With iOS 5 Beta 7, Apple is Right: iTunes Match is Not Streaming in iOS

[Michael Scrip]

How long does it take to download a song? How about 4 or 5 songs?

Just download a few songs at breakfast before you get in the car. It will be fast over your home WIFI.

Remember when you had to use a USB cable to get songs into your iPhone?

This is so much easier!

 

[uncleiven]

Rubbish.

Should be streaming, if I wanted the songs to download to my actual phone then I would just put them on there in the first place!

 

[bushido]

Soooo they basically just could have said "now u can redownload all ur owned songs" just like u always could with apps. I guess iTunes Match just sounds better?

How weird, its basically for people that r to lazy to sync. I rly see no adventage to just synching it (now even wireless). Doesnt waste ur limited data either. Its not like ur saving any space, u might just put it on ur i device as u need the required space in the first place anyway.

On spotify u can at least "stream" stuff u dont even own and can discover new random things or songs u hear on the radio. With match u still have to go to itunes and buy it first ...

Remember when you had to use a USB cable to get songs into your iPhone?

This is so much easier!

Ios5 lets u sync wireless so u dont need a cable anymore. Should be easy enough

 

[captain kaos]

I just want to know when the next phone is out.....bored of waiting now, the weeks are just dragging on!

 

[bretm]

Soooo they basically just could have said "now u can redownload all ur owned songs" just like u always could with apps. I guess iTunes Match just sounds better?

How weird, its basically for people that r to lazy to sync. I rly see no adventage to just synching it (now even wireless). Doesnt waste ur limited data either. Its not like ur saving any space, u might just put it on ur i device as u need the required space in the first place anyway.

On spotify u can at least "stream" stuff u dont even own and can discover new random things or songs u hear on the radio. With match u still have to go to itunes and buy it first ...


Ios5 lets u sync wireless so u dont need a cable anymore. Should be easy enough

I don't think you get match. You could never redownload songs you didn't purchase from iTunes. That's what it is. Match is for all those songs you own that you DIDN'T get from iTunes. Most of my library is CD rips. Match will see all those songs, and let you download whichever ones you want at any time. They won't all fit on my iPhone, so it's nice to know that if I'm out of town or on the go I can basically change out the songs on my phone at any time. An option just to stream would be nice, but meh, what if I don't have 3g or wifi? It's nice that what I've been hearing is downloaded.

 

[chrono1081]

What we are really getting at here is can I get a smaller GB iPhone to save som e money, and Apple is basically saying, no.

You conspiracy theorists never quit do you? :roll eyes:

Did you ever stop to think its a licensing issue?

 

[bushido]

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Soooo they basically just could have said "now u can redownload all ur owned songs" just like u always could with apps. I guess iTunes Match just sounds better?

How weird, its basically for people that r to lazy to sync. I rly see no adventage to just synching it (now even wireless). Doesnt waste ur limited data either. Its not like ur saving any space, u might just put it on ur i device as u need the required space in the first place anyway.

On spotify u can at least "stream" stuff u dont even own and can discover new random things or songs u hear on the radio. With match u still have to go to itunes and buy it first ...


Ios5 lets u sync wireless so u dont need a cable anymore. Should be easy enough

I don't think you get match. You could never redownload songs you didn't purchase from iTunes. That's what it is. Match is for all those songs you own that you DIDN'T get from iTunes. Most of my library is CD rips. Match will see all those songs, and let you download whichever ones you want at any time. They won't all fit on my iPhone, so it's nice to know that if I'm out of town or on the go I can basically change out the songs on my phone at any time. An option just to stream would be nice, but meh, what if I don't have 3g or wifi? It's nice that what I've been hearing is downloaded.

i get that, but u still need to own the track. u cant just use match and search for a random song u hear on the radio that u dont own. u'd have to buy it in the itunes store or get it "somewhere" else first and then put it on match

 

[mcdermd]

Well, damn. If this is the case, I guess I'm not signing up for it after all.

 

[Dreamer2go]

I don't think you get match. You could never redownload songs you didn't purchase from iTunes. That's what it is. Match is for all those songs you own that you DIDN'T get from iTunes. Most of my library is CD rips. Match will see all those songs, and let you download whichever ones you want at any time. They won't all fit on my iPhone, so it's nice to know that if I'm out of town or on the go I can basically change out the songs on my phone at any time. An option just to stream would be nice, but meh, what if I don't have 3g or wifi? It's nice that what I've been hearing is downloaded.

this, my friend, is what I'm thinking.
If I were to really get the entire album to my iphone/ipad, I would have done so using iTunes syncing... but just that sometimes, I wanna hear a song and I didn't sync it, then I can use Match and just download it......

plus, i don't like in some streaming apps, like di.fm, it always stutter in an area with bad reception.
Downloading is great.

but then when I type this, an option to stream is even BETTER!

 

[Vegasman]

You conspiracy theorists never quit do you? :roll eyes:

Did you ever stop to think its a licensing issue?

And yet WP7 can do it!

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i get that, but u still need to own the track. u cant just use match and search for a random song u hear on the radio that u dont own. u'd have to buy it in the itunes store or get it "somewhere" else first and then put it on match

THIS! Love the new feature in WP7 where it listens to a song in the background, finds it in the cloud library and gives you the option to stream it or download it!

PS: I am pre-downranking my own post

 

[jaykk]

It sounds like what Apple is doing is "progressive downloads" which they've done in QuickTime for 15+ years. The only question is whether there is one mode (permanent download) or a second, less formal, "cached download" that keeps a song until the space is needed then removes it automatically.

