Are you ready to take your music to the cloud? When it comes to cloud-based music services, we now have three major players vying for our attention. These are Google Music, Amazon Cloud Player, and Apple’s iTunes Match.
We’ve covered Google Music and Amazon Cloud Player before, so it is but fitting that we cover the latest from Apple – iTunes Match. While all three service offers storage for your music in their respective servers and access through various mobile devices via Wi-Fi or 3G, iTunes Match offers something more.
Although there are things to like about Google’s and Amazon’s systems, they both favor streaming, which isn’t how many of us want to listen to music when we’re away from our computers. Apple’s iTunes Match is fundamentally more oriented to work with downloading in mind, and it meshes well with your existing song library, either on your device or on your computer.
Before we continue, many of you are probably asking why the need for iTunes Match or why Apple created such service? iTunes Match was created to augment the services provided by Apple iCloud. iCloud lets you access your calendar, email, and photos in the cloud but not music. That’s where iTunes Match comes in.
iTunes Match answers the need to have your music collection readily available from the Apple iCloud Server. Apple doesn’t include an expandable storage facility for any of its iOS devices, so for those who are in need to have more storage for their music collection – iTunes Match is the perfect service for getting more storage.
iTunes Match – How does it Work
Apple has toyed with the iTunes Match service for almost a year now. Finally, after several test runs, the service was officially opened up for the public a couple of weeks ago. Built right into iTunes app on your Mac or PC, and iOS devices, iTunes Match lets you store your entire collection of music including those you’ve imported from your CDs or purchased somewhere else.
The service doesn’t directly upload your music from your Mac or PC and store in the cloud. What it does is to search your music library and find the match for your entire music collection from the iTunes Store. Once matches are found, iTunes Match adds these to your iCloud storage. Once those matches are stored in iCloud, you can stream and if needed restore them on your iOS devices. If some of your music collection is not in iTunes, you’ll have to upload these to iCloud manually.
As an incentive for you to use iTunes Match and iCloud for storing your music file, Apple converts all of your music files into “256Kbps AAC” quality and “DRM-free” format. This applies to all the music files in your collection, including any low-quality ones.
There’s one catch though – iTunes Match is a subscription based service which will require you to pay $24.99 for a years worth of usage. For that price, you can store as many as 25,000 songs which were not purchased from iTunes Store. For songs purchased from iTunes, the limit is not applicable and you can store a unlimited number of purchased songs for free.
How To Use iTunes Match
If you’ve decided to use iTunes Match you can access it by clicking on the iTunes Match link from the Quick Links in iTunes application.
The first time you do this, iTunes will ask you to add the computer you are currently using to your iCloud account.
iTunes will then start gathering information about your iTunes Library and start matching your music with songs from the iTunes Store. Artworks will also be uploaded and the iTunes “matches” will be determined. Once done, our music collection will now be available in your personal locker on iCloud.
How to Access Your Music Synched to iCloud Via iTunes Match
To start streaming music on your iOS device, go to the music settings and turn on “iTunes Match.” Then go to your device’s music application. You’ll know when a music file is available from iCloud if you see the iCloud icon right next to the song title.
Additionally, you can also stream music from your Apple TV. Do the same process as with iOS devices to turn on iTunes Match.
If you own other Mac’s or Computers with iTunes, you can enable the service by simply turning iTunes Match on from the iTunes’ Store Menu.
Final Thoughts About iTunes Match
In case you’re still undecided whether you should spend $24.99 a year to get the ability to stream your entire music collection using your iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad or Apple TV and virtually get an unlimited online storage for your music collection, look no further. iTunes Match, like all Apple products has innovation and reliability written all over it. I’d personally recommend that iTunes Match is a worthy service to pay for.
However, if you can live with your iOS devices’ storage capacity and it is enough to contain your music collection iTunes Match may not be a practical option.
iTunes Match is a pretty good implementation of a music in the cloud service. It augments what iTunes and iCloud can do by way of a very good music streaming and music matching service.
See Also:
- 3 Alternatives to iTunes to Manage Your Music Collection Better
- An Introduction to Apple’s iCloud Service, Frequently Asked Questions Answered
- GroovyLists Transfers Your iTunes, Last.fm and Spotify Playlists to Grooveshark
