With iCloud, the music you purchase in iTunes appears automatically on all your devices. You can also download your past iTunes purchases. Where you want, when you want.
It’s as easy as 1-2-3:
1. Buy music: Download music from iTunes on any device.
2. iCloud stores it: Your music is stored in iCloud.
3. And iCloud pushes it to your devices: Your music automatically appears on your iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, and PC.
Available now in beta, iCloud automatically downloads any new music purchase to all your devices over Wi-Fi or over 3G, if you choose. Yup, you can buy a song from iTunes on your iPad at home and find it waiting for you on your iPhone during your morning commute. All without having to sync. It just works.
Also available in beta now, your past purchases are available on all your devices. Now you can download music you’ve previously purchased to all your devices. When you buy music from iTunes, iCloud stores your purchase history. So you can see the music you’ve bought, no matter on which device you purchased it. You can access your purchase history from the iTunes Store on your Mac, PC, iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. And since you already own that music, you can tap to download your songs or albums to any or all of your devices.
Apple’s iTunes Match is coming this fall. If you want all the benefits of iTunes in the Cloud for music you haven’t purchased from iTunes, iTunes Match will be the perfect solution. It lets you store your entire collection, including music you’ve ripped from CDs or purchased somewhere other than iTunes. For just $24.99 a year (limit 25,000 songs; iTunes purchases do not count against 25,000 song limit).
Here’s how iTunes Match works: iTunes determines which songs in your collection are available in the iTunes Store. Any music with a match is automatically added to your iCloud library for you to listen to anytime, on any device. Because there are over 18 million songs in the iTunes Store, the vast majority of your music is likely already in iCloud. So, all you have to upload is what iTunes can’t match – that’s much faster than uploading everything. Right Amazon and Google? And all the music iTunes matches plays back at 256-Kbps iTunes Plus (AAC) quality — even if your original copy was of lower quality.
Can you say “amnesty,” music pirates? We knew you could! $24.99 a year and your music karma will be as pure as pure can be!
Try the beta features today with iTunes 10.3, free for Mac and PC. More info and download link here.
The only question I have that hasn’t been answered. If I buy 16G of music at home on my iMac. In theory, that should download on my phone. But what if I don’t have that much space on my phone. What gets downloaded and what doesn’t. Is it set by date? I’m just curious that I haven’t seen this question brought up or maybe I’m just clueless on how this works.
Works just like when we had a 4gb iPod.
Manage your music on your phone manually, not automagically. Have it just download playlists, and don’t include purchased music as a list. If a song qualifies for a Smart Playlist, I imagine it would download then.
Apple should provide a year of iTunes Match gratis to those MobileMe subscribers who have 6 or more months left on their subscription. These subscribers paid $99 for a year of MobileMe. Comping them a $25 annual subscription seems fair to me.
Good idea. Now write Apple a feedback note suggesting this and I’ll support you with a feedback note of my own. I bought a 2 MobileMe codes from Amazon last year for only $50 each. Completed submission to Apple yesterday for a full $99 refund for the unopened box-code. Looks like I’m in MobileMe for free since last October. 🙂
MobileMe works to 2012 not 2011, so no 6 months left
A bigger question remains unanswered. So you pay the $24.99 and iTunes Match “upgrades” all the songs it can finda match for and stores them in the cloud. Do you now own those songs? Like, can you download them and keep them on your computer forever? Or are you actually renting them, and when you stop paying the annual fee, they’re gone? Anyone know?
Yes, you own them, since you ‘owned’ them before matching. You can download them from the cloud to your machine and they’ll stay there forever (it is DRM-free AAC). Even if you cancel the $25-per year.
That’s what I was wondering and assuming, but thanks for confirming it!
No, I don’t think so. As long as you pay your annual $25 you will be able to continue listening to your non-iTunes music. If you stop, then the i-Tunes music will be unplayable.
It would be better if you back up a copy of your non-iTunes music on another media, just in case.
Windows iMatch Explained
-my butt, Ballmer’s face…..
The biggest question for me is regarding the download requirement. That’s still a major time and space commitment that I’m not sure this cloud service eliminates. I’m also not totally sold that this won’t turn out to be streaming. There’s been a lot of interpretation on this point hanging on the relatively few voice words used to describe the service, and I don’t believe there would be all this effort to just simply give us a glorified wireless sync. iTunes in the Cloud may be available – at least in part – today, but no one’s seen Match yet. Only time will tell.
