iTunes Match vs. Wireless Sync

[Piggie]

I don't understand what is so confusing about this. iTunes In The Cloud will scan for music, find it and what it doesn't find, it uploads. All of this is available to DOWNLOAD and USE on any device that you can sync with. The entire point is to REMOVE the files from your home computer and store them in the cloud, just like apps, files, and OS. "PC FREE" - remember? You no longer need a PC for any part of iOS device usage. ALL of your music will be in the cloud, available to sync to your device for usage ANYWHERE, not just when you are available on wifi to listen remotely.

Scenario: You're driving along and you think, "Damn, I'd like to listen to some Monkees, but it's not on my iPod Touch. Wish I'd thought of that before I left home. Hey, there's a McDonald's, I'll stop in for some coffee and use their wifi to download that from my iCloud." Log in, grab it, and it downloads while you chug some coffee and shove some pancakes in your face, and you're back on the road with "Daydream Believer" blasting on your car speakers.

Make sense?

This is amazing. When this becomes available, i'm going to get a good hard drive, back up what I have in iTunes to it, and then sync it all to iCloud. I'm not worrying about dying hard drives again.

So, to clarify, and forgive me for asking again.

You are saying that iTunes scans your local ripped CD's and makes iTunes versions for you on the cloud.

Then I stop at this WiFi enabled McDonalds, and I then download these new ITunes tracks from the cloud to be stored locally on my iPhone/iPad so I can then enjoy them when I'm no longer in WiFi range?

You see, the confusion is, some people are saying this won't happen.
All you will get is a "pointer" if you like to call it. Meaning whilst online, you will be able to stream these new tracks from Apple's severs.
You will never get a iTunes version to own actually on your device. It's just the rights to listen to it in the cloud.

 

[WLS]

It's just been announced so the details will have to be worked out by Fall. It's all pretty confusing now.. Here's my question.
1 If you buy songs from say Amazon will iTunes "match" them with iTunes versions? Say you bought the Lady Gaga album for 99cents during that one day promotion, will Apple match that from their library?? Who pays the Artist then?
2 How do they match them?? just by song title? Or do they have to have an album and artist listed?
I have a number of compilations I have put together in self labeled "albums" before I learned about playlists they are from many different albums. How is iTunes going to match that?
3 If you don't pay next year do those matched songs disappear?

 

[Saturnine]

another question.. i have a bunch of music files @ 160Kbps i imported from CDs years ago when hard drive storage was still super expensive, so i had to compress them that much.. now with itunes match.. would i be able to replace my own music files with the 256Kbps files permanently?

Yes, if they're in the iTunes store.

 

[Patriot24]

...This makes perfect sense - stop worrying about keeping track of your music at home and let Apple do that. Now you just download what you want back onto your device whenever you feel like it - WHEREVER you feel like it (as long as you have wifi, that is.) No more worries about dying hard drives. Your computer is just a device to do things on, not a storage device...

I think in general Apple whiffed a little bit on the messaging (just take a look at this thread). It makes a lot more sense when phrased the way you have above IMO. Kudos.

Now I'm getting the urge to ditch my Win7 laptop (I didn't pay for it, corp hardware) for an Air...heh

 

[Saturnine]

I think in general Apple whiffed a little bit on the messaging (just take a look at this thread). It makes a lot more sense when phrased the way you have above IMO. Kudos.

It's a nice quote but not entirely true. Apple aren't suggesting that computers (including iOS devices) no longer store things. They're not advocating streaming music, videos, documents, emails, etc from the cloud. Instead they're suggesting that that everything goes up into the cloud and back down to be stored on ALL of those devices.

 

[Carouser]

You see, the confusion is, some people are saying this won't happen.
All you will get is a "pointer" if you like to call it. Meaning whilst online, you will be able to stream these new tracks from Apple's severs.
You will never get a iTunes version to own actually on your device. It's just the rights to listen to it in the cloud.

It's not streaming, as has been said in the thread. Your device downloads it. If someone wants to contradict all the people who posted this, please do.

