iTunes Music Cloud Service Launches
Apple released a new version of iTunes that includes iTunes Match ($24.99/year). Its part of Apple’s iCloud service. Music match will scan the content of your iTunes library and match it to the ITMS selection. Music that doesn’t match is uploaded — and you end up with all of your music in the Apple cloud, playable on any iOS or Apple (or even PC) device:
Now you can download music and TV shows you’ve previously purchased to all your devices. When you buy from iTunes, iCloud stores your purchase history. So you can see what you’ve bought — no matter which device you bought it on. You can access your purchase history from the iTunes Store on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, PC, or Apple TV. And since you already own the songs, albums, or TV shows in your purchase history, you can tap to download them to any of your devices.
Hat tip The Loop
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November 14th, 2011 at 3:06 pm
Sounds like what Amazon has been doing since earlier this year.
But, as usual, Apple invented it. And, it’s magical.
November 14th, 2011 at 3:49 pm
They didn’t invent it . . . and the last version of Apple iCloud sucked.
But Amazon’s cloud only works with MP3s you bought from them
This seems to be a much improved iteration from Apple
November 14th, 2011 at 4:47 pm
Not to pick nits, Barry, but I think you’re mistaken about that limitation of Amazon’s MP3 cloud player. And Spotify and Google Music also deliver similar capabilities. No doubt Apple’s product is much better integrated with Apple’s platforms, however.
November 14th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
Barry:
I would have to agree with the other posters. One has to be on the blind side of fanboy to see anything noteworthy here.
Ironic that you see this as a positive, I see it as an “I already miss Jobs” moment in that announcements as of late have sounded kinda dissappointing…kinda Microsquishy…
Based on your own article, if Apple was my investment fund manager, as of right now I’d be wondering if it was time to start looking for a new manager.
November 14th, 2011 at 6:05 pm
Cool, so they are catching up with Amazon, eh? I’ve never installed itunes -never will.
November 14th, 2011 at 6:08 pm
The other posters are correct – you can upload random stuff to Amazon without a problem. The only tough ones are the ones that don’t get recognized. Then, you can still play it but it doesn’t categorize as nicely.
Amazon’s service isn’t perfect – but it is free – and buying one song at one point got you an upgrade to 20GB for free.
November 14th, 2011 at 6:42 pm
It is not Amazon – you don’t upload your media it is done automatically. Apple servers are apparently overloaded by all of the consumers wanting this service. You may want to wait a few hours.
Read:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/11/apple-launches-itunes-match-music-hoarders-need-not-apply.ars?comments=1#comments-bar
Or RTFM:
http://www.apple.com/icloud/
November 14th, 2011 at 8:24 pm
Has anybody lost the ability to rip mp3′s with iTunes (10.5.0.142) using Audiograbber ?
Audiograbber no longer allows ripping to mp3′s , it only allows .wav files- maybe it’s only a coincidence…
Fortunately I have my old machine (same o/s Win XP and Audiograbber 1.83) which still allows mp3 ripping
November 14th, 2011 at 8:28 pm
No, lawyer, the point is, Amazon has had an identical and superior service (free) for a long time. If they would release a Roku app for it, I would consider it perfect.
November 14th, 2011 at 9:09 pm
The key words here are: ‘…when you buy from iTunes…’ You “purchase” music that lives in Apple’s cloud and is accessible only on an Apple device.
These sites are like big Las Vegas casinos: designed to lure you in and keep you there. And in Apple’s case, it is to keep you on the Apple reservation for all of your electronic needs.
What happened to actually possessing the music you buy?
November 14th, 2011 at 9:13 pm
In fairness, the iMatch is an improvement.
Amazon’s service w.r.t. movies and videos is a little different; it remembers what you’ve purchased so you can always go back and play it again by logging into Amazon. You can also just keep a copy on one of your devices.
November 14th, 2011 at 9:34 pm
I’m going to try it. I have 7,498 songs in my iTunes Library. I’ve purchase less than 100 of these. I suspect the quality of my Library will be material improved and I am looking forward to listening to some of these songs on my iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, MacBookPro, and my home Mac desktop. iTune Matching is wonderful new reason to have Apple products. Another Big Thank You to Steve Jobs and Team for making my life simpler and better.
P.S. Siri is spectacular. I just Say, ” Play America” and the song begins to play on my iPhone4S. No more looking for the song or typing a search the name! The World is changing … Big Time!
November 14th, 2011 at 10:44 pm
“Amazon has had an identical and superior service…”
Unless I don’t have to upload my library and continue doing so as I add music, I would hardly call Amazon’s offering “superior.” I’ve got nearly 20,000 songs (98% of which I have burned off of CD’s that I own) mostly all ripped at 320K. The idea of uploading 100′s of gigs of music in order to use Amazon’s service in a similar fashion is ridiculous.
I’ve been a big fan of Amazon and their services for a dozen years and can appreciate not being locked in to Apple. But that Apple can read my library and stream it back to me at 256K without having to upload songs makes this the clear winner.
I also do not understand the hate for iTunes. It has its shortcomings but has been the most consistently stable, best supported, and easy to use media player that I have used.
November 15th, 2011 at 4:24 am
I’m considering the iphone 4s for both Siri and the iCloud functions – but my experience with iTunes has not been great – it has failed on both work and home computers screwing them up, and being damn near impossible to fix. Then there is the tie in to apple’s format as opposed to MP3, and I have to admit I do feel aggrieved by these corporate bastards trying to chain you to their way of doing things.
On the other hand, the idea of the cloud is very attractive to overcome any loss of data or functionality issues.
I went for Spotify a while ago and haven’t turned back, but it too recently has had a few bugs on the iphone….
November 15th, 2011 at 12:18 pm
Mike InSF:
Great! Glad iTunes is there for you as an option. Mainly I’m FREAKIN HAPPY to live in a time and place that celebrates diversity and choice! (Sorry, gotta celebrate the important stuff while we still have it.)
To answer your question: for me iTunes is too huge and makes too many calls home looking for updates. And if I disable updates, it nags me to turn them back on. The nagware is just plain wrong! And do they even have an EQ yet? I need one these days to mitigate the horrible things recording engineers do to pop music these days. (Please, louder is not better nor is more compressed more impressive.)
Otherwise the only pains I had with iTunes was how it kept adding my songs in again and again every time I launched it so I would have to delete and re-import the song list weekly. But that had to do with a KVM switch and all my songs being on an external HD…and the resources it hogged on my aging multimedia PC were just too much to handle when other options existing that solved all of these issues (plus work on my Linux partitions).
November 15th, 2011 at 9:11 pm
I have only been using Google Music for a couple of weeks, but have been very happy with it. The initial hassle of uploading my music is worth the price of admission. It is very seamless – point to your music folder and let it upload in the background. It even handles FLAC files (automatic conversion) and iTunes. I don’t see a reason to pay for an alternate service.