WhenApple announced iTunes Matchin June as a part of a raft of announcements related to iCloud , I was a little skeptical . I had just been released from my annual $ 99 payment to Apple for MobileMe , thanks to iCloud — I was n’t excited about a unexampled one-year subscription take its place .
Instead , I end up figuring I ’d pay $ 25 for iTunes Match , upgrade my tracks to higher - timbre interpretation , and then never pay again . I hear a lot of other people saying the same thing .
Perhaps back then the details of iTunes Match were n’t quite decipherable enough , or perhaps I just was n’t fain to understand them . But after having used iTunes friction match for a few weeks now , I ’ve come to appreciate the avail quite a flake … and have assume that I ’ll in all likelihood keep pay for it for years to issue forth .
For me , it start with keeping the unity of my iTunes depository library across many different devices . I have an iMac on my desk at work , a Mac mini with all my music on it at home , and a MacBook Air with me just about everywhere I go . Plus an iPad and an iPhone . A destiny of the feature of iTunes were originally designed for the idea of a single jukebox on a exclusive computer , and it evidence . Syncing with iPods and iPhones was o.k. , but if you had a second Mac somewhere else , thing started to fragment quickly . ( Take the concept of caper counts . I love personal statistics , and the estimation of finding out exactly how many times I ’ve played a song is great ! But listen on a few different Macs — or losing the play numeration when you edit a song from your iTunes subroutine library for some reason — meant that the turn reckoning was never meaningful to me . )
With iTunes Match , that stuff — most notably playlist and birdcall metadata — goes everywhere and stay in sync . You could completely blue-pencil your iTunes music depository library on your independent electronic computer and then restructure it from the swarm , playlists included . As someone who has had to build and re - build playlists over the years , that ’s reasonably cool .
Having my intact medicine library with me , wherever I go , is more compelling than I thought it would be . A few weeks ago I was stuck at an airport with free Wi - Fi for a few time of day , working on my MacBook Air . Sure , I had my iPhone there with a small subset of song loaded on it . But my laptop computer ’s copy of iTunes included links to my full music depository library , including all my playlist . I twice - clicked a strain , and it just playact , streaming the filing cabinet from Apple ’s servers . I weigh the Genius clit and it assemble a Genius Playlist from my own library . It was seamless , just as if I ’d had my entire many - G subroutine library with me on my MacBook Air ’s drive .
Though my time in the airport made me realize iTunes Match ’s deserving , I do have some interrogation about its succeeding direction . I ’m not sure that the iTunes Match experience on iOS gadget is beneficial enough yet . user should be able to sync with a local copy of iTunesandstill have admission to iTunes Match without exploit features that feel like bug . Songs you download will sometimes go away . I still experience confused when I use my iPhone ’s medicine app about what I ’ll rule on there , what ’s available to play , and what will require a download over a Wi - Fi or 3 G connection . It take me uneasy , and that suggests to me that Apple has n’t quite snap iTunes Match in the iOS Music app .
But while there are still details that ask to be refined , I have to accommodate that the more I habituate iTunes Match , the more its benefit unfold before me . Just the other day I realise that I no longer postulate to keep two copies of all my music on my computing gadget at home , since iCloud can serve as my euphony reliever . And now those fun counts actually seem to have signification !
So yes , upgrading all my honest-to-god iTunes purchaseshas been great . Getting high - timbre version of my CD rips without having to dig out my intact compact disk accumulation from the service department and re - rend them manually?Awesome . But I ’m starting to take account the benefit of a tenacious - term human relationship with iTunes Match , too . I can see myself in a class from now finding it impossible to cancel the service and give up all these other feature . Looks like Apple might have my annual payment back , after all .
