Despite Apple's Denial, iTunes Match is Streaming

[Prodo123]

How does that compare to a direct to disc recording on vinyl on high quality speakers? To a live performance? There is lossy then there is lossy. The music most folks listen to is "convenience focused" NOT "quality focused."

Lover of insanely great reproductions.

Rocketman

CD and vinyl were proven to have the same audio fidelity, as long as they're through hi-fi speakers.
Yes, they are technically "lossy" but digital media distribution has created a format where the loss of data is actually noticeable.
What all of us would like is convenience AND quality. What Internet has done is only implement the former, and the world has adjusted to it while audiophiles who care about quality suffer.
I'd bet if we were in the 1970's with a comparison of FLAC and MP3, people would notice the difference between them.

 

[SirHaakon]

Ah, but iCloud only allows me to stream stuff I own. Wouldn't it be better to be able to stream anything available in iTunes at anytime? Just sayin'

You can do that with Spotify if you want to pay $10 a month.

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And it's often times not the device that limits the sound quality, but rather it's the speakers. The majority of users either go with the comfort of Apple's remote and mic or with cheap Skullcandy/JVC/etc. which don't even come close to replicating the fidelity of lossless music.

Then the whole point of your "but I want lossless music look at me!" speech is completely pointless.

 

[aohus]

I'd bet if we were in the 1970's with a comparison of FLAC and MP3, people would notice the difference between them.

I'm sure they would.

But Apple, nor any other handset maker has a high priority to appease audiophiles.

Think about it, you want Apple to stream at a 4-5mbps for high quality lossless streaming. That aint gonna happen, especially with the bandwidth that it would potentially induce on networks like AT&T. Carriers would outright refuse lossless streaming as its a bit overkill for the mainstream audience.

Additionally, whats the point of lossless streaming if many folks are using mediocre in-ear buds. There is no point in it.

 

[keruah]

And it's often times not the device that limits the sound quality, but rather it's the speakers. The majority of users either go with the comfort of Apple's remote and mic or with cheap Skullcandy/JVC/etc. which don't even come close to replicating the fidelity of lossless music. When you have high-fidelity studio headphones and speakers, you can enjoy lossless music to its fullest extent.

Why do you need to use high-fidelity studio headphones when you just want to listen to some music outside (we're talking about mobile devices)? I don't get it.

 

[SirHaakon]

Here's a video from IGM that walks through some of this

YouTube: video

This pretty much proves that streaming is exactly what it's doing. You can choose to skip to a different part of the song if you want, and it rebuffers the new portion and plays directly without you having to download the entire song.

Apple can call it what they want for legal sake, but it's streaming.

 

[Peace]

Remember that screen grab everybody said was fake yesterday ?

I'm loose when it comes to NDA. Looser than I used to be and I don't photoshop stuff.

Feast your eyes on this :

 

[blybug]

I hate to say "I told you so" but...

Still waiting to hear what really happens to these iTunes Matches songs when the "Match" service is discontinued.

 

[kas23]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

This is a great video. So, Apple's right. They aren't streaming. If they were, you wouldn't be able to go and play the song back while in airplane mode. I'm curious on how this "streaming" (playing while downloading) will work when you only have 1-2 bars. Could be OK though considering it took about 3 seconds to download a whole song while on Wi-Fi.

 

[SirHaakon]

I hate to say "I told you so" but...

Your prediction of the process proved correct, but not the way it handles files.

You said, "When you stop paying your annual fee, access to these files stops and they will not be left sitting on your devices for you to keep.

I have likened this to Pandora, but with your personal iTunes database as the playlist and Apple's 18 million songs to draw from."

Neither of these hold true. The song doesn't have to be on the iTunes database (unlike Spotify or Pandora); you're allowed to upload songs to the cloud to listen to at any time. Moreover, you don't just "get access" to iTunes' 18 million songs; you have to have purchased the song previously (or obtained it through other means) and demonstrated to the software that you have possession of it.

As for the music disappearing, that doesn't happen either. You won't any longer be able to stream the files to your other devices from iCloud, but all of the actual files still remain on your original computer. Once again, you have to demonstrate to iTunes that you have the files to begin with - so they're already on your computer. Additionally, anything you purchase from iTunes (which is the route they want you to take, obviously) is always available for redownload to any of your approved devices whether you sign up for iCloud or not.

 

[tipp]

...and the world has adjusted to it while audiophiles who care about quality suffer.

