In iOS 6, iTunes Match Actually Supports Both Streaming and Downloading of Music

[tigress666]

Some people haven't had their iPhone 4 for 2 years. You can still buy an 8GB iPhone 4 from a lot of carriers.

And those, especially those buying the 8 GB iPHone 4, should have realized they are buying older tech that isn't going to have as many of the newer features...

It's one reason I didn't just go ahead and buy a 4S when my contract was up in February, I figured if I am going to spend money on a new iPHone, I want it to be really new (That and the speed of it didn't wow me enough so I figured I'd wait to see what the 5 has. But I do believe Apple aims each iphone at those who have a 2 year old iphone and don't really expect many with one year old iphones to change... meaning you won't see a big change from your year old iphone to the new one, you'll see more when your iphone is 2 years old. Yes, planned obsolescence in a way but at least they plan it for 2 years).

 

[69650]

Too little too late. 25 bucks to stream music I already own and already have on my computer anyway. Get real.

The iTunes music store is toast. Why pay to buy compressed music when I can get all the music I want for £5 or £10 a month with Spotify. I'd rather discover music on Spotify and then if I really like the album I'll go buy the CD and rip into my computer in glorious lossless sound.

Unless iTunes adopts a Spotify like subscription service or starts selling lossless music it's dead.

 

[badNameErr]

...you are not supposed to have a phone for longer than 2 years.

Right on! The sooner we can pass laws jailing people with +2 year old phones the better. Get 'em off the street. That's what I say.

 

[capcaveman]

Hopefully they'll do something about the performance of iTunes Match and the censoring of imported explicit albums in iOS 6. Right now iTunes match slows my iPod touch 4th gen to a crawl, even when I'm not downloading music and it makes iTunes unbearably unresponsive when I am using it. I don't know why Apple can't figure out what Amazon, Google and Dropbox have already done with no problems, but it's the worst cloud storage service I've ever used. I'd stop using it altogether if that didn't mean having to go back to using a cord to get my music on my iPod all the time. And even then on some days I think the cord would be better.

Could not agree more, I signed up for Match today thinking I'd save some space but it's absolutely horrible. If you are used to being able to get to your music right away and have the ipod experience on your phone you will be very dissapointed. I couldn't believe it actually deletes all your music from your phone and then you have to redownload it. I know I should have read a little closer beforehand but I didn't expect apple to put out something so horrible. Hopefully they'll make a ton of improvements. So far it's way easier to use DropBox and the SongBox player.

 

[Tinmania]

Nothing has changed except the download cloud is separate from the play.

It still downloads the data. I just tested it.

They tested it with different results.

I tested it with mixed results: sometimes it downloaded, but other times it did not.

It is far too early to say definitively how the end result will be. However, being that the cloud download icon is now present in album or artist view, plus the ability to download all tracks in a playl I would say they are leaning towards having it stream or download.

Personally, I would rather it work that way (stream or download). I do not want it to download a track that I just happened to play but really don't want to download (nor do I want to remember to delete it).

For those worried about not having access during commutes without data and whatnot: there is no worry. You can easily download an entire playlist while on wifi (or 3G if you don't mind the data). You can also easily switch off "show all music" so only the locally stored tracks will be available to play.




Michael

 

[Born Again]

$25 to stream your own music?

we can stream for free using audiogalaxy :hmm: why pay?

 

[Tinmania]

Too little too late. 25 bucks to stream music I already own and already have on my computer anyway. Get real.

The iTunes music store is toast. Why pay to buy compressed music when I can get all the music I want for £5 or £10 a month with Spotify. I'd rather discover music on Spotify and then if I really like the album I'll go buy the CD and rip into my computer in glorious lossless sound.

Unless iTunes adopts a Spotify like subscription service or starts selling lossless music it's dead.

It's great that you want that. I, and I am sure others, do not. I do not want to "rent" music when I already have a collection large enough for my needs (and free regular or streaming radio to discover new stuff).

You don't seem to get the point of Match, however. You see my collection is too large to store on my portable devices. My solution before Match was to sync a playlist that was much smaller than my music collection. That was not a very good solution compared to Match: now I have access to all my music. Plus, it syncs playlists--and any changes made to them--across all devices.

iTunes Match really does compare to Spotify, in my opinion. But if you want to compare on price, since you brought it up, over a year Match is a fraction of what Spotify costs. Seems silly to even compare that. It's like saying my water bill is a fraction of what my car payment is.

