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'iTunes Match' Allows Both Streaming and Downloading of Music
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LOL, distinction without a difference. Seems to me this is a smart move by Apple. I know when a song catches my mood I often want to listen to it 2-3 more times. With a small, smartly-managed audio cache, this would lessen the load on Apple's servers.
Consider the case where you're "streaming" a newly purchased track and you say to your SO/buddy/mom "you've gotta hear this" and then you start the song playing over again. For those cases it's just saved Apple (and potentially your data plan!) another 4-10MB download because it's already cached on your device from the first time you played it.
So long as the cache is small and managed automatically, this is a streaming service, even if Apple doesn't wish to use that term.
This is really the best way to do it on a mobile platform... If you were to stream live you'd likely gets breaks in the playback do to wireless connectivity variances. Downloading the whole song essentially create a buffer so that if your service degrades or drops, the songs keep playing. I believe most services even download the next few songs in your queue, it makes the experience much better. In my opinion, if it plays as soon as you hit play, and it deletes itself after the song is over, then it qualifies as "streaming". If you have to wait for it to completely download the song, you could argue the latter.
I'm on the beta. Testing between two computers - computer 1 and 2. The local tracks from computer 1 appear on computer 2 as iCloud-only tracks, which makes sense, but they are mostly greyed out. The only tracks I can play / download are tracks that I had bought via the iTunes store using the same account that I used to subscribe to iTunes Match with.
Any ideas? I thought if any songs on your disc were matched with iTunes Match songs, you would get access to higher-quality AAC files, regardless of whether you bought those tracks on itunes or not, from any other device.
Maybe this feature isn't fully implemented yet?
Any ideas? I thought if any songs on your disc were matched with iTunes Match songs, you would get access to higher-quality AAC files, regardless of whether you bought those tracks on itunes or not, from any other device.
Maybe this feature isn't fully implemented yet?
I don't want anything coming from Apple's "master copy." I've made tons of changes in my iTunes database to fix incorrect song titles, correctly list double albums, add the correct album art, etc., plus maintain a lot of the metadata. In fact that's what makes my iTunes DB so valuable to me and I sure don't want it replaced by some generic copy.
BTW, how the heck does Abbey Road show up as "Unknown Artist"?
BTW, how the heck does Abbey Road show up as "Unknown Artist"?
I'm curious if you have to navigate/search for each individual song to play or can you do like streaming services and hit "play" and sit back and listen to a while CD or even a "shuffle" type thing. Seems pretty tedious to have to select each individual song separately to play it and not at all what people expect from "streaming" and not very practical.
You are not even close. It takes far less than 1 minute to rip one track to Apple Lossless on my old CD 1.66 Mac Mini. (no doubt faster on faster machines) Some whole CDs can rip in a minute. And Lossless sounds just fine in my system. I am nowhere near the 50000 mark, but I did rip a few thousand songs from my 1000+ CD collection a few years ago. It took me 2 months to do it since I can't just sit there not sleeping and working. And I picked through, did not just rip every song I own.
I actually re-ripped my collection from Lossless to 256k aac recently to store more easily on my iPhone. (that took 8 hours or something on a C2D 2.4 Mini, I didn't sit and watch) On such a device, I really can't hear the difference enough to matter, and I'd rather have more songs available. I will have to see exactly how Match works to see if I keep the 256k versions or what.
I finished the "Step 2" part of matching, and I must say, Apple has to improve it's matching algorithm! I have an album of 5000 songs (maybe 1000 of which are obscure and would have needed uploading), and itunes only matched 800. I'm going to be uploading for days, which is absolutely ridiculous!
You mean they'd go online and find a bunch of illegal copies, get the checksums of those (along with whatever metadata may be unique), and match to those?
I guess that could flag some illegal copies, but that's a huge amount of work for not a lot of benefit. On the user end, tags are easy enough to change (especially wiping out the "comments" tag which is the common one to have things added by the ripper). For the audio data itself, it would be easy enough to just convert any rejected files to a different bitrate and the checksum thing goes out the window. Filenames, you'd only be able to reject ones that had obvious "pirate" things since files named with title/artist/album in whatever configuration could appear in illegal ones but also in legal ones as well.
