'iTunes Match' Allows Both Streaming and Downloading of Music

[MacRumors]

Apple released a developer beta of the iTunes Match system this evening. The system is described by Apple as follows:

iTunes Match stores your complete music library in iCloud, allowing you to enjoy your collection anywhere, anytime, on any iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or computer.

Insanely Great Mac provides this nice walkthrough video which shows you how the service works. It also shows that this is both a streaming and downloading service.

Article Link: 'iTunes Match' Allows Both Streaming and Downloading of Music​

 

[rockametrics]

Sweet!! Can't wait

 

[xelfer]

He says $25/month at the end, I'm assuming he meant /year.

 

[senohpoxas88]

Time Delay

Anyone else's match service taking more of "days and not minutes"?

 

[Cheerwino]

This $25 is burning a hole in my pocket! Apple, I need to give it to you NOW!

 

[Mjmar]

will you be able to stream your music to an iOS device?

 

[Yumunum]

Wow... They should've mentioned this from the start.

I remember lots of people (including myself) expressing my disappointment that you couldn't stream, thus making you buy the higher GB'd models to store your music. So many people were let down. But apparently you can stream, so yay

 

[arn]

will you be able to stream your music to an iOS device?

Yes. it's mentioned in the article multiple times.

arn

 

[Cynicalone]

Will the streaming work over 3G? If so I'm sure AT&T and Verizon will not like that.

 

[Icaras]

Yes! The news I've been waiting for.

Very very happy to hear you can stream your iTunes library. Hopefully you can also create playlists or play whole albums from start to finish.

 

[saxon48]

Horray for streaming!!!

 

[magiic]

I hope this makes it to Canada in a timely fashion.

 

[smallnshort247]

I like this new feature. I'd totally pay 25 a year for it. I plan on eventually selling my MacBook Pro, and getting a Mac Pro along w/ a 11inch MacBook Air. Now I can keep all my music on the Mac pro and stream my music on the MBA when I'm traveling. Saves lots of SSD space.

 

[MiWall81]

This $25 is burning a hole in my pocket! Apple, I need to give it to you NOW!

Funny!

(Yes, not the most constructive post, but why thumbs down? Laugh a little...! I love apple products and reading posts as much as the next guy... I had to give myself a thumbs up to go to -4... holla!)

 

[Icaras]

I like this new feature. I'd totally pay 25 a year for it. I plan on eventually selling my MacBook Pro, and getting a Mac Pro along w/ a 11inch MacBook Air. Now I can keep all my music on the Mac pro and stream my music on the MBA when I'm traveling. Saves lots of SSD space.

Let's not give any ideas to Apple. Keep it at $25/y.

Edit: Sorry, I could have sworn you typed $25/month.

 

[lukecro]

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

What if you have over 25,000 tracks in iTunes - can you pay extra to "iTunes match" the extra tracks?

 

[pdjudd]

According to the OP, yes.

 

[benh911f]

AT&T, you're gonna have to pry my unlimited data from my cold, dead hands.

Until the inevitable day when you take it away even from customers who are grandfathered in.

 

[Mjmar]

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

will you be able to stream your music to an iOS device?

Yes. it's mentioned in the article multiple times.

arn

On an iOS device would you need to go into the iTunes app to stream or would all your songs appear in the iPod?

 

[iLilana]

i predict a bait and switch

1 month after this is live they will change it to be more restrictive. You know what really needs to happen? apple needs to buy the RIAA.

 

[blybug]

What the little demo didn't show is what exactly happens with that file he downloaded. Is it accessible in the Finder to be "kept forever" or has the computer truly become just another iOS-style "device" where the underlying file system is not really accessible, and the downloaded track is only visible or able to manipulated from within iTunes? Is the iTunes Library now like the iPhoto Library?

Personally I don't care, but there were some heated arguments a while back about whether iTunes Match would be purely streaming or would actually let customers "keep" all the 256kbps files they could possibly download/hoard, essentially making it an all-you-can-eat buffet for a one-time $25 fee. Looks like the streaming is clearly in place, but whether or not downloading means "for keeps" remains to be seen. My prediction: no.

Also curious if the latest iTunes will close the CD-burning loophole. Apple's deal with the record companies on this is suddenly believable if all the tracks are "trapped" inside of iTunes on the various devices, including computers.

 

[Yamcha]

For $25/year this is a great deal..

 

[Eddie Bombay]

Will the streaming work over 3G? If so I'm sure AT&T and Verizon will not like that.

Are you kidding me? Of course they're going to love it since everyone will be going over their data and need to upgrade which means more money in their pockets.

 

[RockTheGlobe]

AT&T, you're gonna have to pry my unlimited data from my cold, dead hands.

Until the inevitable day when you take away even customers who are grandfathered in.

My unlimited data plan with AT&T isn't worth the money I'm paying for it since I barely have a signal anywhere within 5 miles of my apartment. Grandfathering be damned, I'm jumping to Verizon once the iPhone 5 comes out. Maybe then I'll actually be able to use my iPhone for more than just Angry Birds and Solitaire.

 

[Frankied22]

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

Have fun streaming all that music when you're away from wifi over 3G with those data caps. But hey! At least it will be blazing fast speeds right?