Nobody ever said anything about streaming. Not yesterday (in the keynote), not today, in all the web material Apple posted around. There were, however, quite a few people who followed some live bloggers from the event and concluded something about streaming. Just NOT true.
All I am saying is that I don’t think it was CLEAR. Too many conclusions / interpretations on too little known official info. Beyond rumors, straight to assuming. And we all know what assume does?
Based on what was said at the keynote yesterday, it would seem that you have the choice to either stream or download. Download the ones you want to have constant access to, stream the rest.
I reach this conclusion based in part over the big deal Apple made about not having to upload your whole library. It would make sense that this would apply to downloads as well, as this would be a major bandwidth and time issue. Also, this procedure was laid out with the Photostream app and the way it works with Apple TV.
You’re right though that there isn’t enough info yet as the service is still a few months from launch. I say, trying out the beta of iCloud’s iTunes purchase service would probably answer many of these questions.
Anyone here done so yet?
I’m not sure the iTunes in the Cloud beta gives us enough insight into what the iTunes Match service will look like. I can understand why you’d want to be able to download a song you purchased from iTunes on as many devices as you want: you paid for the FILE. I further believe that with Match you’ll be buying access (not the actual file) to files that didn’t originally come from iTunes. Which is why I’ll continue to believe it’ll be closer to streaming than syncing, until I OFFICIALLY hear (from Apple) otherwise.
You will OWN the songs that are matched. FOREVER! They will be downloaded to your computers’ hard drive. That makes it YOURS.
Also, lets ASSUME they are not yours. They are, as you say in some kind of “rented” form. All you got to do then is back them up to a backup drive and you have them in a time machine going back to when they were on your hard drive. But you don’t have to assume any of this, because they definitely ARE YOURS once they are matched.
so who here will become an iclouder?
99% of us… It’s free.
You should have asked about iTunes match, the part that costs.
And no, I won’t be paying for iTunes match. The rest, yes I will. I like the features already released for app store/iTunes.
25,000 non-iTunes tracks? That could be upwards of 150 gigabytes in itself. You’d think Apple would set a memory limit like the other services do (say 50 GB).
EXACTLY. And who has a 150gb iDevice, or the time, bandwidth, etc. to move those files, especially to multiple platforms? That’s why I still believe this service will turn out to be closer to streaming (in improved iTunes quality) than syncing. Stop paying for the service, stop getting the cloud’s offering and back to sync.
Again, no. No streaming. It simply cannot happen, as it is NOT set up for that. It will only be syncing. When there is not enough space, the cloud will behave EXACTLY the same way your desktop iTunes did when you hooked up your iPod: it will fill it up with random selection of music, unless you manually pick playlists to sync. And it will do that for free (no paying).
The only time you’ll need to pay is if you did NOT buy your music from iTunes. Then you’ll be paying Apple essentially to rent additional space for your own music, even though technically, most of it won’t even need additional space, as iTunes Match would find all those tracks in their library anyway, and just point to them for you to sync.
I do, I have nearly a terrabyte and 1/2 of music. My records, the records I got from my folks. (we are talking thousands, not hundreds) My cassettes, my CD’s, 45’s all beautifully encoded and organized. I’ve worked in record stores, radio stations, and am just plain a collector. I love music…
i believe you own them. they upgrad them and send them to your devices. they made a point to say these matched songs are drm free. they wouldnt be if you were renting them
So, essentially, those local files (ripped, torrented, whatever) will never really go anywhere if iTunes Match ends up recognising them. For every track iTunes does recognise, the iCloud will just add the same one from iTunes Store library to your account. Then you sync and all the crappy songs called ‘Track 02’, by a singer named ‘Artist’, from an album called ‘Album’ and encoded in 128k MP3 will now become available to you in AAC 256k, with proper names and all artwork.
I still don’t get it. By “get it”, I mean I don’t see the appeal of the service and it’s associated cost. I’m not being critical. I’m trying to understand.
Is this a workaround for being tied to a computer? Is this the future now?
