Apple announces iTunes Match music service for $24.99 per year - Page 4

I ripped my cd's back years before iTunes ever came out...

Unless they actually scan the audio file I don't have confidence that iTunes Match will work very well at all.

Why not? Is it really that hard to get title/artist/album text info right?

So no streaming? I don't know how much use I'd have for a $25/yr to back my files up in a lower quality than I have them on my HDD. All any tech blog has been talking about, given what Amazon and Google have done recently, is Apple debuting it's own cloud locker, streaming service.

I was ready to say **** Amazon and Google because this was going to murder the other services as it concerns ease of use. I don't like iTunes on Windows but if I could simply drop the files in my iTunes, sync them up, and stream, it's game over. No streaming is kind of a dealbreaker. I can still use the other services on my iPhone (I think) but it's not very intuitive at all.

Can you even delete songs FROM your iPhone or iPod on the fly? There's no listening to different tunes on the go if this isn't the case.

And why can't we stream songs from iTunes to our other devices in our homes via Wi-Fi?

Apple hasn't mentioned anything about deleting songs from iOS devices. From what I've tried on the iPad, I haven't seen any way as of yet.

As for your second question, you can stream to an Apple TV or home speakers (via Airport Express) from iTunes on your computer.

Apple will compute the checksum and let me tell you they will know which songs are pirated. They probably wont do anything about it but they will know. I woulnt be suprised if the labels gave Apple there huge database of pirated songs data just to know how many pirated song are going to be match. Thats pretty damn good stats for them.

And entering metadata that doesnt match the song wont work.

Yeah, and if that's the case (as of now) I'm nowhere near as excited about iTunes in the cloud as I was before this conference. I feel like streaming is sort of a must. I won't be getting rid of my iPhone for anything (unless a phone running the Windows Phone OS w/ the super sexy Metro UI is created with hardware as nice as the iPhone 4), but trying to use Google Music and/or Amazon on an iPhone is not a very slick experience.


Yeah, I was thinking more along the lines of streaming from iTunes to your iPhone or iPod via Wi-Fi. Maybe it isn't a necessity but it's odd that it hasn't been implemented yet.

For some reason (probably issues with the music industry) Apple is not delving into music streaming. Frankly, I don't find streaming that helpful anyway. What I really want is the music iCloud support announced today for movies and TV shows. That way, I wouldn't ever have to worry about backing up any of those large files. I'd just re-download when I wanted to re-watch. Hopefully that's in the works.

Except that will not tell you if a song is pirated. All you can tell is the song was ripped, but you cannot tell if the user ripped it from the CD themselves or if someone else did it and put it on the internet.

Impossible to determine.

Has anyone seen it confirmed anywhere that Apple will actually replace the existing (non-iTunes 128k) tracks in your iTunes library with 256k AAC versions?

(It seems clear that the versions that download from iCloud to other devices will be 256k AAC... but I'm interested in my main iTunes library itself)

If so, given that replacing 128k tracks with 256k tracks will likely approximately double the space required for an individual's iTunes library, I wonder how this will work. I have iTunes library saved on a separate partition that is not 2 times the size of my current iTunes library...

Also, replacing all the 128k tracks in my library with 256k tracks would mean about a 60GB download. That's a ton of downloading...

AC/DC aren't available on ANY digital download site, like iTunes. For some reason they are yet to go there sadly. In terms of match. I have had the same issues, and have found that the CD's have to be called exactly the right thing for iTunes to match it. e.g not having (UK Version) after the name.

Effective June 6, 2011, if you had an active MobileMe account, your service has been automatically extended through June 30, 2012, at no additional charge

The 25,000 song limit only applies to unmatched songs. All this stuff is still hella confusing. Basically it is a $25 a year all-you-can-download mega-orgy-buffet. That's what the pirates (read: the average user) will see it as.

Apple played this to the T. Apple gets to continue to charge you for local storage (ie. flash memory), charge you for cloud storage, allow wireless syncing, and got the music industry to extend the olive branch to all pirates. The "sacrifice" is no streaming, which again, allows Apple to charge you for local storage, enabled the deals with the music industry, etc.

Edit: iTunes 10.3 not showing up on my Mac or PC through Software Update.

What incentive is it for me to buy anymore itunes songs? Say for example I want 25 songs from iTunes - that would cost me roughly $25. OR... I could just pirate 1000 songs and only pay $25/year instead of $1000 for all those songs.

$25/year x 40 years would be the same as if I bought 1,000 songs off iTunes.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong - but why would I buy anymore music????

It appears that my 128Kbps protected iTunes songs are NOT being updated to iTunes Plus, at least not when using the current iCloud download method. This seems rather odd and if the same holds true for the iTunes Match service it will mean that everyone who legally purchased DRM'd songs from iTunes will end up having to pay more to upgrade their songs to iTunes Plus than someone who may have just pirated their music and then updated with the iTunes Match service. If that proves to be true it will be a rather nasty postscript to the DRM legacy of iTunes.