As a result, why would you need a version to own actually on your device? Either you bought a track already from iTunes, and you therefore own it; or it's Apple's copy of a track you ripped from a CD; and you therefore own it.

The 'pointer' is that Apple has a database of all songs, instead of you uploading all your songs to Apple. Apple's servers don't need 10,000 people uploading identical copies of 'Poker Face'. If you want to hear 'Daydream Believer' you don't care where it's coming from, it's just that the device tells Apple's servers to give you that song. Your right to access that song is either because you paid for it from iTunes or because you ripped a copy and paid for iTunes Match.

SECOND EDIT: for clarity, to get a music file through iCloud you must have already bought a copy. You have to own a copy. Either you bought it through iTunes, and it's downloaded to your iPad / laptop / iPhone / whatever; or you ripped a copy from a CD or something and a file is on your iPad / laptop / iPhone / whatever. You already have all those files. iCloud lets you download your iTunes purchases from wherever. iTunes Match lets you download ANY of your music files from wherever, for $25/year. When you stop paying the money, you still have all your music files.

It's just been announced so the details will have to be worked out by Fall. It's all pretty confusing now.. Here's my question.
1 If you buy songs from say Amazon will iTunes "match" them with iTunes versions? Say you bought the Lady Gaga album for 99cents during that one day promotion, will Apple match that from their library?? Who pays the Artist then?
2 How do they match them?? just by song title? Or do they have to have an album and artist listed?
I have a number of compilations I have put together in self labeled "albums" before I learned about playlists they are from many different albums. How is iTunes going to match that?
3 If you don't pay next year do those matched songs disappear?

1) Yes, iTunes will match them with the copy from their library. The record company pays Gaga, and pays once, not every time you listen.
2) I don't know, but I imagine they have pretty sophisticated matching algorithms. If your track doesn't match something on their servers then iTunes Match will upload a copy. Done.
3) Disappear from where? If you bought them from iTunes, you have them forever. If you ripped them from CDs, presumably you have the CDs and MP3s somewhere, also forever. If you stop paying, you lose the ability to get non-iTunes music through iCloud.

 

[EmpyreanUK]

I would assume that the wireless synching will be more useful for those who like to have their movies and TV shows on their iPhone/Pad/Pod, or for those who wouldn't find iTunes match very useful (i.e. don't have gargantuan libraries of music acquired outside of the iTunes store). SJ mentioned something about iTunes Match not being likely to appeal to the majority of customers, and is instead aimed at a particular niche who would find downloading music not purchased from iTunes, at a whim, useful. I am not one of those people, but for the guy who likes to gorge on McDonald's pancakes whilst on the road, it would.

On the iOS 5 page on the Apple website, when introducing the wireless synch feature, they mention movies, TV shows and photos, and seem fairly careful to make no mention of music. As we know from the presentation, the PC/Mac will still be the central hub for video and photos. I regard this as a transition to the so-called 'post-PC era'. For now, it's not feasible to download video and entire photograph libraries on demand, at a whim: they take of what are still pretty huge amounts of disk space, and are not easily moved about with existing Internet bandwidths or data transfer allowances (neither home nor mobile). It seems that, for the time being, e-mails, apps, calendars, contacts and the like, along with a limited number of photos, will not require one 'master' device in your home network (a computer). Indeed, with iTunes Match, it will not be the case for those willing to pay extra to include music in this 'cloud' domain. For the time being, it is not practical to also include video and entire photograph libraries. These are what wireless synch are for.

 

[jomo25]

So, yes, if you subscribe for a year, get all your personal files matched on the iCloud side, replaced with nice 256K versions of them, had those synced to all your 10 devices, then stop paying, yes you will still have the files. It won't take them away.

The $25 charge is not for the content, its for the service. It's for the ability to scan any music you have from any source, store a master copy of each title in the cloud, and have it available to be sync'd to your 10 devices at any time automatically.

So, yes you can stop paying, and while you would retain the content you accumulated while you paid, but then you lose the service to continue to match, store master, and sync automatically.