BEFORE: 25.0000 songs at various bitrates below 256kbps AAC.
AFTER: 25,000 songs ALL at 256kbps AAC.
Worth a lot more than $25 to my ears.
Also BEFORE: 25,000 songs at home on your hard drive, and a subset of 5,000 of them on your iPhone wherever you are, with no access to the ones at home.
AFTER: 25,000 songs ALL accessible from your iPhone, anyplace with a wifi or 3G signal.
Worth a lot more than $25 to my ears.
I ripped all of my music using Apple Lossless. For iPod use, I then converted them to AAC 128. Purchased songs from iTunes are pretty much all at AAC 256 (upgraded to DRM-free a couple of years ago).
Not what I found out! I downloaded a previously owned song and it did download the the iPhone. But, as I then sync’d the phone back to the Mac, the file was ‘exchanged’ back to the lower quality original file. Lower bit rate and now on the iPhone. Also couldn’t get the purchasing of a new song to ‘push’ to the iPhone from a G5 Mac, running Leopard. The preference file for pushing music to the other devices seems to be problematic on a PowerPC machine.
Still testing other items.
Well, what you are describing is exactly what the steps are meant to do. The iCloud is the main host. All other devices should be ‘clients’. When you look up your purchased songs on any of your devices, they will become available to you for syncing (downloading) from each of them, wherever they don’t exist. If I understood you correctly, you iMac already had an older copy (128k, DRM-encumbered version, perhaps?) of a song. Your iPhone didn’t. You downloaded the song to your iPhone. Then you connected that iPhone to your Mac and are now synching the music back FROM the Mac. Since your Mac already has that song, it just overwrote it on the iPhone.
What you probably should have done is synched your Mac with the iCloud. Perhaps deleting all early purchases that have DRM versions of songs (with 128k bitrate), and re-download the fresh new DRM-free, high quality versions of them.
It looks like some features will require an Intel processor machine or Lion, which will only run on Intel machines. See the footnotes on the Apple website:
1. Available in beta now in the U.S. only and requires iOS 4.3.3 on iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 (GSM model), iPod touch (3rd and 4th generation), iPad, or iPad 2, or a Mac or PC with iTunes 10.3. Previous purchases may be unavailable if they are no longer in the iTunes Store. Download iTunes 10.3 free.
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.
No streaming, not interested. The whole point for me (I have TONS of CDs I own that I converted to digital files over the years) is to have a streaming “server” to stream my songs to me so I don’t have to take up space on my portable devices.
As it stands, Stream To Me works fine as a streaming server, and only cost $3 one time. So no sale for their match service. At least for me!
what about using a mac mini server and stream all the songs yourself?
Nice way for me to upgrade the sound quality on all my CDs I ripped back in 2004 when the default was 128 Kbps.
Just want to make sure that the upgraded songs will be mine to own and won’t disappear if I decide not to renew iTunes Matching.
Don’t really see the point outside of increasing the bit rate. I already spent considerable time adding artwork and making sure all my info on the songs were correct (no thanks to iTunes’ Find Album Art).
iTunes Match is worthless for folks who use lossless, folks who correct iTunes’ crappy metadata entries and to those who have a lot of music not on iTunes. I personally volume correct every single song that I rip from CD using Pro Tools. Sound Check was never a viable answer. I’d been using 320k MP3 for compatability reasons, but with most of us moving away from optical discs and storage getting cheaper. I’ve begun to move to lossless. So for me, iTunes Match would be a downgrade.
Not to mention that $24.99 is a lot less than what Apple originally wanted to upgrade all of my previous purchases to iTunes Plus (.30/song).
Why the fascination with streaming?
Everyone must have unlimited data plans,
I’d rather have increased capacity on my Apple devices and have the content instantly accessible. No buffering. No waiting.
Now if Apple would correct the biggest flaw in iTunes — the lack of sub-genres or multiple genres.
Many categories conflict or force you to choose one over another and in turn limit what Smart Playlists can do.
Music that is “Soundtrack” needs to also be defined as another genre. Same with “Holiday”, “Disney”, “Children’s Music”, etc.
And main genres like Rock, need sub-genres to define Metal, Classic Rock, etc.
