Apple's cloud music service 'WIPES your iPHONE' Apple's cloud music subscription service iTunes Match has gone live – for Americans only, at first. Announced in June, the $24.99 service allows subscribers to stream their music collections back from Apple's servers. Unlike other "locker" music services, Apple scans your iTunes library so that much, if not most, of your music …
It merits 5 thumbs down (at the time of writing) because the OP hasn't bothered to even see if that's how the system works, which it isn't.
If you loose your signal, the music files are still on your iPhone. Just as they're still on your desktop machine. And they're still in the iCloud.
But if you add a music track to your desktop machine, it'll be copied up to the iCloud and then immediately pushed down to your iPhone (if you wish)
They've never said it was an online streaming service.
When you get tired of $25 a month, what happens to your Music.
Does Apple let you download it all and tell them to stuff off?
I kind of doubt it.
Seems like a brilliant ploy to get apple idiots to pay a monthly fee for the music they already own.
There are tons of online encrypted storage services that would allow for this service if you are so inclined. And many charge about the same amount per year that apple is charging per month.
That would effectively kill Apple's 'goose the lays the golden eggs', i.e. a mobile music player. They are NOT going to do that!
No, the idea is to 'cut the cord' so your master music library is in the cloud and you sync your mobile selection with that, the music being downloaded into your iWhatever for use where and when. There's also a handy service included in the fee whereby you obtain an iTunes license for CDs that you may have ripped yourself in the past.
Apple Execs know you will always have some sort of wireless or cellular access on your iPhone so why not delete all your songs and be 100% dependent on the cloud services?
It is not like you would ever be stuck for several hours without service and want to listen to your tunes, like in say an airplane or when in the tube.
Another step backwards for Apple.
Sent from my HTC while listening to Inna Gadda Da Vida from my SD Card.
The [flawed, tedious] process is:
(1) pay Apple $24.99
(2) get iTunes to identify all of your music to the cloud
(3) wipe your iPod/iPhone
(4) download such of your music as you want from the cloud; download the rest at any other time, wipe your original copies of the music if you really want, they'll still be available from the cloud
There's no need for ongoing connectivity to listen to your music. However, if you have any serious amount of music then it sounds like it's going to take absolutely hours to move to iTunes Match and serious impact your bandwidth and whatever data caps you may have.
Actually providing the music has been ripped using iTunes no bandwidth whatsoever, it will match your existing tracks with tracks it already has on the Cloud and use them. It will only upload tracks from your PC if it can't recognise them. The issue is whether the tracks on your phone or iPod are recognised as the same tracks on the Cloud, if they are, then fine. If not, it will delete them as it doesn't recognise them as being legitimate. No different really to what happens if you try syncing your phone to another PC, it first wipes your phone and then restores from your new PC's backup.
"I'm not sure whether this is an advantage or a disadvantage, but portions (at least, possibly all) of the Paris Metro have mobile service both in the stations and in the trains."
D'ohh, jeezus. So, what's French for "I'm on the train... the TRAIN... I'M ON THE TRAIN...!"
I'll get my coat, for the Petula Clark joke I'm trying to think of.
Wow. Ain't this comment section retard-central!
Also if you read PCWorlds comment section...
"Activating iTunes Match on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch erases all of your locally-stored music..."
huh..? when i turned on iTunes Match on my iPhone, it didn't do anything with the music already on my phone. All it did was add the option to download songs that were in the cloud, and not on my phone.
So maybe hack falls into same category, whaddya reckon?
The theory goes, if someone thinks you've illegally downloaded a music track, they'll have a record of your ip address connecting to whatever server you got the file from.
So regardless of whether you have the file on your machine or not, and regardless if you've since replaced it with a legitimate version from iCloud, or bought the CD and ripped it, they'll still sue you based on the record of the illegal download.
They don't use the id tags to match the tracks, that'd be a bit daft for the very reason you point out.
From http://appculture.net/how-does-itunes-match-work/
"When iTunes on your computer looks at your songs, it takes an audio snapshot of each one so that it can compare them directly against the iTunes Store database. This way, even if you’ve mislabeled Brian Eno as The Beatles (“wow, their later work really pushed the envelope!”), iTunes will get you the right match.
The same goes for live concerts vs studio recordings: if it’s on the iTunes Store, it’ll figure it out. (A lot of people had trouble with this part initially, but as of now, it’s pretty flawless at picking the right version.)"
...perhaps for "officially" released live recordings, but what about us bootleg collectors? I'd like to see iTunes try that with the metric shit-tonne of bootleg live Grateful Dead -- plus the additional metric shit-tonne of Stones, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Who sitting on my external drive. I'll bet iTunes would totally crap its pants -- IF LittleSnitch were allowing iTunes to connect to the Internet from my machine at all.
Not.
What would you get back for "The Beatles - Love Me Do"?
The one with Andy White on drums or the Ringo version?
And to continue the Beatles theme, is it the "Let it Be" or "Naked" version of "Dig A Pony" ?
Although to be fair, I expect the service is not intended to be used by obsessive types that care about such distinctions.
<- obsessive nerdy person
From the device's perspective, iTunes match is really "sync with iCloud"
The point of replacing the library on the device is the same as when you sync with a different copy of iTunes: to prevent duplicates and confusion about what came from where.