For me, that would be worth $25 per year. Heck, you may even be able to save that much money just by buying content from Amazon (vs. iTunes). At say 30 cents diff per song, buying 75 track from Amazon (vs. iTunes), you make that money up. And then you have it sync'd everywhere.

 

[Piggie]

The problem people are having with what you are saying is this:

I shall make up some imaginary details for the example:

John has 20 iTunes tracks he's brought from Apple.
He also has 1000 MP3's he's downloaded from Pirate Bay for free, let's say, they are "Top No1's from the past decade"

He pays Apple $25, they scan his whole music collection, and lets say he's lucky and this new service finds a match for each track

John, for his $25 to Apple, can now log into iTunes and download back onto his device officially iTunes versions of his 1000 pirated tunes.

John is a very happy man. He no longer has to use his pirate music collection. He has new official tracks now.

Perhaps he will go and download another 1000 tracks from Pirate bay, and get Apple to scan this second lot and give him official versions he can download back onto his iPad, iPhone and iMac.

All for $25.

Perhaps then he won't bother paying Apple for year 2 as he's now got a nice official iTunes library to keep.

Nice.

Can you see why people think those who think this is what's going to happen are totally wrong.
And all you will get for your $25 is the right to stream these "ripped" versions from Apple. You will never be allowed to actually download these files for real.

 

[Carouser]

John has 20 iTunes tracks he's brought from Apple.
He also has 1000 MP3's he's downloaded from Pirate Bay for free, let's say, they are "Top No1's from the past decade"

He pays Apple $25, they scan his whole music collection, and lets say he's lucky and this new service finds a match for each track

John, for his $25 to Apple, can now log into iTunes and download back onto his device officially iTunes versions of his 1000 pirated tunes.

John is a very happy man. He no longer has to use his pirate music collection. He has new official tracks now.

Perhaps he will go and download another 1000 tracks from Pirate bay, and get Apple to scan this second lot and give him official versions he can download back onto his iPad, iPhone and iMac.

All for $25.

Perhaps then he won't bother paying Apple for year 2 as he's now got a nice official iTunes library to keep.

Nice.

Can you see why people think those who think this is what's going to happen are totally wrong.
And all you will get for your $25 is the right to stream these "ripped" versions from Apple. You will never be allowed to actually download these files for real.

I have only the faintest idea what you are arguing.

People stealing MP3s could get iTunes Match to match their library, yes. Those matched files might be higher quality, yes, but who knows. When this fictional character goes into iTunes, there will still just be one entry for each track, not duplicated items. When this character syncs locally, then local files will be put on the device. When the year is up and he doesn't pay $25, he's back to using his original files. Also, it's not streaming.

What's the problem? There's no easy way to scam this; if you are stealing music then you can pay $25 a year to access your stolen music from anywhere. Once you stop paying, you can't access it from anywhere and are back to using your original files. You can't crack open the iPod and take out the better iTunes versions and save them instead of the stolen copies because iTunes simply won't let you, I imagine.

For your $25 you get the right to access music you already own (legally or not) from anywhere. That's it.

In fact, the incentive is even greater for people to buy iTunes tracks instead of stealing music, because if your library is all iTunes Store music then you don't have to pay for iTunes Match.

EDIT: If you think Apple will let people iTunes Match 16kbps tracks and then keep the iTunes Store versions after they stop paying you're dreaming.

 

[vrDrew]

This is amazing. When this becomes available, i'm going to get a good hard drive, back up what I have in iTunes to it, and then sync it all to iCloud. I'm not worrying about dying hard drives again.

I think its a pretty good deal. And my understanding seems pretty similar to what you just described.

Of course, there are always going to be people who want to whine because its not free. And they are going to say "why should I PAY to listen to music I've already bought." And they are missing the point: You are paying to have your entire collection a) backed up on a state-of-the-art secure server and b) getting it back in a probably higher quality than you originally ripped it.

Twenty five bucks a year, by my understanding gets you this:

1) Very little "uploading" time. The iTunes Match will probably recognize 95% of the tracks in most people's collections.