Basically to know a file is pirated, they'd need to find the exact same version of that pirated file online and be able to recognize it. And hope that the user doesn't take a couple simple steps to change the file. Maybe Apple will try that, but it seems to impractical and ineffective to be worth the trouble. My guess is that at this point just as many legal tracks aren't getting recognized as illegal ones - Apple has a hard enough time recognizing legal tracks (and already was having trouble in the case of album art), I would hope their first priority would be putting most of their effort into making recognizing tracks work as well as possible.
Sounds like you're misunderstanding how it works. It's not upsampling files, when the user has a lower bitrate file the cloud provides a 256 file instead. Not actually increasing the bitrate, just swapping for a completely different file that was in a higher bitrate in the first place.
That's just buffering the file to disk. If there's no perceptible difference or disadvantage compared to "true" streaming, I doubt anybody cares about quibbling over semantics. The only downside I see to buffering the full file would be if you have a habit of constantly listening to just the beginnings of songs, and I can't imagine many people doing that much.
So after the recent posts, I wonder, is there any difference between
(1) streaming which actually downloads a (temp?) copy to your device, so you only download it once if you play it twice
(2) downloading a copy to your device which can start playing as soon as you press 'play'?
If not, then the fight over 'this is actually streaming, not downloading' or vice-versa is silly because they are exactly the same thing.
Like bookemdano said, it's a distinction without a difference. As a result, whatever Apple calls it or not, it's irrelevant since it's the same thing.
(1) streaming which actually downloads a (temp?) copy to your device, so you only download it once if you play it twice
(2) downloading a copy to your device which can start playing as soon as you press 'play'?
If not, then the fight over 'this is actually streaming, not downloading' or vice-versa is silly because they are exactly the same thing.
Like bookemdano said, it's a distinction without a difference. As a result, whatever Apple calls it or not, it's irrelevant since it's the same thing.
That certainly fits in with my kids. Just bought a couple CDs earlier this month. Haven't even gotten them out of the car to rip into a computer. They just want to hear the same 3 songs over and over.
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You can use that 128 kbps option in iTunes you know
It sucked. Horribly sucked. Like....Win95 level sucked. Some songs were actually playing some weird noises. I gave that up instantly.
Hey guys, just to verify my current understanding --
1) Unlike Spotify (Rhapsody, etc.), this service will not allow you to browse unlimited music, merely to spread that music which you already own to multiple devices.
2) It will, however, allow you to upgrade the music you own to 256 (assuming it's a song that iTunes has, etc.).
Is that right? Thanks!
1) Unlike Spotify (Rhapsody, etc.), this service will not allow you to browse unlimited music, merely to spread that music which you already own to multiple devices.
2) It will, however, allow you to upgrade the music you own to 256 (assuming it's a song that iTunes has, etc.).
Is that right? Thanks!
Can someone please explain the differences between Apple's $25 service and Google's free cloud based music service? As a Mac and iOS owner, I'm trying to figure out if there's much difference here.
Seems that most all of my music went up to the cloud. From my MBP I have access to all my tunes (most of which are 256) of course the non-matched ones stayed whatever they were on my iMac (most around 256/190 or whatever). But seems to be working well on my iPhone, iPad and MBP. I have access to all 8000 songs that were on my iMac. Some are still grayed out (on the devices) but it's still in the process of updating but more keep getting non-gray as it chugs along.
It's still in an updating phase on my iMac but isn't it suppose to convert all "matched" files to 256 on my iMac as well?? Or will I have to delete them and re-download em??? Anyone who finished the process 100% know if it converted the originals yet or just for what's up in the cloud??
It's still in an updating phase on my iMac but isn't it suppose to convert all "matched" files to 256 on my iMac as well?? Or will I have to delete them and re-download em??? Anyone who finished the process 100% know if it converted the originals yet or just for what's up in the cloud??
RIAA: Let's charge them to listen to their own music.
Apple: It's the perfect plan.
