Keynote: "Stream any song by just tapping it."

[BRussell]

There was some controversy a week or two ago, when the iTunes Match beta was opened up, about whether you could stream music or if it had to be downloaded. If I recall, Apple even released a statement denying that you could stream music.

But look at Eddie Cue's discussion of iTunes Match in the keynote, around 42:00. He says "I go in and I turn on iTunes match and now I can see my whole iTunes music library. I can stream any song by just tapping on it." The slide summary of iTunes Match uses the term "stream" and Cue says "Stream any song, album, or playlist. We'll cache the songs you listen to most, right on your device."

That seems pretty clear to me. iTunes Match DOES play music that you don't download.

 

[Shorties]

There was some controversy a week or two ago, when the iTunes Match beta was opened up, about whether you could stream music or if it had to be downloaded. If I recall, Apple even released a statement denying that you could stream music.

But look at Eddie Cue's discussion of iTunes Match in the keynote, around 42:00. He says "I go in and I turn on iTunes match and now I can see my whole iTunes music library. I can stream any song by just tapping on it." The slide summary of iTunes Match uses the term "stream" and Cue says "Stream any song, album, or playlist. We'll cache the songs you listen to most, right on your device."

That seems pretty clear to me. iTunes Match DOES play music that you don't download.

Well but he was incorrect. Now I don't know why apple reacted so much when everyone reported that it streamed music, and they said something like that. But the thing is it truly doesn't. Any song you tap on stays on your phone, so any song you stream is downloaded, so that the next time that track comes up on your playlist it will play off your local storage rather then the cloud. Whats nice is that you can start playing a song in a playlist that has not been downloaded, and as the song ends it will go to the next track in that playlist and download it and play it all automatically. So its works like a streaming service, but it retains all the songs it downloads on your device.

 

[Jay0911]

Thats the thing I hate because I dont understand why they couldnt just leave it like how it was in beta 6. I dont understand why they dont just clarify everything because I know everyone is confused about the service and will be disappointed when they purchase it and realize the music is in fact storing on their devices.

And what did they mean by intelligently store the songs on the device? How is it intelligently stored?