2) No more worrying about a dead hard drive ruining a carefully assembled music collection. (And to be honest, its been a month or two since I last backed up my iTunes collection properly.)

3) Access to entire music collection anywhere in the world. Say I'm on vacation in Florida, and buy a new iPod: Can refill it with my music collection, Apps, photos, etc. anywhere there is wireless.

4) Super-simple device migration: Just type in Apple ID and password. Pick out which songs, movies, pictures, and calendars I want.

Lastly: You aren't "locked into" anything. Decide you are sick of paying the $25 a year? The songs, etc. are STILL ON your PC or Mac and your iOS devices. You simply lose the ability to access the cloud copies.

 

[Piggie]

I have only the faintest idea what you are arguing.

People stealing MP3s could get iTunes Match to match their library, yes. Those matched files might be higher quality, yes, but who knows. When this fictional character goes into iTunes, there will still just be one entry for each track, not duplicated items. When this character syncs locally, then local files will be put on the device. When the year is up and he doesn't pay $25, he's back to using his original files. Also, it's not streaming.

What's the problem? There's no easy way to scam this; if you are stealing music then you can pay $25 a year to access your stolen music from anywhere. Once you stop paying, you can't access it from anywhere and are back to using your original files. You can't crack open the iPod and take out the better iTunes versions and save them instead of the stolen copies because iTunes simply won't let you, I imagine.

For your $25 you get the right to access music you already own (legally or not) from anywhere. That's it.

In fact, the incentive is even greater for people to buy iTunes tracks instead of stealing music, because if your library is all iTunes Store music then you don't have to pay for iTunes Match.

EDIT: If you think Apple will let people iTunes Match 16kbps tracks and then keep the iTunes Store versions after they stop paying you're dreaming.

There seems to be a misunderstanding here

You say, he would lose his music when he stops paying the $25.
But you also say he can download real iTunes mp3 files onto his actual device.

iTunes can't delete your music collection remotely. Wiping files of your hard drive.

Either you have the real mp3 files stored locally on your iPad or iMac, in which case you can then copy them as any normal computer file.
Or you don't actually have them locally, you only have a electronic tag meaning you can stream them from Apple.

 

[Piggie]

3) Access to entire music collection anywhere in the world. Say I'm on vacation in Florida, and buy a new iPod: Can refill it with my music collection, Apps, photos, etc. anywhere there is wireless.

Lastly: You aren't "locked into" anything. Decide you are sick of paying the $25 a year? The songs, etc. are STILL ON your PC or Mac and your iOS devices. You simply lose the ability to access the cloud copies.

You see, this is what I think happens.

You are streaming from the cloud your music, and your iTunes matched Ripped CD's are in the cloud only.

You don't get fresh, clean copies back from iTunes that you can store locally on your actual device as some seem to think will be the case.

The only files you have locally will be your officially purchased iTunes mp3 files, and also your ripped CD/pirated files.

Others still keep saying your Ripped CD/Pirated versions will be able to be downloaded back from Apple, now official files, to be stored on your device again.

 

[Carouser]

You say, he would lose his music when he stops paying the $25.
But you also say he can download real iTunes mp3 files onto his actual device.

iTunes can't delete your music collection remotely. Wiping files of your hard drive.

Either you have the real mp3 files stored locally on your iPad or iMac, in which case you can then copy them as any normal computer file.
Or you don't actually have them locally, you only have a electronic tag meaning you can stream them from Apple.

You have 3 songs on your computer.
1) Bubble_Gum_Rock.mp3
2) Loud_Rap_Music.mp3
3) My_Victrola_(Diplo_Remix).mp3

Songs 1 and 2 you bought from iTunes, song 3 is a rip from somewhere else. You have paid for iTunes Match. Apple's servers have a database with a list of your music collection. Either they have their own copies, or your computer uploaded your versions.

You are walking down the street with your iPod and realize you have not put any music on it. You fire up iTunes and download Apple-quality versions of all 3 songs. You listen to them.