While on the surface iTunes Match looks like a great service with a lot of promise, it's really nothing but smoke and mirrors.
With iOS 5 I'll be able to sync my own songs to my iOS device for FREE. If I'm in the mood for a certain artist or genre one day, I'll sync accordingly. No longer will I have to deal with tedious backups and syncs when all I really want is to add an album or two. No matter how ferocious your music appetite, you can listen to one song at a time. So, I'll take those two or so minutes out of my day and pocket that $25.
Let's not even get into the fact that most data plans are limited and music streaming is one of its many usages. And what about when I'm underground or in a bad area where the signal isn't great.
Local storage is the way to go.
Thanks Apple, but no thanks.
Apple: It's the perfect plan.
While on the surface iTunes Match looks like a great service with a lot of promise, it's really nothing but smoke and mirrors.
With iOS 5 I'll be able to sync my own songs to my iOS device for FREE. If I'm in the mood for a certain artist or genre one day, I'll sync accordingly. No longer will I have to deal with tedious backups and syncs when all I really want is to add an album or two. No matter how ferocious your music appetite, you can listen to one song at a time. So, I'll take those two or so minutes out of my day and pocket that $25.
Let's not even get into the fact that most data plans are limited and music streaming is one of its many usages. And what about when I'm underground or in a bad area where the signal isn't great.
Local storage is the way to go.
Thanks Apple, but no thanks.
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If it takes 2 minutes to sync your playlist over wireless, then why can't you fit your entire 500 song collection on your device and not worry at all?
When I change from one 15GB playlist to another, it takes significantly longer. And that's wired.
Do you never leave your house? If you don't, then I see how iTunes Match may seem useless. However, for people who do go outside, travel, etc., and would like to access any of their music library from anywhere then iTunes Match makes sense.
Do you really think Apple would offer iTunes Match if you could do an iOS wireless sync from anywhere in the world to your home computer through WiFi?
Fortunately, you can keep what you want on your iOS device and not stream it every time you listen to it, even if you fetch it from the cloud. Thus, when you are underground or in an area where the signal isn't great, this isn't a problem, since the storage is still local! Sounds like you won't have any gripes with iTunes Match after all.
EDIT: 2 minutes a day is 6-10 hours a year. Do you make more than $2.50 an hour? If so, iTunes Match is worth it for you.
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https://www.macrumors.com/2011/08/30/despite-apples-denial-itunes-match-is-streaming/
"Despite Apple's Denial, iTunes Match is Streaming"
Welp, took about a 12 hours to get through my 4400 songs, looks like its just about done now. It seems to have only matched about half, as those are the ones available on my remote computer. Hopefully this improves, but I kinda doubt the algorithm changes at this point, most of the improvements will likely be in increasing the server capacity/speed.
I tend to get the least amount of storage possible when choosing an iOS device. I don't have a lot of memory to be hoarding every single song and my music taste are very diverse and what I want to listen to fluctuates daily.
So, it would not beheave me to sync those 500 songs when that space can be used for other things.
And the mentality to sync all of one's playlist or collection is influenced by the pc - usb - ios device relationship. We now are able to sync wirelessly, so that mindset is bound to change. It is smart for Apple to announce something like this BEFORE iOS 5 and PC-free was available to the general public.
Furthermore, the $25 yearly subscription rate does not seem like much. So it's more the smaller, sooner reward that we get of having our music "in the cloud" that makes it seem worth it than the larger, later reward of holding out and seeing the service for what it really is - worthless to most.
For my purposes, it isn't really feasible. And yes I do leave the house and travel often. On such instances, I'll probably take my pc with me.
I can see how it caters to some - frequent flyers, vagabonds, and nomads, but the majority of us are settled into one location and can go a few days without listening to that one song. If not, there are ways around it. That $25 can be put to much better use.
But it's the new thing, so obviously droves are going to flock to it.
They better improve the algorithm if it's only matching half of your library (and that's one of the higher ones I've seen posted). The service has the potential to be a big hit but it's going to tank if matching is that bad. Come on, it can at least start with the artist/album/title tags, and only needs to look at the actual wave form for verification.