[screensaver400]

Here’s how it works: iTunes determines which songs in your collection are available in the iTunes Store. Any music with a match is automatically added to your iCloud library for you to listen to anytime, on any device. Since there are more than 18 million songs in the iTunes Store, most of your music is probably already in iCloud. All you have to upload is what iTunes can’t match. Which is much faster than starting from scratch. And all the music iTunes matches plays back at 256-Kbps iTunes Plus quality — even if your original copy was of lower quality.

Sounds pretty much like what I described, minus the immunity aspects (which were too much to ask for anyway). The labels are getting paid for this, no doubt.

[Brave Ulysses]

I don't get it. The method Apple displayed for accessing this iTunes in the cloud is redownloading the content to your phone or idevice, and not streaming it.

That is a terrible idea.

Am I missing something?

How is that any better?

[ezkcdude]

It actually saves them a ton of storage cost obviously. You don't need to save everybody's copy of the latest Lady Gaga song. Just have one cloud "master" that you serve up to everyone.

[Kickaha]

Oh, I think it's definitely immunity-laden.

Let's say you have 10k pirated tracks. Let iTunes Match scan 'em, and you pay $25/yr for upgraded versions?

$25... 10k tracks...

Hmm.


BU: streaming everything all the time? Are you mad?

Streaming works great when you:
1) Don't have to worry about data caps anywhere.
2) Don't care if you have a slow pipe.
3) Don't care if you lose connectivity randomly while traveling.
4) Don't care if you actually have access when you want it.

Under those conditions, then sure, streaming is fantastic.

[Eugene]

It's kind of sad but the feature I'm most excited for is volume-up shutter release in iOS 5.

[ezkcdude]

Originally Posted by Brave Ulysses I don't get it. The method Apple displayed for accessing this iTunes in the cloud is redownloading the content to your phone or idevice, and not streaming it. That is a terrible idea. Am I missing something? How is that any better?

It's not streaming? That can't be right.

[Kraetos]

I don't know what year/country you guys live in, but here in 2011 America, internet connections aren't quite up to snuff for streaming everywhere, all the time. Especially wide area broadband connections.

This is why I love Dropbox: it's all in the cloud, but it's also all on my HD for when I'm not connected/poorly connected to said cloud. It's not about streaming, it's about syncing.

[screensaver400]

This is actually a decent compromise. Let's say you don't have an album you recently ripped with you. Open up the iTunes Match interface and download it. Now you have it. I bet you'll also be able to remove music straight from the device, like video can currently be removed.

You still get the "access my 5TB collection of music from anywhere" aspects, without the "download a 3MB song every single time I listen to it" issues.

[Brave Ulysses]

Originally Posted by Kickaha Oh, I think it's definitely immunity-laden. Let's say you have 10k pirated tracks. Let iTunes Match scan 'em, and you pay $25/yr for upgraded versions? $25... 10k tracks... Hmm. BU: streaming everything all the time? Are you mad? Streaming works great when you: 1) Don't have to worry about data caps anywhere. 2) Don't care if you have a slow pipe. 3) Don't care if you lose connectivity randomly while traveling. 4) Don't care if you actually have access when you want it. Under those conditions, then sure, streaming is fantastic.

Your arguments don't make much sense when you are constantly redownloading the files to your devices to "sync" them anyway.

Jobs' whole arguments was not having music on your device when you want it, and having to manage the syncing of said devices, and filling up said devices.... now instead of managing from a central iTunes location, it seems Apple is promoting managing your content on a device basis from the device, via redownloading content from Apple repeatedly... that is just stupid.

It also doesn't really make much sense why you would want to do that to your own music if you weren't able to stream it from the iCloud library.... so it's a backup of your music that you need to redownload in order to listen to?

[FFL]

Originally Posted by Kraetos This is why I love Dropbox: it's all in the cloud, but it's also all on my HD for when I'm not connected/poorly connected to said cloud.

Not only that - but it also syncs using your LAN only, when the devices being synced are on the same network. Very nice for bandwith caps, also.

[Partial]

Originally Posted by Kraetos I don't know what year/country you guys live in, but here in 2011 America, internet connections aren't quite up to snuff for streaming everywhere, all the time. Especially wide area broadband connections. This is why I love Dropbox: it's all in the cloud, but it's also all on my HD for when I'm not connected/poorly connected to said cloud. It's not about streaming, it's about syncing.

This. One could argue that the analogous operation would be to have iTunes automatically push purchased music to all iOs devices. I don't really care either way as I don't listen to music much.

[screensaver400]

Originally Posted by Kickaha Oh, I think it's definitely immunity-laden. Let's say you have 10k pirated tracks. Let iTunes Match scan 'em, and you pay $25/yr for upgraded versions? $25... 10k tracks... Hmm.

