A few questions about Match

[RabbitLuvr]

I have a couple of questions about Match that I'm hoping to get some help with before I sign up.....


1. Does all of my music need to be in the iTunes/Media/Music folder to work?
(I have been maintaining my music collection just in my Music folder for years. New music purchased on iTunes gets a copy saved in the appropriate location there, rather than keep it in the default iTunes/Media/Music folder.)

2. After I run Match, is it correct that I can no longer manually manage my music syncing to my iPhone from iTunes on my computer? Or am I reading this incorrectly?

3. Does Match ever delete anything, or render anything unplayable, on my computer or iPhone? I have quite a few live music tracks (shared and downloaded legally) that won't be eligible. Those will just be uploaded, right? How about music videos downloaded from YouTube?


TIA! I am interested in using Match to upgrade some music I have from years ago that was ripped in lower quality that what Match offers, but I don't have the physical cds any more to just re-do them. (I went through a period where I was moving very frequently, so many of my cds ended up given away to friends or just sold because I was tired of moving them when they were saved in digital format on my computer.)

However, I like to manage my phone's media content manually. I listen to podcasts and music all day at work, but I get very poor cell reception in my office at work, so I wouldn't be able to just download what I want to listen to when I'm already there. Plus, I already plug in to refresh and sync podcasts in the morning.

 

[HazyCloud]

1. No, my music is in many different folders across my external. (They are all in a Music folder, but in a separate artist folder.)

2. This seems to be true since your entire iTunes library is now viewable on your iOS devices. There's really no need to manually manage anymore. Just find the song you want and hit play.

3. Match won't make anything unplayable on your computer. If you have any tracks that are extremely short or below 96 kbps, Match will mark those as ineligible, but you can still play them on your computer. They just won't show up on your iOS devices.

Bonus: Podcasts aren't even touched by Match so you can still sync those if you'd like. Once Match is turned on, it can easily be turned off if you find you can't get any tracks while at work. At least then you could have upgraded tracks.

If you want to update all of your tracks the fastest way possible, check out this link from Macworld.

http://www.macworld.com/article/163620/2011/11/how_to_upgrade_tracks_to_itunes_match_fast.html

 

[FreakinEurekan]

2. After I run Match, is it correct that I can no longer manually manage my music syncing to my iPhone from iTunes on my computer? Or am I reading this incorrectly?

If I'm understanding your question correctly, you want to know if after subscribing to Match, you will still be able to sync selected music from iTunes to your iPhone as you do now.

The answer is yes, you can continue to sync music as you always have. You can still sync music to your phone in the usual manner, I have about 2,000 songs on my phone out of my 2,300 song library that I keep synced by checking those songs in iTunes and selecting "Sync only checked songs and videos".

In the Phone Settings -> Music, you can select "Show All Music" which will show the non-synced songs from iCloud, or you can turn that off if you just want to see the music you have synced.

 

[HazyCloud]

Thanks for pointing that out. You can still sync if you use the "sync only checked" option. I didn't even think of that.

 

[GraphicsGeek]

If I'm understanding your question correctly, you want to know if after subscribing to Match, you will still be able to sync selected music from iTunes to your iPhone as you do now.

The answer is yes, you can continue to sync music as you always have. You can still sync music to your phone in the usual manner, I have about 2,000 songs on my phone out of my 2,300 song library that I keep synced by checking those songs in iTunes and selecting "Sync only checked songs and videos".

In the Phone Settings -> Music, you can select "Show All Music" which will show the non-synced songs from iCloud, or you can turn that off if you just want to see the music you have synced.

This is ok if you have a small library. But to some, if not most, unchecking individual songs will be a hassle. There really isn't a way to truly sync anymore with iTunes Match on. You just go to your iOS device with Match enabled, and start playing your song or album. Don't worry about it downloading or syncing music with Match enabled.

 

[RabbitLuvr]

Thanks for the replies, HazyCloud and seanfranklin!

If I'm understanding your question correctly, you want to know if after subscribing to Match, you will still be able to sync selected music from iTunes to your iPhone as you do now.

The answer is yes, you can continue to sync music as you always have. You can still sync music to your phone in the usual manner, I have about 2,000 songs on my phone out of my 2,300 song library that I keep synced by checking those songs in iTunes and selecting "Sync only checked songs and videos".

In the Phone Settings -> Music, you can select "Show All Music" which will show the non-synced songs from iCloud, or you can turn that off if you just want to see the music you have synced.

Yes, that's exactly what I wanted to know. I used to be able to get usable (if very slightly laggy) cell service at work by manually turning off 3g, but since I can't do that on the 4s anymore, service in my office is pretty hit or miss. Some days I have three bars, others I have one, or the dreaded "searching....." On my 3gs I could switch to Edge and be able to listen to Pandora at work, now Pandora is barely usable.