EDIT: I didn't touch on the two other aspects of Match, which can be huge. One, the fact that you don't have to upload most of your library. Two, no matter what quality the tracks you have are, you can download 256kbps AAC versions from the cloud. You can keep them even if you do not re-subscribe to Match. For someone who has been ripping CDs since 1998, and was not looking forward to doing the old stuff over again, this was a godsend.


Michael

 

[getinline1]

Also, undownloaded iTunes match songs no longer appear in the download tab of ITMS on iOS. Either it's using a new method (which I suspect) or they are just hiding iTunes match downloads there now.

 

[TheoW593]

I'm just wondering: what does iTunes Match offer that Google Music doesn't for free? I was so close to buying Match then I discovered Google Music.

The long upload time for Google Music didn't matter to me with my work connection.

I know Google Music doesn't have an official app, but gMusic (3rd party) is good enough.

 

[Dcuellar]

They tested it with different results.

I tested it with mixed results: sometimes it downloaded, but other times it did not.

It is far too early to say definitively how the end result will be. However, being that the cloud download icon is now present in album or artist view, plus the ability to download all tracks in a playl I would say they are leaning towards having it stream or download.

Personally, I would rather it work that way (stream or download). I do not want it to download a track that I just happened to play but really don't want to download (nor do I want to remember to delete it).

For those worried about not having access during commutes without data and whatnot: there is no worry. You can easily download an entire playlist while on wifi (or 3G if you don't mind the data). You can also easily switch off "show all music" so only the locally stored tracks will be available to play.




Michael

How are the tests being done? The video shows the reviewer on WiFi. Maybe there are different actions.

 

[Dcuellar]

I'm just wondering: what does iTunes Match offer that Google Music doesn't for free? I was so close to buying Match then I discovered Google Music.

The long upload time for Google Music didn't matter to me with my work connection.

I know Google Music doesn't have an official app, but gMusic (3rd party) is good enough.

I'm bored, so I thought I'd answer this.

If you are an iTunes user, it is convenient to have it across all devices. Ratings, Cover Art, metadata, play counts, playlists, etc.

Also, I like coverflow. As someone who is OCD with metadata on my collection I love that I can view it in that manner.

Personally, I use iTunes Match to listen to music directly on the iPhone with headphones. If I am in the car or connecting the device to a better sounding speaker I will use iSub which streams my collection at it's original file quality. My collection is all FLAC and it handles it beautifully. Both services offer a way to stream/download content but iSub handles it better and gives the user more control of that experience. Hopefully Apple is headed in that direction with their music. I can easily transcode these files to ALAC if that meant that they are streamed/downloaded at that quality.

 

[arnette]

Too little too late. 25 bucks to stream music I already own and already have on my computer anyway. Get real.

The iTunes music store is toast. Why pay to buy compressed music when I can get all the music I want for £5 or £10 a month with Spotify. I'd rather discover music on Spotify and then if I really like the album I'll go buy the CD and rip into my computer in glorious lossless sound.

Unless iTunes adopts a Spotify like subscription service or starts selling lossless music it's dead.

+1 for iTunes subscription service.

I use Zune Pass for $10/mo and it's great. I can stream while on mobile, too, if I wanted. Or download various tracks so they play locally (though copyright-protected). Only crap thing is I need to use WP7 devices or the Zune program.

But I digress. I don't get how (1) people have 20,000 tracks and need access too all of them at all times and (2) why you'd pay money to listen to the tracks you already have.
A lot of people either are music whores or have a lot of illegally collected mp3s from various sources.

The tech behind iTunes Match is novel... but that's about it.

 

[Tinmania]

+1 for iTunes subscription service.

I use Zune Pass for $10/mo and it's great. I can stream while on mobile, too, if I wanted. Or download various tracks so they play locally (though copyright-protected). Only crap thing is I need to use WP7 devices or the Zune program.

But I digress. I don't get how (1) people have 20,000 tracks and need access too all of them at all times and (2) why you'd pay money to listen to the tracks you already have.
A lot of people either are music whores or have a lot of illegally collected mp3s from various sources.