When you turn iTunes match on, it disables syncing music with iTunes. It may or may not remove the music on your device, depending on where it came from: it will remove any synced tracks (including purchased ones) but not tracks that have been directly downloaded from the iTunes store or iTunes match (which are the same thing really).
Turning iTunes match back off will leave everything downloaded on the device. Turning it on again won't remove anything (because it all came from the cloud). If you sync after turning it off, everything on the device will be replaced.
iTunes match doesn't stream, it syncs (and pseudo-streams in that it plays while downloading). So if you are in the tube or on a plane, you still have everything that is already on the device, just like syncing with a computer.
Best case: you can get any of your music, anywhere. If you fill up your device you can always delete some music (swipe left and hit delete).
Worst case: Same as traditional syncing, if you have no signal and no computer, you are stuck with what's on the device.
You'll let your real non-DRM'ed music collection fall into disarray, and get complacent in doing your backups (why bother? it's all safe in the cloud, right?), then you have a drive failure, loose all your data, and have no real backup, and because you have lost or damaged all the CDs you've been ripping for the last 15 years, you have NO music at all, only what you pull down from iTunes, and that music will only ever work with an Apple device because it has their DRM in it.
I could be wrong. Tell me this, does Apple allow you to remove their DRM on music you have purchased once you cancel your iTunes account? You know, so you can use the music you have "purchased" on a Sony or your HTC? No, and not all of their tracks are DRM free, and in their eyes you have never "purchased" anything anyway, you have only ever been "leasing" music and other media from them, and when your contract is over, that's the end of your lease.
Thanks, but no thanks, I'll hold on to my own stuff, thank you.
for RockBox.
Actually it's shite in many ways. But it's still better than iTunes.
After losing two weeks after iTunes decided to 'improve' my music library, I now have 3TB of music on one hard drive, a backup on another hard drive, and more copies on the iPod for portable listening.
If I could be bothered I could attach the drives to the server here and set them up for online access.
Currently I can't. Maybe one day I will.
Either way, iTunes Cloud/Match/Genius/Ping/Ghost-of-Steve/Wotevah is only ever getting another go at those files over my cold dead body.
I'm surprised no one commented on "Arch-rival Google, which spends more time lobbying about copyright than creating new and interesting music services – and is falling behind as a consequence – looks set to unveil its own offering in Hollywood tomorrow night"
So, the lobby group does programming and futurecasting now? Not to mention "falling behind" means releasing their offering just a few days/weeks after Apple, even though the article seems to be pushing as if Google were sitting on their hands...
Thank Dog again, for LittleSnitch and regular old iTunes.
If Frank Zappa's music weren't NSFW, there wouldn't be any point to it; hell, pretty much the entire Fillmore East June '71 live album is one big NSFW... not to mention Slade's "Thanks For The Memory" ...and, would iTunes Match pitch a fit when reading the ID3 tag for "Cum On Feel The Noize"?
I don't get the confusion/complaints.
My music library is much bigger than any iPhone or iPad would allow. I sync certain playlists, created on iTunes, to my iPhone to listen to the music that I want, but I can only sync so many playlists due to size of the device, obviously.
Match allows me to download a different playlist whenever I want. My primary playlists are still there. The playlists that were synced before were not deleted, nor were the songs deleted. I now have the ability to find a song/artist/album/playlist/whatever at any time on any of my devices.
So what is the problem again?
Oh, and my "old iPod" is still used as a USB drive. All you have to do is check a box in iTunes and you can mount it on your computer as a drive, and move your music, movies or files over however you want.
"Oh, and my "old iPod" is still used as a USB drive. All you have to do is check a box in iTunes and you can mount it on your computer as a drive, and move your music, movies or files over however you want."
The first year that larger-capacity iPods were available, a friend of mine bought one for just that purpose. He'd use it occasionally for actually listening to music while he worked, but most of the time it was repurposed as an extra USB drive. He liked that it was flexible that way.
I've managed to go an entire decade without an iPod, though lately I've been considering breaking down and getting one of the video models to load a bunch of my movies and old Looney Tunes on for the four or five long airline flights I make per year.
Honestly the Apple hate is getting silly now. 90% of the comments here don't even basically grasp how iTunes sync works. Genuine criticism is fine, but this is just deliberate knee-jerk vitriol. Grow up and make sure you know what you are talking about before shooting your mouth off.
It's not about if or not your connection is good or available making it impractical. It's worse than that.
It's about the music industry continuing to fight consumers keeping backups of their paid for music or even now even just keeping any copy of it. Apple is just the f#cktard facilitating it.
I watched the video when Steve Jobs introduced iCloud and thought it was all great and about time users had this facility...until he got to music. Maybe the system is fine if you bought all your tracks from iTunes or if iTunes has, and can recognise, your ripped CDs. But if there are items in your collection that don't match Apple's collection, the process is more of a kludge.
I watched Mr Jobs explain this kludge as simply and confidently as he could but I was not impressed or convinced. I thought, no way Jobsé.
For me, the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. But it's not the end of the world (that's 2012), if you don't like it, don't use it.
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