Since I plug in to sync podcasts anyway, it's pretty easy to take a minute or two to add or delete an album. (I did upgrade to 32GB instead of the 16 I had on my 3gs, but before that I was using a 120GB Zune which would hold my entire music library.)

I also want the option to manually sync explicit tracks, rather than be forced into replacing them with "clean" versions. Looks like I'll be able to do that using manual sync, too.

Turning Match off after the initial upgrade/upload would have been the other option, but I like that I'd be able to easily access my entire library on my netbook. (I have home share on, but I don't like leaving my desktop comp turned on to access my library.)

 

[GraphicsGeek]

Oh and if you have music not recognized by Match, it will simply upload it to the cloud so it will be available to you like all of your other albums. Match will never make anything unplayable since you "own" what's in your library. If you have protected tracks that don't match your Apple ID, they won't play on your iDevices.

 

[Tinmania]

If I'm understanding your question correctly, you want to know if after subscribing to Match, you will still be able to sync selected music from iTunes to your iPhone as you do now.

The answer is yes, you can continue to sync music as you always have. You can still sync music to your phone in the usual manner, I have about 2,000 songs on my phone out of my 2,300 song library that I keep synced by checking those songs in iTunes and selecting "Sync only checked songs and videos".

In the Phone Settings -> Music, you can select "Show All Music" which will show the non-synced songs from iCloud, or you can turn that off if you just want to see the music you have synced.

This is not actually correct.

Once you turn on iTunes Match on the iOS device you no longer have an option to sync music in iTunes. It is an either or thing. You have to turn Match off again in order to enable iTunes to sync music.

Now you can preload an iTunes device by syncing music you want stored locally, and then turning on match. But after that whenever you sync with iTunes music is not synced. You would have to turn it off and repeat the process if you wanted to load music via syncing again.



Michael

 

[RabbitLuvr]

This is not actually correct.

Once you turn on iTunes Match on the iOS device you no longer have an option to sync music in iTunes. It is an either or thing. You have to turn Match off again in order to enable iTunes to sync music.

Now you can preload an iTunes device by syncing music you want stored locally, and then turning on match. But after that whenever you sync with iTunes music is not synced. You would have to turn it off and repeat the process if you wanted to load music via syncing again.



Michael

Well, this would be useless to me when I'm at work, because I don't get decent cell service so I assume I wouldn't be able to d/l songs. I need to be able to manually manage my music at home through iTunes, sync, then go.
If I'm already plugged in to sync podcasts, I don't want to also have to d/l on my iPhone separately.

 

[Tinmania]

Well, this would be useless to me when I'm at work, because I don't get decent cell service so I assume I wouldn't be able to d/l songs. I need to be able to manually manage my music at home through iTunes, sync, then go.
If I'm already plugged in to sync podcasts, I don't want to also have to d/l on my iPhone separately.

Well you can leave Match off on the iPhone and continue to sync as you always had been

Or, like I said, you can preload all the music that you currently have loaded, then turn on Match. You would then only have to download anything new, which you could hopefully do while on Wifi.



Michael

 

[ericg301]

iTunes match is a mess. It deleted all my iTunes playlists. And any new ones that I created don't appear on my iPhone's music app....I've had it running for 20 minutes now, waiting for it to download.

Luckily I didn't have THAT many playlists and they should be easy to recreate. But management on the iPhone is a total, utter fail. The music app crashes all the time too.

I'll be disabling Match on my phone and syncing locally again.

 

[RabbitLuvr]

Sounds like Match really is a mess, maybe I'll just wait awhile and see if it gets any better. I may also look through my older music and see if I really have a lot of tracks that are ripped at lower quality than what Match would upgrade to.

:/

 

[zhenya]

Well, this would be useless to me when I'm at work, because I don't get decent cell service so I assume I wouldn't be able to d/l songs. I need to be able to manually manage my music at home through iTunes, sync, then go.
If I'm already plugged in to sync podcasts, I don't want to also have to d/l on my iPhone separately.

As noted, there are a couple of ways of doing this. One is to turn off Match on the iOS device, then sync as normal with the music you want locally available. Now turn on Match. You'll keep all the music that is on the device, PLUS you'll have access to the rest of your library if you want it.

Another way to do it is to create a playlist in iTunes with the music you want to always have on the iOS device. Then, on the device, go to that playlist and choose 'download all'.

My experience with Match so far is that it's working quite well - and that many of the problems are due to people not fully understanding how it works. For example, yes, it will delete your local playlists on your iOS device, because it needs to have a starting point when you first enable Match, and it chooses to use your iTunes library as that starting point. AFTER that, you can create new playlists on either end, and they will be available everywhere.