You're not suffering. You're just not being catered to because you are part of a miniscule and difficult to please minority. Still, before MP3 players came along, you couldn't listen to your music anywhere besides your padded, super expensive, custom listening room with $10k speakers and tube amplifiers. Now you can listen to your music anywhere and that technology is pretty amazing. You can even listen to your lossless tracks preloaded on a mobile device with a portable amp and really good headphones and come somewhat close to that magical sound that you need to stay away from horrific suffering and pain.

But at some point, you need to realize that your needs are really hindering your appreciation of technology and life and maybe even music because you just have to have it all perfect and can't experience it in non-perfect situations (sports, driving, walking, etc). It also make you sound like an entitled... Well, have you ever thought that you can maybe trade some of that need for perfection for amazing convenience?

Stop whining.

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This pretty much proves that streaming is exactly what it's doing. You can choose to skip to a different part of the song if you want, and it rebuffers the new portion and plays directly without you having to download the entire song.

Apple can call it what they want for legal sake, but it's streaming.

Incorrect. He had already played the song once when he did that. It was fully cached, so he could skip around the entire song.

 

[pmz]

In other words, it works EXACTLY how previous rumors from months ago suggested it would work....streaming that isn't really streaming as we know, but better, by downloading to local cache instantaneously a section of the song, enabling instant playback, then following through with the rest.

Again, all of this was detailed in a rumor a long, long while ago. Someone should dig that up to see who it was that was so spot on.

 

[blybug]

Well, have you ever thought that you can maybe trade some of that need for perfection for amazing convenience?

Well played.

 

[SirHaakon]

Incorrect. He had already played the song once when he did that. It was fully cached, so he could skip around the entire song.

I will be willing to put money on the fact that you'll be able to pick any song from your "cloud" list and skip to any part of the song you want before you've listened to the whole thing.

ETA: I went back and rewatched the video and you are incorrect; he is playing a song called "Vegas," and then taps "Love Song;" you can see it's streaming from the cloud as it needs to buffer a few seconds before it plays (it's not stored in his cache), and then he quickly scrubs to 4:12 where you can plainly see it sits for another few seconds while it buffers and begins to stream again. You can downrate me all you want, but it won't change the way the service works.

ETA: Additionally, you can see from this video that only one song stays in the cache at any time, so "Love Song" wouldn't be in the cache anymore (if the obvious buffer time didn't prove it to you already).

 

[pmz]

You're not suffering. You're just not being catered to because you are part of a miniscule and difficult to please minority. Still, before MP3 players came along, you couldn't listen to your music anywhere besides your padded, super expensive, custom listening room with $10k speakers and tube amplifiers. Now you can listen to your music anywhere and that technology is pretty amazing. You can even listen to your lossless tracks preloaded on a mobile device with a portable amp and really good headphones and come somewhat close to that magical sound that you need to stay away from horrific suffering and pain.

But at some point, you need to realize that your needs are really hindering your appreciation of technology and life and maybe even music because you just have to have it all perfect and can't experience it in non-perfect situations (sports, driving, walking, etc). It also make you sound like an entitled... Well, have you ever thought that you can maybe trade some of that need for perfection for amazing convenience?

Stop whining

You know, you're wrong. Lossless audio is the only kind of audio thats interesting to me, when it comes to my personal collection. I tolerate other bit rates, but not for music I truly care about.

Live performances should never be listened to in anything other than lossless, or you're simply listening to a bunch of noise.

 

[aohus]

You know, you're wrong. Lossless audio is the only kind of audio thats interesting to me, when it comes to my personal collection. I tolerate other bit rates, but not for music I truly care about.

Live performances should never be listened to in anything other than lossless, or you're simply listening to a bunch of noise.

wow. most folks do NOT care about audio quality as long as its within 128kbps - 320kbps range. simply, audiophiles are not Apple's demographic.

you know lots of regular folks that carry around $500 open cans? or even $200 in-ear buds for that matter?

it doesn't make sense.

YEAH MAN, lets PUT 400MB lossless files onto the cloud, and play it whilst listening to it with my generic iPod buds, while the carriers crumble from the load.

Most folks do not even know how to get FLAC for that matter.

 

[basesloaded190]

You know, you're wrong. Lossless audio is the only kind of audio thats interesting to me, when it comes to my personal collection. I tolerate other bit rates, but not for music I truly care about.