When you go home, you sync your iPod. It syncs all three songs locally, not from Apple's servers. The Apple versions are overwritten.

You are out and about again on Dec. 31, right before your iTunes Match subscription runs out. You forgot your music. You download all three high-quality versions again. On January 1, you no longer pay for iTunes Match. Tell me how you are going to get those high-quality tracks onto your computer? When you sync, iTunes on your computer will just overwrite with your original tracks, like it did the first time around.

You can now get tracks 1 and 2 through iCloud, but not track 3. You still have all your music, but constrained access.

If you only own an iPod, iPad, or iPhone, then all your music is bought from iTunes to begin with so there's no way to scam music files, you just get them through iCloud.

You are streaming from the cloud your music, and your iTunes matched Ripped CD's are in the cloud only.

You don't get fresh, clean copies back from iTunes that you can store locally on your actual device as some seem to think will be the case.

The only files you have locally will be your officially purchased iTunes mp3 files, and also your ripped CD/pirated files.

Others still keep saying your Ripped CD/Pirated versions will be able to be downloaded back from Apple, now official files, to be stored on your device again.

What are you saying? If you have a ripped CD copy of 'Poker Face', and are paying for iTunes Match, Apple will send your device a good copy of 'Poker Face'. From their website: "And all the music iTunes matches plays back at 256-Kbps iTunes Plus quality — even if your original copy was of lower quality." These files are downloaded to your device. The point is that there is no way to profit from 'clean' copies besides paying the $25 each year to listen to those copies which are stored on your device. You just can't go into the device and e-mail those files to yourself or someone else. So no, you can't scam it.

As for the bolded section, that is correct. I have no idea who is saying anything but that - the downloaded version of 'Poker Face' is going to be a higher bitrate IF you are paying for iTunes Match, and it will be stored on your device. But you won't be able to copy it or e-mail it to your friend - how could you do this from an iPad? I have no idea what you mean by 'Ripped CD/Pirated versions will be able to be downloaded back from Apple, now official files'.

 

[WLS]

1) Yes, iTunes will match them with the copy from their library. The record company pays Gaga, and pays once, not every time you listen.
2) I don't know, but I imagine they have pretty sophisticated matching algorithms. If your track doesn't match something on their servers then iTunes Match will upload a copy. Done.
3) Disappear from where? If you bought them from iTunes, you have them forever. If you ripped them from CDs, presumably you have the CDs and MP3s somewhere, also forever. If you stop paying, you lose the ability to get non-iTunes music through iCloud.

maybe but it remains to be seen as to what Apple will say and they have the final word.

1 still leaves me with the question that if I start buying my music from Amazon at a lower price is Apple really going to replace them with their versions at no charge other than the $25 service fee?? Really?
2 Unless they have a pretty good identification algorithm isn't it going to take time to analyze your complete song collection? That will slow down the process as compared to their claim that they will save time by not uploading songs that are duplicated in iTunes. I have some songs by the same name and artist done at different times and some songs that are identical but vary in length by seconds. I'll be interested in seeing how that works.
3 If ripped songs that are on your hard drive are replaced by the iTunes version in iCloud then doesn't that imply that your collection is on iCloud and not your hard drive? That's why you can sync it anywhere. If you stop the service you can't sync with those versions and might have to go back to your hard drive copies. You could re sync your ipod to your computer and copy those back to the hard drive so you would be able to save them I guess.
The plan then is to be sure you have a computer with iTunes on it and synced up to date so that it can be used as the local master if you drop the iCloud/iTune service. Sort of a reverse of having iCloud so you don't have to worry about your hard drive dying - have a copy on your hard drive in case you stop iCloud/iTunes
But wasn't that what Time Machine was going to do? We heard nothing about Time Machine serving as a local data server as was rumored.

 

[Piggie]

Thanks for taking time to explain this, but I think things are getting over complicated in our explanations

The way I see things is:

There are two types of files on a computer.
There are real physical files that are on your hard drive/solid state memory.
These are real files that you can move around, copy, delete, backup to another storage medium etc.

