Some questions about iTunes Match

[zorinlynx]

I worry these have been asked before... but there's SO MANY threads to look through, I'd appreciate it if someone could summarize this here.

- When you get iTunes Matched songs, are they YOURS, on your local disk forever? I read something saying that if you sign out of your iTunes account, or into a different one, your iCloud synced stuff gets deleted. Does this include iTunes Match music if you replace the original files you had with them?

- Once you've matched your entire library, what's the point of continuing to pay the monthly fee? Do you lose access to your matched music if you don't pay the fee?

- Does iTunes treat matched songs differently than songs that were in your library traditionally? Do they get stored in a different folder?

Basically, my main worry is that if I Match my library to upgrade all my songs, that the "upgraded" songs won't be as "mine" as the ones I currently have. Is this the case?

 

[Senseotech]

I worry these have been asked before... but there's SO MANY threads to look through, I'd appreciate it if someone could summarize this here.

- When you get iTunes Matched songs, are they YOURS, on your local disk forever? I read something saying that if you sign out of your iTunes account, or into a different one, your iCloud synced stuff gets deleted. Does this include iTunes Match music if you replace the original files you had with them?

- Once you've matched your entire library, what's the point of continuing to pay the monthly fee? Do you lose access to your matched music if you don't pay the fee?

- Does iTunes treat matched songs differently than songs that were in your library traditionally? Do they get stored in a different folder?

Basically, my main worry is that if I Match my library to upgrade all my songs, that the "upgraded" songs won't be as "mine" as the ones I currently have. Is this the case?

When you sign up for match, it does its thing and matches or uploads everything. On that first machine, none of your files change, even the matched ones. If you want to, you could then delete your local tracks and redownload them from the server, at which point they come back one of two ways: if Matched, they're plain 256k AAC files with no DRM, but your account info is contained, or they come back in their original format if they weren't matched. The matched tracks don't disappear if you turn off or unsubscribe from Match, as they're just plain m4a files.

 

[zorinlynx]

When you sign up for match, it does its thing and matches or uploads everything. On that first machine, none of your files change, even the matched ones. If you want to, you could then delete your local tracks and redownload them from the server, at which point they come back one of two ways: if Matched, they're plain 256k AAC files with no DRM, but your account info is contained, or they come back in their original format if they weren't matched. The matched tracks don't disappear if you turn off or unsubscribe from Match, as they're just plain m4a files.

So you can theoretically subscribe to Match, match your entire library, download it, then cancel your subscription and keep all the "upgraded" music?

Makes me wonder how Apple intends to keep people paying for it. Once you've matched everything you might as well just buy all your new music on iTunes and not bother continuing to subscribe.

 

[Senseotech]

So you can theoretically subscribe to Match, match your entire library, download it, then cancel your subscription and keep all the "upgraded" music?

Makes me wonder how Apple intends to keep people paying for it. Once you've matched everything you might as well just buy all your new music on iTunes and not bother continuing to subscribe.

Because its not just about the upgrading, its also the ability to take all that music you haven't purchased from iTunes and use it like you did, as far as your iDevices are concerned. I happily paid the $25, not just for the upgrading, but for the ability to have all of my music in the cloud, available for my iPhone and iPad on-demand, without taking up the majority of my 16 gig devices or requiring me to buy a more expensive, higher capacity device. Since subscribing, I've been able to use my iPad to sync movies instead of all my music that I may listen to a small percentage of. If I want to listen to a track, I download it, same holds true for playlists or albums, its one tap for each. If its something I know I'll want a lot, I can leave it, its something I listen to occasionally, I can delete and regain my space for other things.

EDIT: Something to note, if you don't keep your subscription, the tracks don't "expire," but the cloud copy does, AKA none of the things I mentioned will work anymore. So, while it makes sense to purchase from iTunes going forward, if you decide to cancel your Match, you're suddenly back at square one as far as "iTunes in The Cloud" features are concerned.

 

[zorinlynx]

EDIT: Something to note, if you don't keep your subscription, the tracks don't "expire," but the cloud copy does, AKA none of the things I mentioned will work anymore. So, while it makes sense to purchase from iTunes going forward, if you decide to cancel your Match, you're suddenly back at square one as far as "iTunes in The Cloud" features are concerned.

That's a bit sad, especially since $25 a month is a bit too much to just be able to download stuff you already had.

Think of services like Zune pass ($9.99 a month) which gives you access to download and listen to *any* music on their service. Are you sure the cloud copies vanish when you no longer subscribe?

 

[Senseotech]

That's a bit sad, especially since $25 a month is a bit too much to just be able to download stuff you already had.

Think of services like Zune pass ($9.99 a month) which gives you access to download and listen to *any* music on their service. Are you sure the cloud copies vanish when you no longer subscribe?

Its $25 a year. And without being able to test it, as its still beta and theres currently no mechanism to cancel your year subscription, just disable it auto-renewing, I'd bet money on the fact that if you fail to continue your subscription, Apple won't continue hosting your music this way.

 

[zorinlynx]

Its $25 a year. And without being able to test it, as its still beta and theres currently no mechanism to cancel your year subscription, just disable it auto-renewing, I'd bet money on the fact that if you fail to continue your subscription, Apple won't continue hosting your music this way.

I now have egg on my face.

Thanks for clearing this up. I feel foolish not reading things carefully. $25 a year is definitely reasonable for this service!