Not sure if you're saying it has immunity or it doesn't. Regardless, Apple made a point of saying it was $24.99/year for 20,000 songs. How many people have 20,000 legally purchased digital songs?

If someone was sued, this could be a decent defense. The music industry/Apple surely has statistical knowledge that only 1% (or some small number) of users with that many songs had the right to all of them. So by offering a service to convert that many songs to having "all of the privileges of iTunes-purchased music," the music industry was offering tacit amnesty.

[bmorley]

EDIT: Just went and listened to the part of the keynote and realized he initially said CDs but then clarified it as non-iTunes music which apparently slipped by me.

I am pretty certain I heard Jobs say that they had developed software to scan CDs for their unique identifiers implying you had to physically have them in order to use iTunes Match.

[FFL]

I was under the impression that the only ones ever sued by the RIAA for internet music piracy were sued for uploading the music after they had already downloaded it via LimeWire or BitTorrent.

In this case, it seems that Apple is the one doing what others have been sued for. I'd say that's a pretty good case for end-user immunity.

[Kraetos]

Originally Posted by bmorley I am pretty certain I heard Jobs say that they had developed software to scan CDs for their unique identifiers implying you had to physically have them in order to us iTunes Match.

I must of missed that. Furthermore, there is no difference between ripping a CD and adding it to your library, and ripping a CD, sending it over BitTorrent, and then adding it to your library.

Where do you think all that pirated music comes from? Vinyl?

Jobs and everyone was up there talking about how it's for your "ripped" music but iTunes doesn't know the difference, neither does iCloud. CDs are dead, in 2011 "ripped" is a euphemism for "pirated."

The record labels should be absolutely ecstatic about this. They're actually going to get money from pirates, for the first time in like, ever! Somehow I doubt they see it that way, though. For the most part they're still under the impression that if you haven't paid for it you don't have it. How quaint.

[Kickaha]

Originally Posted by screensaver400 Not sure if you're saying it has immunity or it doesn't. Regardless, Apple made a point of saying it was $24.99/year for 20,000 songs. How many people have 20,000 legally purchased digital songs? If someone was sued, this could be a decent defense. The music industry/Apple surely has statistical knowledge that only 1% (or some small number) of users with that many songs had the right to all of them. So by offering a service to convert that many songs to having "all of the privileges of iTunes-purchased music," the music industry was offering tacit amnesty.

Exactly. Nowhere did they mention that the songs you have Matched must have been legally purchased. Just that you have them.

bmorley, if he said that, it slipped by the four live feeds I was watching...

[ezkcdude]

Originally Posted by Kraetos No, they make perfect sense. If my internet connection is capped/limited, I want to download the song once to my device, not every damn time I want to listen to it. Ding Ding Ding! I forget to sync new tracks to my iPhone all the freakin time, and now that's a thing of the past.

What happens when you reach the storage limit of your device? Which will happen pretty darn quickly with an iPhone or iPad.

[alcimedes]

That's when it time to buy an iPad 3, or iPhone 6, now with more memory!

(in reality, it will likely follow the same rules as iTunes does with devices now if things don't fit, where you can select from a few options as to how it will handle.) You'll probably have a set per device that Apple knows is yours.

[Kraetos]

Originally Posted by ezkcdude What happens when you reach the storage limit of your device? Which will happen pretty darn quickly with an iPhone or iPad.

The same thing that happens when you reach the storage limit of your device right now? Except for the part where I imagine the "PC Free" bit means you can delete songs from directly from iOS now. And so what if you have to delete them from the phone? They're in the cloud anyways!

Think about it this way: your device's local storage serves as a cache, for quick access to frequently used data.

On a related note, expect to see 64GB iPhone 5s and 128 GB iPod touches in September...

[screensaver400]

iTunes could keep a log of all the CDs that have been ripped on that machine. But I ripped some music from CDs I actually own 5 years ago on my Windows PC. Do I need to rip again? What if I ripped with XLD, which provides higher quality ripping and encoding than iTunes?

I really hope this isn't Apple's approach. The record labels can't beat the pirates--they need to join them (in a sense).

EDIT:

If you want all the benefits of iTunes in the Cloud for music you haven’t purchased from iTunes, iTunes Match is the perfect solution. It lets you store your entire collection, including music you’ve ripped from CDs or purchased somewhere other than iTunes.

There are a few openings here. They only specify music ripped from CDs (it could be a friend's CD), or purchased somewhere other than iTunes (Amazon MP3, primarily).

So they have left an opening for non-purchased music, and an opening for downloaded music not from iTunes. I think pirated music would have to be included. I'm not sure how they could prevent it, if they're accepting legally downloaded music from other stores.

