Slashdot Mirror
iTunes Match Expands To Latin America, Netherlands, Baltics
Sir Mal Fet writes "iTunes Match, Apple's service that allows re-downloading all your music, ripped CDs, and other music files across all your libraries using the iCloud service, has been made available in most of Latin America, the Netherlands, and the Baltic states. " Here's one user's review of the service. Is it worth the $25/year? Do you use the service?"
Can /. give me a real world speed report?
On a relatively modern linux desktop at home, google music manager uploads about 100 songs per day at 128 K limited upload (a fraction of my upload pipe, and I like to keep it that way).
Thats 128 kilobits per sec / 8 bytes per bit * 1024 bytes per kilobyte * 60 secs per minute * 60 mins per hour * 24 hours per day / 100 songs per day = 13.5 megabytes per mp3 file. Wait a second, somethings not right there. Hmm. I should be uploading more like 1000 songs per day at 128K upload but I'm only getting about a tenth that.
I can't run itunes (easily) on my linux desktop at home can someone advise me how fast itunes match "matches up"? I can't use it so I don't deeply care, but it is interesting in an abstract sense.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Is this still the store which doesn't work with web browsers, or have they fixed that by now? Last time I looked at iTunes, there was no way to use it without a special client program. You couldn't buy, download music.
People think I'm crazy but it is(was?) really like that. How the hell are they taking over the world while ignoring the web?
They basically are charging you for the ability to redownload music and the convenience to autodownload all your files onto all your devices (rather then having to manually transfer it). Now, you could argue that it should work like steam and not be charged for what should already be yours (license? product? who knows at this point). That said, there is a cost associated with each transfer, though an insanely small once. Some might find it convenient especially those who care not to backup their music and desire less hassle. I, however, find it pointless though as i'm the type that keeps backups of any files i like to keep unlike the vast majority of consumers.
Apple are as Gods among men if they got the record companies to agree to this, even for $25/yr.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I'm subscribed. When I subscribed, I had about 3.7k files < 256kbps (I remember the numbers because looked to see if it was worth it). After the matching, I now have ~ 1k files at < 256kbps. Of those, most are non-commercial tracks that have never appeared in any other form (hello http://remix.kwed.org) - I download their quarterly playlists.
So overall, a good job and I'm satisfied it saved me a ton of time upgrading my own rips. However that's the good - time for the bad.
Artwork. Artwork has been a mess. When I initially matched, I noticed a lot of my tracks had poor quality artwork (not due to match, they always had them). I went through and fixed them all - a few moments later, Match came back and blatted everything - right back to poor quality artwork again. Making it accept the newer high quality has been very hit and miss, usually involving deleting the track frmo my library and Match then re-importing - even then it doesn't always work.
That's artwork everywhere. Now to specific problems with the iPhone. I turned off Match due to a bad wi-fi area I was in - I had a connection, but couldn't get anywhere. As soon as I turned Match off, all artwork was wiped from my phone. Turning Match back on again appears to have randomly reinstated some artwork and not others.
Sorting. I had some hassle again and turned Match off on the iPhone. I then put it back on again, and suddenly the sort order of my artists was massively out - I have artists starting with K appearing under the 'I' section. It's not random, the artists are actually sorted in alphabetic order, however if you use your thumb to scroll down directly to letter 'M', for example, the first artist listed is James Newton Howard. Hmm....
The other thing is that I'm not sure I'll stay subscribed next year. As a labour-saving initial hit, the price was worth it for me. Now my files are matched anyway, I'm not sure it's worth it for me any more -I'm just as happy with the wireless syncing.
Cheers,
Ian
When they announced this, I didn't really see the point.
I'm not buying new music from my iPhone (because I don't have one) and expecting it to show up on my computer ... I'm not buying songs on my computer either. Pretty much all of my music is ripped straight from CDs I've bought, and my music library is currently > 70GB.
So, if I need to update my iPods or my iPad, I just plug them into my computer. My iPod classic holds the entire library anyway, and my smaller iPod and iPad get sync'd with what I tell them. At a certain point, the 16GB or so of music they each have is days worth, so it's not like I run out.
I'm obviously not the target audience for this (not least of which because I'm not willing to pay) ... but I don't know the benefit of having my music "in the cloud". The only cloud stuff I've ever used is DropBox, and even after a few months, I barely used that anymore.
Having said that, I'm sure that for someone this is a highly useful feature ... but I think you'd have to be purchasing content on the go a lot more than I can even conceive of.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I subscribed, and I was glad I did when I was able to upgrade a bunch of my MP3s to iTunes Store AAC files, with whatever quality improvement there is in going from an amateur's MP3 encoding to a studio's AAC release. Mostly, I find that the music sounds a little louder, which could be the result of other factors like the store using a newer remastering, for example.
It's nice having my entire music collection on my iPad, but I actually have so much music (about 100GB), apparently, that I often crash iTunes on my iPad 1 when I first load it. It comes up on the second launch.
"Sufferin' succotash."
The "iTunes Match" option NEVER disappears from the menu bar at the left.
Even after you've disabled the iTunes store under "parental controls", it's still there. Even after you click "No Thanks" it's still there, asking you to subscribe for $25/year. (this is itunes 10.5.1.42 on windows).
Either shoddy programming, or an insidious attempt to get more money out of you despite the parental controls.
First, the match part replaced bunch of crappy rips with their higher-quality stuff, and I'm not just talking about bit rates. A lot of rips out there just sound bad, and the ones I did from vinyl have the obligatory vinyl noise - the match is clean.
Second, I have way more music than fits on my iPhone. Having the stuff in the cloud solves that problem very nicely.
Third, it just works the way it should - stuff I buy or "acquire" on one device is automagically available on all of my other devices. Makes the notion of doing syncs - wirelessly or not - seem quaint.
Spotify lets you listen to any music they have in their library, from anywhere. It all goes away when you stop paying for Spotify.
iTunes match lets you listen to any of YOUR music, anywhere. That includes rips of CD's no longer sold, live recordings, etc. If you stop paying for iTunes match you still get to keep everything you downloaded (which you should have anyway since you uploaded it to begin with).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Oh my. I seem to recall a time when this wasn't possible.
Even in very early days of iTunes you were allowed to re-download everything once or twice a year. It was a more manual process then though (I think you had to call).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
$250m for all you can pirate music doesn't seem like a very good deal for the recording industry.
That was just a guess on the OP's part.
In reality since everyone is paying $25/year for the service, you know the music companies are getting some cut.
Even though it seems like a small amount it's a lot of money they were not seeing previously. And most people will be buying tracks anyway.
What I'm curious about is if indie labels get anything from this if iTunes ends up Matching something they own.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
About 60% of my music is cd-ripped, and I don't have the discs anymore, so if anything happened to my hard drive I'd lose the lot. For £21/year, that music is up converted to 256kps (I ripped at 128kps years ago - my bad) and downloadable to my phone too, at any time. Plus, and more importantly for me, it's backed up offline.
As an insurance policy, I think £21 is pretty good value.
"We live in a global world" - Harvey Pitt, former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman
Yesterday, I had something funny happen with iTunes match. I was streaming Weezer's "Perfect Situation," off of their "Make Believe" album. I heard a chorus at the end of the song that I'd never heard before. I then hopped over to my computer with the actual rip of the CD that I made, and low and behold, the chorus at the end of "Perfect Situation" wasn't there!
iTunes match also can't handle pausing while streaming. Often I have to restart the song if I pause it while streaming.
I also found streaming from iTunes match on my iPhone to be somewhat sketchy, so I disabled it and switched to Android.
No, I will not work for your startup