Live performances should never be listened to in anything other than lossless, or you're simply listening to a bunch of noise.

No offense, but that sounds awful pretentious. I know it's just music and quality of it, but come on.

 

[pmz]

No offense, but that sounds awful pretentious. I know it's just music and quality of it, but come on.

Its far from pretentious.

Its not my problem if the average dope can't hear the world of difference between full quality and something that has been nearly destroyed for the sake of convenience.

Even with a $5 set of ear buds, you can hear a world of difference between a 256 kbps rip and Apple lossless, and thats not even true lossless, or quality speakers.

Once you go lossless you never go back. You simply can't. Mp3 is garbage, so is AAC, and there is simply no denying it. Everyone else merely tolerates it or doesn't know the difference.

Calling me pretentious because of your own ignorance is wrong.

 

[aohus]

Its far from pretentious.

Its not my problem if the average dope can't hear the world of difference between full quality and something that has been nearly destroyed for the sake of convenience.

Calling me pretentious because of your own ignorance is wrong.

you're getting more pretentious there buddy.

 

[SirHaakon]

Its far from pretentious.

Its not my problem if the average dope can't hear...

You've pretty much defined pretentious right there.

 

[basesloaded190]

Its far from pretentious.

Its not my problem if the average dope can't hear the world of difference between full quality and something that has been nearly destroyed for the sake of convenience.

Even with a $5 set of ear buds, you can hear a world of difference between a 256 kbps rip and Apple lossless, and thats not even true lossless, or quality speakers.

Once you go lossless you never go back. You simply can't. Mp3 is garbage, so is AAC, and there is simply no denying it. Everyone else merely tolerates it or doesn't know the difference.

Calling me pretentious because of your own ignorance is wrong.

Calm down. I have just about every quality of music that you can have from 128 all the way to Apple lossless so back off. I have equipment and can hear the difference.

I'm just saying your making it seem like listening to something that isn't lossless is the equivalent to putting in headphones and hearing the dentist drill away at your teeth, which it's not.

 

[Peace]

Its far from pretentious.

Its not my problem if the average dope can't hear the world of difference between full quality and something that has been nearly destroyed for the sake of convenience.

Even with a $5 set of ear buds, you can hear a world of difference between a 256 kbps rip and Apple lossless, and thats not even true lossless, or quality speakers.

Once you go lossless you never go back. You simply can't. Mp3 is garbage, so is AAC, and there is simply no denying it. Everyone else merely tolerates it or doesn't know the difference.

Calling me pretentious because of your own ignorance is wrong.

I agree with the premise and might add this analogy.

Mp3 is to true lossless as AM Radio is to FM Stereo through a top of the line amplifier.

There's a convenience factor involved.

 

[Dcuellar]

Why is this so difficult to grasp. All it is is a cache. If you've used streaming apps like audiogalaxy or iSub to stream your music from home you would know exactly how it works. It stores it locally temporarily.

With iSub however, you can designate when these cached songs get deleted. For example, I have it set with an allotted disk space of 10gb. Once it reaches that limit the oldest played songs from the cache is automatically deleted to make room for more songs.

If apple doesn't add that feature, I'm sure a jailbreak developer will. It is a great way to save data because you can set albums or songs to cache while your at home on wifi in preparation for a long trip or the gym.

As for the comment about songs being deleted from the hard drive... These songs are being deleted because the user chose to stream, not download them. If they downloaded them it would be on the hard drive until physically deleted.

 

[SirHaakon]

First you stated this:

The majority of users either go with the comfort of Apple's remote and mic or with cheap Skullcandy/JVC/etc. which don't even come close to replicating the fidelity of lossless music.

and now your companion states this:

Even with a $5 set of ear buds, you can hear a world of difference between a 256 kbps rip and Apple lossless, and thats not even true lossless, or quality speakers.

Pick an argument.

People, don't feed the trolls.

 

[basesloaded190]

First you stated this:



and now your companion states this:



Pick an argument.

People, don't feed the trolls.

You quoted two different users there

 

[SirHaakon]

You quoted two different users there

Yep. The point is they are both arguing against compression (which has been publicly accepted for over a decade, no changing that) but using opposing arguments to back their stance. Whether you "prefer" uncompressed material or not, the file has to come down a mediocre 3G pipe and start playing instantly and reliably on a user's device. You can't do that with 40 MB files, so that whole discussion is moot.