[Kraetos]

Originally Posted by screensaver400 iTunes could keep a log of all the CDs that have been ripped on that machine.

It could, but it doesn't.

[Brave Ulysses]

Originally Posted by Kraetos No, they make perfect sense. If my internet connection is capped/limited, I want to download the song once to my device, not every damn time I want to listen to it.

That makes zero sense.

So your iPhone is full... you want an album you own but is not loaded on iPhone... you need to manually delete something on iPhone, then go to iTunes Store, redownload the album to your device, making sure you had freed up sufficient space, and listen to it... you decide you want what you deleted back, and you have to delete something else, and go to iTunes store and redownload album.

This is exactly the kind of shitty content management Jobs said Apple wanted to avoid. it is needlessly confusing. First option should be stream your music.... 2nd option should be "take music with me" and it should only then download a copy to your device.

You are at work and on a PC, you want to listen to your iTunes iCloud library, but you can't open a web browser and pull up your icloud library and listen to it streaming, yet you are paying $25/year.... why not?

Plus, all of these iCloud features only work when connected via WiFi... so, why are you complaining about bandwidth caps?

You are not going to reach your 150GB-250GB wired internet cap from streaming your iTunes library.

[Brave Ulysses]

Originally Posted by Kraetos No, they make perfect sense. If my internet connection is capped/limited, I want to download the song once to my device, not every damn time I want to listen to it. Ding Ding Ding! I forget to sync new tracks to my iPhone all the freakin time, and now that's a thing of the past.

Originally Posted by Kraetos Yeah, see, stop assuming this. Most people dont fill their phones.

uh.... that's exactly why this was created.... because people do not have the space to just put their whole library on their device.

otherwise.... yea... you wouldn't need to do this.

[ezkcdude]

I have 120 GB of music on mp3tunes. I will run out of room on my 16 GB iPad. It's inevitable.

It's not even really a question of when. The question is what do you do once you've reached the limit? Every time you download a new song, you will have to perform your own garbage collection and delete something old? How will that work?

[bmorley]

It's possible I misheard, but I had twit.tv running as well and they had a live audio feed. That was a point that caught my attention. And you are right Kickaha, I didn't see it blogged on either Macworld or TIMN live updates which I remember surprised me. It just made more sense to me.

And yes, I am aware that most pirated music comes from CDs and not vinyl

[Fullthrottledesigns]

All of this confuses me.

[Kraetos]

Originally Posted by Fullthrottledesigns All of this confuses me.

It's simple. All your content is now in the cloud. If you want it on any of your devices, you download it to the device on the fly.

In other words, you never have to connect your iPhone/iPad/iPod touch to your PC again.

[Brave Ulysses]

Sorry, Kraetos, you are way off base here.

You're assuming way too much deleting and restoring going on. Start with an empty phone and load music from the cloud as you want it, and call me when even your 16GB iPhone fills up.

I'm starting to wonder if you even use iOS devices.... apps alone are taking up several hundred megabytes each these days. Photos even more.... do you not sync anything with your phone? a larger than 16GB iTunes Library is pretty typical these days..... or do you think Apple is selling 32GB, 64GB iPod Touches and 120GB iPods for shits and giggles?

Except that when I want to listen to music off my iPhone I am usually not in WiFi, so I don't want to stream. At all.

and in that case how does iCloud help you? Since you need to be connected to Wifi to download anyway?

If I'm at work on a PC then I want to download the music to my ample hard drive and not hog the internet for music streaming.

Do you actually work? Most employers don't allow you to download a ton of shit to your computer. Hence the popularity of services such as Internet radio and Pandora....

I'm not worried about caps, I'm worried about bandwith. In my house people watch a lot of instant Netflix, the last thing we need is to gunk up the airwaves with out music when all of our hard drives have more than enough space.

Why would you be listening via streaming at home? And at the same time as watching a movie? You're not making sense. And is that 256kb/sec file really going to kill it for you?

This is an incorrect assumption. Most people do have enough space to fit all their music. (We are not most people, remember?) This is about cutting the cord between the iOS device and the PC. This is not about streaming music over internet connections that are already pushed to the max with the likes of Netflix, Hulu and Pandora rising in popularity quite rapidly.

wrong.

[screensaver400]

You know, I can't find a screenshot of an interface for iTunes Match. It's supposed to be available in the fall. I think it's entirely possible that a streaming interface could be added to the iPod app of iOS 5 devices for iTunes Match users.

[Mugge]

Originally Posted by Kickaha Oh, I think it's definitely immunity-laden. Let's say you have 10k pirated tracks. Let iTunes Match scan 'em, and you pay $25/yr for upgraded versions? $25... 10k tracks... Hmm. (...)

My thoughts exactly. Saint Steve is selling his followers indulgence over the internets.