Apple's iTunes Match finally arrives in Japan
After a nearly two-and-a-half year wait, Apple's iTunes Match has hit the shores of Japan, bringing cloud-based library matching to one of the few countries where users can purchase music through iTunes but not sign up for the service.
With the latest expansion of services, Apple has iTunes Match operating in some 116 countries, according to the company's iTunes availability webpage.
Like its U.S. counterpart, the Japanese iTunes Match allows users to match songs in their music library, including media from CD rips and other sources, with high resolution versions from iTunes. Up to 25,000 tracks can be stored in iCloud -- more if songs are purchased through iTunes -- and users can access them from any connected device.
While U.S. iTunes Match subscriptions go for $24.99 a year, international users usually have to pay a premium to access the service. Japan is no exception as current pricing stands at 3,980 yen, or roughly $39 at today's exchange rate.
Apple last expanded its iTunes Match coverage in December when the service rolled out in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland.
With the latest expansion of services, Apple has iTunes Match operating in some 116 countries, according to the company's iTunes availability webpage.
Like its U.S. counterpart, the Japanese iTunes Match allows users to match songs in their music library, including media from CD rips and other sources, with high resolution versions from iTunes. Up to 25,000 tracks can be stored in iCloud -- more if songs are purchased through iTunes -- and users can access them from any connected device.
While U.S. iTunes Match subscriptions go for $24.99 a year, international users usually have to pay a premium to access the service. Japan is no exception as current pricing stands at 3,980 yen, or roughly $39 at today's exchange rate.
Apple last expanded its iTunes Match coverage in December when the service rolled out in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland.
Comments
I could never quite get what iTunes Match is all about.
It allows you to download? / Stream ? music that iTunes see if you already have the CD ripped MP3 in your HD.
What does it prevent people to BiTorrent thousands of CD Ripped MP3s and get the advantage of iTunes Match for only $30 / 40 a year?
1) Why assume it's goal is to prevent people from torrenting music?
2) It's only $25/year in the US.
3) I use it because it allows me to have all my songs (all at 256kbps AAC) without having to use an excessive amount of space to store them. It means I don't have to micromanage what songs I keep on my phone. I can store the most played tracks locally (and some others) and then keep most of the rest as reference files to my iCloud account ready to play when in the mood without feeling like I'm forgetting something. I get to save $200 a year on an iPhone this way. I also don't even use my Mac's space for my songs in iTunes, just the same reference files to iTunes Match.
Do you have any CDs ripped? Do you notice any difference in quality if you do?
Will we ever get iTunes Radio in England? Maybe I should become Japanese.
All my CDs are from many, many years ago. I converted most of them as ALAC but I can't hear the difference so why waste the space. 256kbps AAC is good enough for me although I'm curious about better than CD and iTMS quality that is rumoured to be coming to iTunes.
Good to know, thanks. I'm sometimes tempted to do the same, but it wouldn't save all that much space. I would love it if iTunes Match was extended to video! That would save a ton of space.
iTunes Match is still somewhat of a conundrum to me. I think its main use case is to allow you to have ready access to a fairly large song collection without filling up your iDevice. I've effectively run out of space on every 64GB and below device I own and must pick & choose what I load on to the device. The iTunes Match service should free me from this inconvenience but it doesn't, at least for mobile devices. If I turn on iTunes Match I know that the first time I get on a long flight I'll be limited to whatever music happens to be on the device. Can I live with that, sure, but part of the appeal of the Apple ecosystem is to not have to think about managing the device. It's just there to serve. Plus, even if I am connected I know that streaming cuts into my data quota.
When we get to the point of universal and ubiquitous connectivity with unlimited data plans by default I think iTunes Match will be the perfect solution for all media sources. Currently it seems to be a compromise solution for mobile devices, which is why I always fall back to buying mobile devices that have the maximum available storage capacity. I don't even have a large music collection but I'm typically at less the 1 GB on every 64 GB device unless I do some serious pruning of apps I haven't used in a while, shutting down shared photo streams, and removing lesser played music. Yeah I know I could get an iPod Classic or use a portable wireless drive but again it makes me actively intervene to solve a problem that I'm asking the Apple ecosystem to solve for me.
Interested to hear how others are using iTunes Match effectively.
bringing cloud-based library matching to one of the few countries where users can purchase music through iTunes but not sign up for the service.
What does this mean?
There is no requirement in any country to sign up for iTunes match to purchase iTunes music.
But if your library is larger than 25.000 songs, you cannot turn on iTunes Match. It will tell you that your library has more than 25.000 songs.
You have to pare it down to less than 25,000 songs on your computer before you can turn it on.
Smart playlists are your friend. I keep all my five star tracks in a smart playlist. With one tap, you can then download it on your iDevices.
You have an impressive record collection! If you have over 2,500 albums or so, you can create two iTunes libraries. But yes, ideally, Apple would raise the limit or remove it.
iTunes Match is still somewhat of a conundrum to me. I think its main use case is to allow you to have ready access to a fairly large song collection without filling up your iDevice. I've effectively run out of space on every 64GB and below device I own and must pick & choose what I load on to the device. The iTunes Match service should free me from this inconvenience but it doesn't, at least for mobile devices. If I turn on iTunes Match I know that the first time I get on a long flight I'll be limited to whatever music happens to be on the device. Can I live with that, sure, but part of the appeal of the Apple ecosystem is to not have to think about managing the device. It's just there to serve. Plus, even if I am connected I know that streaming cuts into my data quota.
When we get to the point of universal and ubiquitous connectivity with unlimited data plans by default I think iTunes Match will be the perfect solution for all media sources. Currently it seems to be a compromise solution for mobile devices, which is why I always fall back to buying mobile devices that have the maximum available storage capacity. I don't even have a large music collection but I'm typically at less the 1 GB on every 64 GB device unless I do some serious pruning of apps I haven't used in a while, shutting down shared photo streams, and removing lesser played music. Yeah I know I could get an iPod Classic or use a portable wireless drive but again it makes me actively intervene to solve a problem that I'm asking the Apple ecosystem to solve for me.
Interested to hear how others are using iTunes Match effectively.
iTunes Match has been and is brilliant for me and my family. We share one iTunes account for all purchases so anything anyone in the family buys is immediately available to everybody else. In effect iTunes Match, or iCloud, or Apple Servers, now holds my family's iTunes Library. There is no need for any computer or device to hold that library. Everyone in the family can download whatever they want to whatever device they want and manage it as they like. I am not sure how that would work if we had hundreds of thousands of songs, but we don't so its ok. Anytime I want to listen to something that I haven't downloaded I can just stream it form iCloud. Over wifi there is no penalty but in the car that will eat into the data package, but that is fairly easy to manage.
iTunes Match is a great idea and Apple definitely needs to pump some energy into it.
You mean only the music in your library and only less than 25k songs (which is likely not an issue for most people)
Yes, only music. We share a single App Store account, too, and iBook account, so any book my wife or kids buy I can download and read, too, and then delete from my device. Ditto Apps. The only problem is that I have a tone of content on these accounts that is now irrelevant because what the kids liked a year ago is 'for kids' (according to them) today.