You can always change the Genre yourself. The music companies themselves supply the (sometimes awful) cover art, the metadata and the files themselves. I always chuckle at folks who blame Apple for crappy downloads. I think most labels/music owners are more interested in making a quick buck than providing accurate metadata and carefully scanned cover art.
amazing how many people here don’t get what iTunes Match is about! You’re paying Apple 25 bucks a year to replace your ripped Tracks with legit iTunes copies that will be pushed (downloaded, NOT streamed) to all your iOS devices. their giving you a hard drive in the cloud for your tracks without you having to upload anything: the service scans your local iTunes library and looks for the tracks in their database: your tracks remain on your drive! How is that a bad deal?
I can and do change when necessary, but I think ADDING sub-genres or the ability to define multiple genres would be a big improvement over the current form.
Simple things like the inconsistency of rap music sometimes labeled “Hip Hop/Rap” and other times “Hip-Hop/Rap” with a dash always have me selecting one group and reclassifying all.
Some thoughts. Not sure if this is all true, but the way I understand things:
1) No streaming. The music you play is on your local device. The purpose of iCloud is to sync all your devices, not act as a storage medium for them.
2) If you don’t have enough space on your iDevice, you can use multiple playlists and sync the one(s) you want to listen to at any given time (and change the playlists in the future, redownloading stuff).
3) $25/yr subscription: some argue “why would I do this more than once? See point (2) above. Also, new purchases (CDs) and the like.
4) “It’s just a backup.” No. It’s synchronization you’re paying for, not simply backing up files.
5) Photos go away after 30 days. No. If you move them into a folder they stay around.
6) Bandwidth. Everyone seems to be complaining about data caps. I suspect these same people use Pandora everyday and I don’t see them complaining about that. Granted, if you’ve got a 150MB data plan, you’re hosed. Perhaps you ought to upgrade. Fortunately, I’m grandfathered in and spend that extra $5/mo on AT&T even though I rarely hit 2GB. I kept paying the unlimited tax exactly because I was expecting something like this from Apple.
Now some questions:
#1 question on everyone with Mobile Me’s mind: do I get to keep my web hosting beyond June of next year?
#2: Movies and TV shows: Boy, it would be far better to be able to sync these guys amongst all my devices over iCloud. When is video going to be on the cloud? And will matching work if I’ve ripped some DVDs that I own?
#3: What about people who need more than 5 gigs (see question #2 above)?
#4: When does the ATV get folded into the iCloud family?
I 100% agree with the resolve of point 6: I currently use Pandora for all my music streaming. It has never put me close to the data limit, nor have I given that aspect of its use a second thought. IMHO, the only way to improve upon that service is to be able to specifically chose – song, album, artist (essentially playlist) – what plays. Welcome my vision of what iTunes Matching can provide.
This is ALSO why believe that shows and movies were absent from its description: if we’re talking about streaming video, then that may be get closer to the data/bandwidth limits of some.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, MY interpretation of this new service. You are more than welcome to yours. Time will tell us both.
Does anyone know if Apple will allow you to “Download All” upgraded AAC Kbps tracks or will you have to individually select?
SOOOO, Apple can has my music collection (CD rips, friends music, pirated booty), then Apple magically integrates with the 18millions of songs and I can has it after it has been magically washed on any iOS devise? For 24 smackers and 99 nuggets??????
It would be more fun to read these threads if people would do three things:
1. Read and understand the article.
2. Watch and listen to the Keynote.
3. Exercise their brain and retain what they read and hear.
One other thing. iTunes Matching – costs $25.00 per year. You can bet that was a requirement of the Record Industry! Apple could care less; the Industry made them cough up the $25.
Assuming you *can* download and keep the upgraded tracks, this comes as a major relief, considering I’d just decided to re-rip my entire music library in 256kbps AAC.
Now if they’d just bring iTunes Match Down Under ASAP …
“the music you purchase in iTunes appears automatically on all your devices”
Wow! For me that means 4 whole songs! How is that an improvement?
As it is today, ALL my music is copied in its entirety on ALL my devices, automatically during a Sync. Most of it *is not available* on iTunes or ever will be, as they were bought on CD from undiscovered talents, local, or Indie musicians.
@Brau
it’s a small step for you, but a great leap for mankind :o)