iTunes Match

[Dick Bate's Protege]

Has anyone given this a go yet? In essence, for £22 a year, iTunes Match stores up to 25000 tracks in iCloud, which your 3G/WiFi devices can cherry pick from at anytime, anywhere. For someone like me this seems like a good idea, because I have nearly 100gb of music/audiobooks etc and always have to buy iPods with bigger memory. It always worries me that if my computer packed in, I'd lose the lot and have to start again.

Basically it appears the only memory your device will use is the track you are currently playing, meaning that you can fill up on apps without having to save room for music.

Although its just another step towards the evil Apple Empire taking over the world and controlling our thoughts, it does seem like a bloody good idea.

 

[Cricko]

I guess you must have downloaded every Barbara Streisand-Barry Manilow and Liberace album ever made by now.

 

[Dick Bate's Protege]

I guess you must have downloaded every Barbara Streisand-Barry Manilow and Liberace album ever made by now.

Who are they? I'm into acid house jazz freak outs dude.

 

[Pubey]

Yeah I've just started using it, on the whole it's pretty good, but it has some annoying quirks.

 

[Swiss Tony]

I guess you must have downloaded every Barbara Streisand-Barry Manilow and Liberace album ever made by now.

Wow what a tricast,groovy.

 

[Gremlin]

Yeah I've just started using it, on the whole it's pretty good, but it has some annoying quirks.

Any chance you can elaborate a little when you have time please, Pubey? Would be helpful to those of us deliberating over whether to make the leap.

 

[Pubey]

ok so I matched 10,000 songs, mainly because they're all on a laptop (which i use more regularly than any other computer) and the hard drive was getting quite full. I have an iPhone and use two other computers (one being my main work desktop) and so I thought to be able to use my 1 itunes library across all of them would be good.

It took ages to match and upload my songs. it also downloaded some random stuff, and it was a bit strange that it would match half an album but then need to upload the rest of that album. Because I use my iPhone a lot for listening to music, it's a bit annoying when it comes to syncing albums and playlists onto other computers and devices. Basically I found that when I make a change I need to update iMatch, and sometimes need to shut down iTunes and re-loaded it. It seems a little hit-and-miss, but normally I can apply the update to my iphone quite quickly. Also the way it downloads onto the iPhone is a bit weird, although I think I'm finally working it out. Once I tried to 'download' an album onto my iphone using 3G, and I quickly used up all my monthly data! Basically I use my iPhone as I did before (several key playlists, and a playlist full of my main albums). However if I'm out and have Wi-Fi I can quickly download any album that I have, which is quite cool.

Overall the good outweighs the bad, however if you're not sure and you're a big iPhone user I'd perhaps wait for the next iPhone update, it seems to have teething problems which are slowly being resolved.

On a related note, does anyone on iPhone 4/4S with iOS5 find that their artists in the music aren't in alphabetical order? I have to search for specific artists. Tried the grouping option in Settings, but doesn't fix it. Seems like a common problem when I google it and haven't come across a fix for it yet.

 

[Pubey]

p.s - I haven't yet backed up my music onto an external hard drive and deleted them off my laptop. Will give it a test just to check that it is working properly.

 

[Dick Bate's Protege]

I phoned Apple earlier and they pretty much claimed that I would no longer need an iTunes library stored on my PC once they matched everything. When I thought about it, I can see their angle; get everybody to store their music with them instead of on a PC and then everyone has to buy their music through the iTunes Store unless they want to keep matching up every time they get new songs.

I spotted today that Apple have become the biggest company in the world now, with a value of $407 billion.

 

[Pubey]

you can still have 'local' files on your itunes, they just won't show up elsewhere unless you match them. it's ok if it's just an album, it only takes a minute. however for a full library it takes ages.

 

[Dick Bate's Protege]

you can still have 'local' files on your itunes, they just won't show up elsewhere unless you match them. it's ok if it's just an album, it only takes a minute. however for a full library it takes ages.

Two hours in, I'm about halfway through the full library. Presumably you only have to do this once?

 

[Pubey]

Two hours in, I'm about halfway through the full library. Presumably you only have to do this once?

Yeah, do you mean stage 1?

 

[Dick Bate's Protege]

Yeah, do you mean stage 1?

All done now. Pretty happy, its picked up 13000 out 17000 of my tracks, and only really missed the audiobooks. For £22 a year, I think it gives you peace of mind to know that your music collection is safe from computer malfunction, plus I also tried my iPhone with it through 3G this morning and it downloaded and played really quickly.

All in all, I think its a must for serious music fans.

 

[Jam_Man]

A USB hard disk can be bought for £50.

Everyone should use one to back up their data, whether its music or photos etc.

can be set up to automate as well.

 

[Piece of String]

Can anybody list the difference between this & Airport Express?
My current issue is having got a sparkly new iPad2 for Xmas is that I don't want to clog it up with all my music on my old 3G iPod but would like the option to be able to pick up songs/albums/playlists on the Pad or my iPhone as & when I see fit, especially if its just temporarily.
Which would be the better option, iTunes Match from what's been said above basically sounds like it might be what I'm after.

 

[Dick Bate's Protege]

A USB hard disk can be bought for £50.

Everyone should use one to back up their data, whether its music or photos etc.

can be set up to automate as well.

This is what I've done in the past, but with iTunes match once the music is matched on your account it's there for life, even if your yearly subscription lapses. Essentially you pay the £22 to access it at will whilst knowing you can't possibly ever lose it through broken machines etc...

 

[Pubey]

Can anybody list the difference between this & Airport Express?
My current issue is having got a sparkly new iPad2 for Xmas is that I don't want to clog it up with all my music on my old 3G iPod but would like the option to be able to pick up songs/albums/playlists on the Pad or my iPhone as & when I see fit, especially if its just temporarily.
Which would be the better option, iTunes Match from what's been said above basically sounds like it might be what I'm after.

I have an airport express too, to play music from my laptop or iPhone without needed to plug in leads. They do separate things really. If you listen to music in one place on a variety of things, then an airport is what you need, if you listen to music in multiple places on multiple computers and devices then iMatch may be for you.