The tech behind iTunes Match is novel... but that's about it.

Sure, that must be it, since you have no other way to imagine it. If you don't understand they must be a whore or a thief. Wonderful.

Personally, I don't get how someone can be ignorant about iTunes Match, which is only $25 per year, while at the same time boasting about spending $120 per year to rent music. <shrug>




Michael

----------

How are the tests being done? The video shows the reviewer on WiFi. Maybe there are different actions.

Not sure if WiFi or 3G matters, but I will test that.

What I think they are going for is when you either see the cloud icon--which is is set apart from the individual track compared to how it was pre-iOS 6--or choose a "download all" option in a play list in order to force a download.

For me just playing a track is hit-or-miss. But these three methods clearly download:

1.) Tapping the cloud icon when viewing an album (all tracks in album download).

2.) Tapping the cloud icon when viewing tracks by artist (again, all tracks are downloaded for that artist).

3.) Scrolling to the bottom of a playlist and choosing to download all.


I would not mind if those three methods be the only way to download to the device (other than itunes).

Or perhaps there will be an option added to Settings to choose whether playing any song will also download it. This would be perfect, in my opinion (along with the other 3 methods).



Michael

 

[charlituna]

But it's not Spotify. You can't search for an artist you don't have and stream can you?

No. You can't

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If the stream also works on my new retina MacBook Pro, then it'll save so much space.

It does now

Now they need to get iTunes to show what movies, tv shows, books and apps we bought and can download in our collections instead of having to go to the store

 

[bosephus61]

It seems we are going in opposite directions with respect to what Apple wants and what the carriers (att,verizon, etc.) want. With all the majors switching to capped plans and doing away with unlimited -- gives me real pause to want to rely on a cloud service for anything other than the essentials (mail/web) while mobile... For me, it made more sense to just get the larger footprint phones (32GB+) and sync what I want.

Until Apple become a MVNO with unlimited data; not sure this will be of any interest to me.

 

[larrylaffer]

Too little too late. 25 bucks to stream music I already own and already have on my computer anyway. Get real.

The iTunes music store is toast. Why pay to buy compressed music when I can get all the music I want for £5 or £10 a month with Spotify. I'd rather discover music on Spotify and then if I really like the album I'll go buy the CD and rip into my computer in glorious lossless sound.

Unless iTunes adopts a Spotify like subscription service or starts selling lossless music it's dead.

>complain about compressed audio source
>uses spotify

cool story bro.

 

[arnette]

Sure, that must be it, since you have no other way to imagine it. If you don't understand they must be a whore or a thief. Wonderful.

Personally, I don't get how someone can be ignorant about iTunes Match, which is only $25 per year, while at the same time boasting about spending $120 per year to rent music. <shrug>




Michael
Michael

----------

Let's take the 15,000 song example:

10 songs per album = 1500 albums
12 dollars per album = $18,000 in music purchases?

Or, like you said, $120 a year. If I live for 50 more years (wow!) that would only be $6000. And that's access to EVERYTHING in the catalog - not just the 15,000 songs I would have originally had.

So maybe YOU'RE not a music whore. You must have spent the $18,000.

 

[OTACORB]

If this holds true for the final release of iOS6, I may actually renew my MM sub.

 

[Tinmania]

----------

Let's take the 15,000 song example:

10 songs per album = 1500 albums
12 dollars per album = $18,000 in music purchases?

Or, like you said, $120 a year. If I live for 50 more years (wow!) that would only be $6000. And that's access to EVERYTHING in the catalog - not just the 15,000 songs I would have originally had.

So maybe YOU'RE not a music whore. You must have spent the $18,000.

I'm glad you know what I "must" have done, spent, whatever. I won't waste my time explaining to you the difference between buying CDs over the last 25 years versus... Nah, I can see by the caps it would be pointless.



Michael

 

[OTACORB]

----------

Let's take the 15,000 song example:

10 songs per album = 1500 albums
12 dollars per album = $18,000 in music purchases?

Or, like you said, $120 a year. If I live for 50 more years (wow!) that would only be $6000. And that's access to EVERYTHING in the catalog - not just the 15,000 songs I would have originally had.

So maybe YOU'RE not a music whore. You must have spent the $18,000.