You're right. This is where the music industry is at. They'd rather all the pirates pay $25 per year than $0 per year.

But once you're using the service, if there's songs you want, some people would rather just buy the song rather than have to search through torrents, filesharing sites, etc. then scan and match etc.

So you have the carrot of $25 all-you-can-eat, with the UPSELL of actually purchasing individual songs on top of that because you don't want to have to torrent, fileshare, scan-and-match, re-download 256kbps AAC, etc.

Ethically in recent times I have had more and more trouble pirating stuff. Nowadays I don't torrent movies, I might as well just wait for the HD version anyway on satellite TV which has a built-in recording functionality. It's not on-demand but it's high, unlimited bandwidth because it comes from the dish. If it is a movie I really need to see, especially uncensored, then it's the iTunes Store HD rentals. I can hook up my iPad2 to the HDTV via HDMI.

As for music, mainly I listen to DJ Mixes. I have pirated songs in the past but honestly nothing really in the past few months. Having seen friends struggle to even release a single dance track even though it's really good and "club-worthy".... makes me think twice about pirating dance/trance music, particularly.

Can't wait for iTunes Match to be able to dump everything to the cloud... Although, what is considered a "song"? Many songs even as on iTunes has single tracks that are an hour long, eg. DJ mixes.

There is definitely the temptation to rationalise things as, hey, okay, I'll pay $25 a year and that gives ME the RIGHT to pirate as many songs as I ever wanted. But as attractive as this initially sounds, that's not exactly what the $25 a year is meant to do.... legally, ethically, whatever. It's not for me to judge, I'll have to think about it as well for a while.

Huh? iTunes Match hasn't started yet. AFAIK (my iTunes 10.3 is still downloading) iTunes 10.3 gives you an option to download anything you've already purchased. Apple didn't say this previous purchases would give you 256kbps DRM-free, that only happens when iTunes Match comes along, and that's only when you actually PAY the $29/year.

here is what I think.

1) If they can download they can stream.
2) They couldnt get streaming first from the Labels at a decent price - the idea is to get the pirates - most people have some piracy - to upload their stuff for $25. Apple has an installed base of 200M, which will be 500M to 1B within a few years. With a 50% uptake that is a lot of money. From £2.5B to $12B in a few years.

3) Apple then adds premium services - i.e. more money for streaming, recommendations, sharing with friends to people already on the service. An extra $15 a year. Take is now $20B.

That saves the labels.

The technical challenge here is not that amazing - Apple might well be worse than spotifiy but it has massive reach. iCloud is going to be integral to the iOS, and about 50% of poeple will use the premium version I think. Adding streaming then gets you a percentage of the 50% who use premium iCloud. They think - "may as well stream for an extra tenner."

Its important to see if this works first, of course, as streaming may affect sales. Apple needs to work out the advantages to owning a collection, rather than just streaming it at will. It could be something as simple as a restriction on the number of plays per month of a given track when streaming ( rather than when owned on the cloud). Even at a high number - say 10-20 - that makes people feel they dont own the track, so they buy is at $1.99. It can be played as many times as needed.

Good idea. Apple always rolls things out in stages.

In a word... underwhelming.

It's not like it looks bad or anything, it actually seems quite functional. I just think Apple had a chance to hit the ball out of the park on this one, but instead they have chosen to go for a safe single.

My neighbor also was on the subject of piracy. What if someone wanted an album, and did the following: Say there were ten songs on an album. In theory, one could take a music editing program and create 10 files with the same names and lengths as the album Apple has for sale. Could the metadata then be changed to make the cloud think that person really has those songs?

From what I'd gather the original file will remain on that device and iCloud will sync the 256k AACs to your other iCloud devices. I just wonder whether there will still be an option to download as 128kbps files to your iDevices, I have this option ticked on iTunes at the moment so I can get more tracks onto my phone.

Another thing I'm wondering about is whether there will be a web-based interface for the music.

I haven't seen mention of web services for any of iCloud... you'd have to presume that the web versions of the MobileMe services will carry into similar ones on the new iCloud surely? If so it would be logical that there will also be a way to get access to your iCloud music from a web browser?

The Website and the KeyNote mentioned 20,000 songs - as an example - not a limit - http://www.apple.com/icloud/features/

and since I would think that the expectation is that only a small fraction of your 20,000 tracks will not match the 18 million track catalog - then only a portion of what you have will need to be uploaded. (content creators of course are a case where lots of local tracks will not match the Apple library - or maybe they will offer a way for those who create music independently to offer their tracks for sale).

The 5 GB limit is mentioned for mail and photos etc - not sure how that fits in the picture for music - or free iCloud vs $24.99 a year option.

Hopefully the web browser access for iCloud will be available and rewritten as well. We'll see.

What happened with the song after a year if I pay iTunes Match only for one year?

On the bottom of same page you linked to: Limit 25,000 songs. iTunes purchases do not count against limit.