The huge advantage of progressive download is that the song (or movie) is downloaded as fast as available bandwidth allows, but playback is realtime. If the connection gets too low for awhile, the user may never know as long as the buffered portion got far enough ahead.

In "true streaming", anytime the available bandwidth drops below 256 kbps, the song would stop or stutter.

Jim

You are so right, It is a streaming + caching aka download for smoother playback. You can easily delete the cached downloads, so whats the big issue?

 

[lowonthe456]

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Other than hard drive failure protection
For your iTunes.... I don't see the point. I've always believed streaming was the whole point.. Now I struggle with why this service even matters

 

[Vegasman]

You are so right, It is a streaming + caching aka download for smoother playback. You can easily delete the cached downloads, so whats the big issue?

Usability? You are sounding like a Windows user. Isn't the idea to have the computer do all those types of jobs while you focus on your goal - in this case listening to music?

 

[jaykk]

Usability? You are sounding like a Windows user. Isn't the idea to have the computer do all those types of jobs while you focus on your goal - in this case listening to music?

Since there is a data cap from most of the carriers, its a boon in disguise. If you want to replay that song again, u don't use up your data. or if you are stuck in place there is no internet connection.

Just because one's usage pattern is different from another one, won't make one a windows user.

Edit: who knows apple may come up with a toggle to turn off caching behavior. Its beta for a reason

 

[skinned66]

I'm sure I won't use it. I'm an old codger stuck in my local copy ways.

 

[Vegasman]

Since there is a data cap from most of the carriers, its a boon in disguise. If you want to replay that song again, u don't use up your data. or if you are stuck in place there is no internet connection.

Just because one's usage pattern is different from another one, won't make one a windows user.

Edit: who knows apple may come up with a toggle to turn off caching behavior. Its beta for a reason

the data cap card is being over played. you still want streaming capability when you have access to wi-fi.

 

[Michael Scrip]

Other than hard drive failure protection for your iTunes.... I don't see the point. I've always believed streaming was the whole point... Now I struggle with why this service even matters

iCloud allows you to have 20,000 of your songs in the cloud and available on all your iOS devices... while a 16GB iPhone could only hold 3,000 songs.

If you're out somewhere, and you suddenly wanna listen to some Jimi Hendrix, you can download your Hendrix songs to your iPhone.

Whether it's pure streaming, or playing while downloading or whatever you wanna call it... iCloud gives access to all your songs anywhere you have a data connection.

Otherwise... you gotta wait to get home to add new songs to your phone.

 

[MattInOz]

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i get that, but u still need to own the track. u cant just use match and search for a random song u hear on the radio that u dont own. u'd have to buy it in the itunes store or get it "somewhere" else first and then put it on match

Yes you have to buy music you'd like to own.
Edit: Sorry you don't have to, but you should.

 

[Bonte]

Sorry if this has already been answered.

If I have ~200 songs that match identifies and I download the high quality versions of them do I still have to pay the monthly fees in perpetuity to keep access to those songs.

No, there is no DRM in iTunes music, you pay $25 per year for the streaming service and the better quality songs that you get with the activation are a bonus.

Itunes music has no DRM but could have a watermark with your ID in it.

 

[paolo-]

Probably some licensing issue. Some kind of hybrid would be really nice though. Automatically sync the most listened, recently added and top rated songs up to a set amount by the user (say 2GB) every song after that is streamed other than if you actually tell it to download it to the device. So you'd end up with an awesome library when your out and about, then say you want to listen to THAT old track, you just stream it. Then I guess there could be a small streaming cache of like 128MB just so you don't have to stream songs twice.

I always thought that was one of the problem with iTunes/iPod once your library is larger than the capacity of the device it becomes a chore to get the music you want on the device.

 

[4np]

You conspiracy theorists never quit do you? :roll eyes:

Did you ever stop to think its a licensing issue?

Obviously it's a licensing deal with the Music industry that says they can download but they are not allowed to stream music.

It might be seen as a difference in semantics, but if technically the song starts downloading first and the iDevice starts playing from the local storage (even though the download has not yet finished), then technically it is downloading and playing and not streaming. If, however, the iDevice would connect to iCloud, have the player read the data stream ('play the song') and save the data stream to Disk, then it would be streaming...

So probably for the end user it might appear as streaming while technically it is not and Apple is in compliance with the licensing deal...

It is also technically a superior solution which allows Apple to continue downloading while the song is being played or when you switch songs (see video). I wonder though how they will handle fast-forwarding in a song that has not yet fully completed downloading. I would assume, usability wise, that the progress of the download would somehow show in the fast forward scroll bar and will not allow a user to scroll ('fast forward') further than the download has progressed?

 

[gkpm]

I think people are forgetting that the iTunes Match service costs $25 per year, that's about $2 per month and even then most of it goes back to the music industry.

Can you imagine the bandwidth Apple would need to support an entire world of iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches constantly streaming their music from Apple's servers? No way they could do it on that budget without introducing ads etc.

 

[wilymon]

It would be great if they'd add a "keep last 100/200/1000 songs downloaded." That way the iPhone would automatically delete the oldest songs to make room for the newest, without taking up too much space.

 

[SirHaakon]

To me, the $2 a month is worth it for the convenience of having all my music synced up and ready to play on whatever, whenever.

It was worth it when you could stream it.

 

[tharris0101]

Am I the only one who thinks this is exactly how I want it to work. My girlfriend and I had to drive around a bit tonight so I tried out match on my iPhone playing through the car stereo. It worked really well and all the songs I played are there for me to listen to again without worrying about 3G or wi-fi coverage. It was kind of awesome having my entire home library at my finger tips while driving around.