serious question: Who has more that 25k unique tracks? Thats more than A person can listen to ever.

 

[iPhaithful]

This decision is not green and not sustainable. I have 255 tracks and I think it's plenty.
Who really needs 100K tracks except for showing off or compulsive hoarding ?

I was just thinking, unless you're a DJ or something......who in the world saves that much music? Especially with services that stream etc.

 

[Cool Pup]

absolutely serious question: Who has more that 25k unique tracks? Thats more than A person can listen to ever.

Me and countless other people over years of ripping music and collecting MP3s. I have about 150k tracks in my library. Streaming music isn't an option for me because I don't want to always rely on a connection to access songs offline and I like "owning" my digital music, more or less.

I'm glad Apple upped the count, but Amazon has 200k maximum, so I think they could have expanded to go a little further than that.

 

[navaira]

I have far more than 255 Christmas tracks alone, and I only listen to those for a couple of weeks per year!

How old are you that 255 tracks seems like a lot of music?

I think his favourite song is called "Trollollo"

absolutely serious question: Who has more that 25k unique tracks? Thats more than A person can listen to ever.

25000 x 4 [minutes] = 100000 minutes of music
100000 / 60 = 1666.66666 hours
1666.66666 hours / 24 = 69.4 days of music

Unless you're a fruit fly (they don't live long) it's completely possible to listen to more than 25k unique tracks, especially if you like more than one genre of music. (For me: synthpop, R&B, 90s house, stadium house, trance, deep house, garage/dubstep, drum'n'bass/jungle, easy listening, new age, progressive rock, trip-hop, many sub-genres of metal with emphasis on Viking and thrash metal, girlgroups, French pop, electronica... If you play 25 tracks on shuffle on my iTunes you'll probably discover music genres you didn't know existed.)

Also some of us are old enough to remember that streaming didn't always exist as an option.

 

[Juicy Box]

I never used either. I just never heard anything good about MobileMe.

It had some features that iCloud did not have. And it worked snow leopard.

It did have some issues, one being that sometimes my contacts would duplicate. But, overall it was a nice service that many held on to as long as possible, like a year after iCloud was released.

 

[obezcinnet]

Update 12:08 PM, December 6: Eddy Cue has confirmed to MacRumors that Apple has indeed "started rolling out support for 100k libraries."

and I have indeed cancelled my iTunes Match subscription yesterday.
Not because of this limit thing but all the issues they introduced with combining iTunes Match with iCloud music library.
When you have an Apple Music subscription it all works good, however after my free trial ended everything was messed up.

This is end of an era for me. I had over a thousand audio CDs before I completely switched to digital with iTunes Store. Now, abandoning that and going for streaming only.

 

[rochford]

About time

 

[Razeus]

Too bad the music app can't handle 100k library. Not even 25k in my case.

 

[dwaltwhit]

I think his favourite song is called "Trollollo"


25000 x 4 [minutes] = 100000 minutes of music
100000 / 60 = 1666.66666 hours
1666.66666 hours / 24 = 69.4 days of music

Unless you're a fruit fly (they don't live long) it's completely possible to listen to more than 25k unique tracks, especially if you like more than one genre of music. (For me: synthpop, R&B, 90s house, stadium house, trance, deep house, garage/dubstep, drum'n'bass/jungle, easy listening, new age, progressive rock, trip-hop, many sub-genres of metal with emphasis on Viking and thrash metal, girlgroups, French pop, electronica... If you play 25 tracks on shuffle on my iTunes you'll probably discover music genres you didn't know existed.)

Also some of us are old enough to remember that streaming didn't always exist as an option.

Your equation leaves out such trivialities as sleeping, eating, working, talking to humans, and such. It also doesn't take into account listening to the same song, like, two times.

I guess you are just far more cultured than me.

 

[navaira]

Thank you for substituting "cultured" for "older"

 

[valdikor]

Well that went quickly…

Wow, kudos to that! Is that your entire music collection you have accumulated/ripped over the years and have been waiting for Apple to up its limit for?
It's actually a trap - sooner or later you will find some 800 tracks you will want to add to your library and listen to. What will you do then (other than buying music exclusively through iTunes thereafter)? It's not like you can expect Apple to increase the limit again in the next five years, if ever.
In any case, enjoy all your cloud music. You must have lots of hidden (or not so hidden) gems there.

 

[Soylent Yellow]

Obviously, you are about 16 years old or you are trolling. However, the guy that says 100K is not enough has a problem, or is a thief, or probably both.

Since lkrupp has been a member since 2004, he/she either signed up for MacRumors at the age of 5, or is trolling.

Not making any overhasty conclusions here, since one of my 12.000 tracks is Butthole Surfers - Pittsburg to Lebanon.

 

[captain cadet]

Cue: "Hey did you increase the limit yet?"
Engineer: "No."
Cue: "Can you do it right now? People have been waiting for this update."
Engineer: (groans) "Fine." (changes variable from 25000 to 100000)
Engineer: "Done."

Your not a developer then - its not as easy as that
You have to change the databases, the interfaces, any processes that are ran on the songs to be quicker or to do them more in parallel, any licensing and your storing system as going to 10000 is a huge jump (75000 more songs!)

 

[CoreForce]

Nice move Apple.
Now please raise the limits on the Photos app so I can finally import my 500Gb iPhoto library to it.

 

[macguy78]

For those of us that have been waiting for this change, this is a big deal. The workarounds to keep my collection under 25k were a pain and now everything works the way it should. I've been using iTunes Match since inception and it's definitely not for everyone. However, for those inclined to take advantage of its benefits and can deal with the headaches, it solves many problems. Thank you iTunes Match!

 

[coolfactor]

How about increased iCloud storage space

They just recently more than doubled it. Did you not get the note?