What happens to your car if you don't make your payments?

This is even a question for you?

Yes a lot of questions remain. It will be interesting to learn what happens to your original music files. Are they replaced by the iCloud versions? Or are the iCloud versions only pushed to the iOS devices and never write over the originals on your computer? I just cannot imagine that a users original songs are replaced or upgraded or granted amnesty or whatever you want to call it. I think that the iOS devices are merely seen as receivers in a sense. Besides the obvious issue of pirated music being laundered, the potential for problems with overwrite errors in a user's library is just too disastrous.

John the Pirate pays the $25 to launder all of his boot music and then cancels his membership. Does he get to keep all of his fresh cleanly tagged music? Or does he now lose the right to listen to the replaced songs. Neither scenario makes sense. I can only imagine the Texas lawsuits that would arise from that.

gotta read the fine print.

A better analogy here would be you have a car - regardless of whether you are making payments on it or own it outright or stole it - you contract for an annual fee with a company to provide maintenance - they will come out and put air in the tires and change the oil and put new tires on it - what happens in that case when you stop paying - do they come out and take the oil out of your car and take the tires off?

In other words - what EXACTLY - are we actually paying for - as in precisely what rights do we have to the content that is resident on our personal device after the service fee is no longer paid?

I would not expect to see content I have on my local hard drive (and backed up to a network device) to be removed. No more access to new matches and no cloud copy of my non-matched tracks surely - but shutting off access to the Match service is not quite the same as ending a subscription service such as amazon streaming where you never own any rights to any of the content except as it is playing provided you have a current subscription - and the moment you are not authorized then you cannot see any content (at least that is how I am guess in works, never having using it myself).

You gotcha!

2.Requires iOS 5 on iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod touch (3rd and 4th generation), iPad, or iPad 2, or a Mac computer with OS X Lion or a PC with Windows Vista or Windows 7 (Outlook 2007 or 2010 recommended). Limit 25,000 songs. iTunes purchases do not count against limit.

I just started using Audiogalaxy after Jukefly and (mysteriously) Zumocast also quit working. I've been very happy with it. It's free, easy to set up, and so far is working flawlessly. I listen to music all day long at work, and never know what type of music I'm going to be in the mood for, so I really like have access to ALL my music, not just what I synced on my phone a few days back.

The only thing I don't like about it or any other current streaming service is that you have to leave you home computer on if you want access to streaming out of your MP3 library. Not a huge deal, but I would prefer to have my home PC off all day while I'm at work, yet still have access to my entire library of music. I was hoping this new iCloud service would read your MP3 collection, then make all your song available from the iCloud, not your own home PC. Then you could access everything and save a little $ on your power bill.

If Amazon.com would make an iOS app for their cloud service I'd be all over that, but I think I can keep dreaming there!

All very good questions. I don't want my music downgraded or changed to AAC in the process, with the only consolation being that my original copy on the mac is likely, for now, to stay unmodified by the cloud.

Isn't that exactly the idea here? It is all available from the cloud, not your home PC, so my understanding is that once its done the inital scan all the songs are available to you on the phone and with your computer off because the songs are coming from their data center.

If you want the original on the iPhone you can sync with iTunes. Then you don't need to download the iCloud version.

Does anyone actually have more detail on this? Apple pushes the matched files to all your devices? Including your computers?

Does it move your original files? What happens when you don't pay the next year?

I'm curious about a couple of things: Are your iTunes preferences going to be mincemeat; something that you'll have to go back in and reset? And what if I have a favorite MFSL pressing of an album like, say, "The Wall". Will iTunes Match replace it with the U.S. version they have in the store? Or will I have the option to use mine?

so the quality isn't good on the icloud? I have really old CDs from my parents who have the 1st Bob Dylan, Beatles, etc releases before all this remastered crap. Never bothered to buy the remastered ones. Will they update my songs? Also how do they know which ones I stole and which ones I bought? I mean I have had a mac since 2005 but have been ripping CDs since 2000. I have about 15,000 songs. Most of which was when itunes had that cool hack where you basically can take every song off a computer on your network. Worked wonders in College. I went from 2,000 songs to 10,000 in no time.

I don't really understand that though. If they can allow you to download anything from their servers (once it's matched) as many times as you'd like, then they can stream it.

If they offered that, I wouldn't even think about Google Music or Amazon Cloud Player anymore. There will never be an iOS app for either of those services, but both of them allow for streaming, and both of them are super clunky on the iPhone. Apple would kill 'em if they allowed you to stream those matched songs, again for $25/yr or maybe $10 extra (I dunno), from the comfort, familiarity, slickness, etc., of the "baked in the OS" iPod app.

Seems like a no brainer. But now we've got three separate services that are all lacking in some way (well they have Android apps but I won't be purchasing an Android phone anytime ever) and I was almost sure that Apple were ready to knock the competition out with their offering. It's pretty much useless to me w/o streaming.