Then we have online streamed data. Where you don't actually have the data on your device. You just have like a private link so you can access and play the file which is streamed to you from a drive elsewhere. The Cloud.

iTunes files you buy, are sitting on your hard drive, and you can do as you wish with them. they are real data files.

Ripped CD files are also sitting on your hard drive and are real data you can do as you wish with.

The bit I'm not understanding in your explanation is this.

Apple scans your drive, and makes Cloud versions of Everything.

Ok, so far so good. I'm happy with this.
You pay Apple $25 for this service, and now you have sitting in the cloud your whole music collection, Official iTunes music and fresh iTunes copies of your ripped music.

Again, so far so good.

You now say, you go out for the day with your iPod which has no music on it. You find a WiFi spot, and then you download all the files from Apples servers onto the iPod.
Not streamed, but download them.

You then wander off, away from any WiFi and can play the music on your iPod.

This is the part I'm not sure about, as you are saying you now have physical local fresh copies of everything on your iPod.
This includes original iTunes purchased tunes and the new iTunes copies of the ripped CD's.

You come home, and you sync the iPod onto your iMac, which also does not have any music on it.

Now what happens. Do some of the files disappear in this fresh sync, or do all the tracks get physically copied to the hard drive of the iMac also?

Do you see my dilemma here?

At what stage do these fresh iTunes copies of your ripped CD's magically disappear off the physical devices?

 

[Carouser]

Ok, so far so good. I'm happy with this.
You pay Apple $25 for this service, and now you have sitting in the cloud your whole music collection, Official iTunes music and fresh iTunes copies of your ripped music.

You now say, you go out for the day with your iPod which has no music on it. You find a WiFi spot, and then you download all the files from Apples servers onto the iPod.
Not streamed, but download them.

You then wander off, away from any WiFi and can play the music on your iPod.

This is the part I'm not sure about, as you are saying you now have physical local fresh copies of everything on your iPod.

YES

You come home, and you sync the iPod onto your iMac, which also does not have any music on it.

Why doesn't your iMac have any music on it? How did you get your ripped CDs up to the Cloud? Answer that and it will become clearer.

 

[Piggie]

YES



Why doesn't your iMac have any music on it? How did you get your ripped CDs up to the Cloud? Answer that and it will become clearer.

To be honest, this is causing confusion between many others also.

Ok, let's say I did as we said. I downloaded all the music to my iPod.

I went onto my iMac and deleted my local files.
Or perhaps I pulled out my brand new iPad.

Even though the files are no longer on my iMac, and they were never on my brand new iPad.

They are on iCloud and they are also on my iPod which I loaded them onto earlier that day.

So I come home and re-sync my devices.

Does my iMac and new iPad get fresh copies of all my data fed back to them, saved onto their hard drives, from the cloud which has ALL my music tracks stored on it?

 

[Hberg]

Keep in mind that Match only provides you with an AAC DRM Free 256-Kbps iTunes Plus (lossy) quality copy of your song. If you have lesser quality recording of the song, then this could be a good thing; however, if you rip CDs to a lossless version, then you would be getting copy that is of lesser quality. I record all my CDs using the Apple Lossless (ALAC), so the Match feature is of lesser value to me, and the same may be true for other lossless recordings (FLAC, WAV, Etc.). Looking at the bigger market, I am sure the Match will be greater value.

Personally, I am looking forward to the Wireless Sync.

 

[Carouser]

I downloaded all the music to my iPod.

I went onto my iMac and deleted my local files.
Or perhaps I pulled out my brand new iPad.

Even though the files are no longer on my iMac, and they were never on my brand new iPad.

They are on iCloud and they are also on my iPod which I loaded them onto earlier that day.

So I come home and re-sync my devices.

Does my iMac and new iPad get fresh copies of all my data fed back to them, saved onto their hard drives, from the cloud which has ALL my music tracks stored on it?

iTunes Match gives you access to music you own. It's not a backup service.

