GigaOM » itunes in the cloud

iTunes Match re-match: Have things gotten any better?

Geoffrey Goetz — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 13:00:51 +0000

It’s been a year since Apple introduced iTunes Match, its solution for storing your music library in the cloud. When it first launched, I found the process of getting my music library into the cloud to be a bit of a hassle. Apple scans your local music library and tries to match the songs in your music library with songs that already exist in the master iTunes music library, so you have access to a higher quality versions of those songs. But the upload process was slow and the evaluation of each song seemed to take longer than necessary. There were also quite a few songs in my music library that could not be matched. Now that a year has gone by, I decided to check back in and see if the process of uploading content to my music library in the cloud has improved.

To do this, I first deleted from my iTunes Match library the same 10 albums that I first uploaded last year. I used the exact same music files to upload again to iTunes Match. At that time I took the first 10 albums in Grateful Dead’s infamous Dick’s Picks series and added them to my Mac’s iTunes library to see if I could have them matched. It is important to note that all 10 albums are still for sale in the iTunes Music store.

Once again, iTunes Match performed well and started to match my tracks as soon as they were added to my local iTunes music library. However, just as before, the exact same tracks would not match. Six of the 10 albums I matched has one or more tracks not matched, 11 out of 189 songs were uploaded to my iTunes Match library rather than being matched to songs already in available via iTunes.

Keep in mind that the original collection of 189 songs that i uploaded last year have been ripped using versions of various ripping tools from the same music CD source over the last decade. While I did try to create a new collection of songs by re-ripping the music from the original source last year, it did not change the result: the same songs would not match to the songs in iTunes library.

This year I wanted to see if creating a yet another new collection of songs, by re-ripping the from the same CD source, only this time using the latest version of iTunes, would make a difference. This time, using iTunes 10.7 to rip each of the original music CD sources to 192bit MP3 files, I was finally able to match 100 percent of the same 189 songs. I continued this re-ripping process using the latest version of iTunes and re-ripped the full 36-volume series, 112 CDs, and was able to match 928 of the 936 songs. Only eight of the 936 songs were uploaded rather than matched. This is a much better result than I was able to get last year.

While this was a tedious task, clearly the results show that by re-ripping your music library, you will have better success at matching more of your music library. It’s not clear what has changed. It seems as if the way iTunes rips CDs has has been reconciled with the way that iTunes matches songs in it own master library. While I have no insight into the the actual cause, I can certainly measure the resulting effect.

I’m happy that things have improved, but I am not too thrilled about having to re-rip my music library in order to get better matching results, and ultimately, my music library into the cloud. I still feel that the overall experience of storing my music collection in Apple’s iTunes Match service to be rewarding. That is once everything is uploaded and ready to go.

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Amazon’s cloud music service gets iTunes-like match feature

Janko Roettgers — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 18:39:06 +0000

Amazon has signed agreements with Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group as well as various publishers and indie label distributors, the company said Tuesday. These new agreements allow the company’s cloud player to scan a user’s hard drive, identify songs and then make them immediately available online and on mobile devices.

Songs will be upgraded to 256 kbps MP3s, even of the source is of lower quality. Users will be able to transfer up to 250 songs for free, while a premium version with access to a whopping 250,000 songs will cost $25 per year.

These new features as well as the pricing essentially mimic Apple’s iTunes in the Cloud offering, but represent a shift in strategy for Amazon: The company initially launched its cloud music locker without licenses from the labels, which made it necessary for consumers to upload each and every track.

However, this change also comes with new restrictions for users of the existing service: Amazon previously gave users 5 GB of free storage for their uploaded songs, which could be extended to 20 GB of space if they bought music through Amazon’s MP3 store. Now, the cloud player prompts users to delete anything over the 250 song limit if they don’t want to pay for the new premium version.

Amazon also announced Tuesday that its cloud music player will come to Roku streaming devices and Sonos players soon. The service is already available through the web, as well as native apps for Android and iOS devices.

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The evolution of consumer-media cloud storage

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 06:55:30 +0000

Currently the biggest investments in the business of consumer media cloud storage have come from major consumer-facing platform providers. These players see cloud-based media services both as a way to increase attachment to their platforms and a means to extend and amplify their broader strategic goals. For this report we profile Apple, Google and Amazon, specifically. Each is pursuing a distinct approach to storing media in the cloud, and this report examines those strategies as well as the future prospects for each company.

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iTunes in the Cloud goes international

Darrell Etherington — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 15:04:40 +0000

One part of Apple’s iCloud service that went live originally back in June is “iTunes in the Cloud.” This lets you automatically or manually download new books, apps or songs purchased with your iTunes account on one device to any other device on which that account is signed in. Originally, music wasn’t included in the mix for users outside the U.S. Now it is.

Depending on where you live, you should now be able to see Music listed in the Store section of your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch’s Settings.app under “Automatic Downloads.” Also, you can find a “Purchased” tab in the iTunes Store on iOS devices, with a list of all the tracks you’ve bought through iTunes with your ID. Each of these can then be downloaded to your device by tapping the cloud icon next to the album or track name.

So far, MacRumors is reporting that users in the U.K. and Canada are seeing these features go live. I can personally vouch for them now being available to Canadian users. Any other international readers care to weigh in on “iTunes in the Cloud” availability in your neck of the woods?

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