I think your right for younger folks, but many folks were from a generation when music was purchased. If they already spent the kind of money you are talking about, it would now be pretty stupid to just ignore their library and go with a music service. I can tell you that I probably have about 26 albums that I know of that isn't on any music service and there are many artist now that are withdrawing their support for the all you can eat model. That list is actually growing, because artist are so poorly compensated.

The bottom line is these music service work for some, don't work for others and there are other types of services like Music Match, Google Music and Amazon's Cloud Music. Those services seem to be doing pretty well too. The good news is that we all have choice and what you deem as a waste of money, fits just right for someone else.

I currently have MOG for my music service as in my opinion it kicks the crap out of Spotify. They named it right because most of the genre's I like their library is spotty as best, not to mention the bulk of their library isn't higher quality audio. Don't get me started on all that Karaoke crap in their library. My Music Match service is my back up for my great library of music that I collected during my early years. I haven't purchased music probably in the last 10 years. However, my old library is fantastic and Music Match works for me, especially the fact that it works across my Mac's and iOS devices. My music collection is always with me and its premo.

 

[jctevere]

All I can say is, good thing I still have my unlimited data with songs coming in around 7-8MB's... lol.

 

[arnette]

I think your right for younger folks, but many folks were from a generation when music was purchased. If they already spent the kind of money you are talking about, it would now be pretty stupid to just ignore their library and go with a music service. I can tell you that I probably have about 26 albums that I know of that isn't on any music service and there are many artist now that are withdrawing their support for the all you can eat model. That list is actually growing, because artist are so poorly compensated.

The bottom line is these music service work for some, don't work for others and there are other types of services like Music Match, Google Music and Amazon's Cloud Music. Those services seem to be doing pretty well too. The good news is that we all have choice and what you deem as a waste of money, fits just right for someone else.

I currently have MOG for my music service as in my opinion it kicks the crap out of Spotify. They named it right because most of the genre's I like their library is spotty as best, not to mention the bulk of their library isn't higher quality audio. Don't get me started on all that Karaoke crap in their library. My Music Match service is my back for my great library of music that I collected during my early years. I have purchased music probably in the last 10 years. However, my old library is fantastic and Music Match works for me.

I appreciate your mediation. And I don't mean that sarcastically. I think you understand my point that only for an extremely small population of iTunes users does iTunes Match do what was intended. To make legally purchased music available throughout the entire iTunes ecosystem via streaming.

HOWEVER. And this is a deliberate use of all-capital-letters.

The vast majority of people using iTunes Match who have over and iPod's worth of songs are either skimming by copyright headaches or can't decide what songs to put on said iPod. Again, math:

3 hrs straight of listening to music = 60 songs at 3 min apiece
365 days listening to 3 hrs a day = 21720 songs (no repeats)

That's impressive. I wish I had kind of free time. (oh but you have free time to comment on this thread??) Yeah, today I do.

But if you don't listen to all of those songs constantly for a year is iTunes Match such a breakthrough thing? Wouldn't discovering all-new songs via a subscription service be a better way to go? Doesn't drumming up interest in an iTunes Subscription make kicking up a stink worthy of this thread?

 

[Spooner83]

Is this beta the first of many releases until the golden master, like they usually do before a new iOS is released? or is this the only version before the golden master?

 

[_Refurbished_]

On the surface, this looks great. The big issue? I can't enable iTunes match without it killing my battery. And by killing my battery, I mean MURDERING it. I enable almost every major battery draining setting on my iPhone, but nothing comes close to what iTunes Match, in terms of drainage.

I thought I'd be able to turn on iTunes Match for times I had USB enabled in my car.....but can't do it. Once you enable iTunes match on your iPhone, it screws up your manual syncing with iTunes. It's not like you can turn it on / off at will. It's either always on, or always off . Shame really. Maybe in a few years it will be worthwhile, but right now, I use it to backup my music / create 256kb iTunes quality for lower quality songs.

 

[mancub]

I feel like a sucker for getting match. Its been nothing but trouble. There's many cases where it matched the wrong song (i.e. foreign version etc.) and now it causes some sort of iPhone error where songs that were once on the cloud but are now local are unplayable. Just freezes at 0:00. I just haven't had time to troubleshoot, but man what a nuisance!