If you burn the original copies of music you own, throw them in the river, sell them to a friend, put your records in the microwave, or delete them from your Mac, then iTunes Match is under no obligation to re-issue that music to you. iCloud+Match is meant to transmit what you already own. When you stop owning it, whether through neglect or choice, they have nothing to transmit.

Think of it like a high-powered butler who you pay $25 a month who will drive your records and record player anywhere you are, very quickly, on demand. If you blow up your records, your butler has nothing to give to you. The iTunes Store files are 'insured' or 'backed-up'. The others aren't.

 

[jomo25]

OK - Please understand this. THIS IS NOT STREAMING! NO MUSIC IS STREAMING. Physical versions of the music will sit on your device (PC, Mac, iDevice).

The service scans your current "master" music library. It finds the matches from your library against the iTunes catalog. It files a pointer to a 256K copy that song in your new "master" library in the cloud. It uploads songs that it doesnt find a match.

So, in your new "master" library in the cloud, it has 3 types of things:
1. Pointers to the 256K versions of iTunes purchased songs.
2. Pointers to the 256K versions of songs it matched from your original library.
3. File copies of the songs from your library it couldn't match.
None of this counts against for 5GB space limit.

Now, your have a new master library. you can format all your devices. When you set them up to connect to your cloud, it will copy the physical files of whatever you want on each device to the device. So, if you want your Rock playlists on your iPod touch, Classical playlist on your iPhone, and everything on your Mac/PC, then it will copy physical versions of those files to the respective devices.

To have this service, you pay $25 per year.

Now, if you cancel, you still retain all the content you have in your master library in the cloud AND all the devices you sync'd. Nothing gets wiped out.

What goes away is the continued service of scanning, syncing up, and getting additional official copies.

Since you can sync to a Mac/PC, you CAN keep the official 256K official AAC files. It would be pointless for Apple to try to delete them, since you can easily copy them off. They aren't copy-protected, so there's nothing to stop you from playing them anywhere. But because they are AAC, you can't just play them on any device (i.e. other MP3 players) without converting.

 

[MXSkier62]

Based on reading all of this, I think I'm still a bit confused. Does this version of things sound correct (at least for iTunes)?

We shouldn't be considering the Cloud to be a HD, rather, it is replacing the "usb --> 30 pin" cable for all of the devices. Any file on any of the iDevices will also be mirrored on all other devices. The Cloud exists as a constant, auto-updating, cable.

So any files previously purchased on iTunes, or ripped from a CD, or pirated, will be synced over the wifi-sync at night. Only those files that were previously bought on iTunes, will auto-sync via the Cloud at times OTHER than this syncing (which only occurs when your device is in close proximity to the hub). The same goes for songs purchased on iTunes via an iDevice, those songs will sync back to the main computer (which acts as your personal server of sorts).

Because iCloud will only do this auto-sync on songs bought via iTunes, the iTunes Match program will allow songs that were not acquired from iTunes to be synced in this way.

After thinking about it this way, it seems that this Cloud-based service will be great for keeping different Macs in sync (more than iDevices). Since the iPhones, iPads, and iTouch's will be updating at night anyway, it doesn't matter much for the cloud, especially if all of your purchases are from iTunes.

To me, it seems that the best thing to do is to manually move files from one computer to another that you know are not iTunes purchases, and then in the future, if you have the means, use only iTunes, and that will have all of your music on all devices.

 

[Carouser]

Now, if you cancel, you still retain all the content you have in your master library in the cloud AND all the devices you sync'd. Nothing gets wiped out.

What goes away is the continued service of scanning, syncing up, and getting additional official copies.

How is what you've posted different from what I have posted?

Also, if I stop paying for iTunes Match, I won't be able to access ripped music from iCloud. Do you disagree?

Secondly, I am pretty sure it would be easy to stop people from keeping the 256k AAC files, since they would have to be played through iTunes; it just stops from putting them in your folder where you can access them.

EDIT: @MXSkier62 - iCloud won't sync all the music overnight, as it could overload an 16GB device. It just means you can access the music whenever you want.

Seriously, the Apple website explains this very clearly. People need to stop worrying about juggling files.

 

[maccc]

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