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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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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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Apple delivers much-needed clarity regarding iTunes Match

Darrell Etherington — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 15:27:28 +0000

People have heard a lot about iTunes Match, but few fully grasp what it does, which is why it’s great that Apple introduced a dedicated page detailing exactly what it provides and how it works over the holiday weekend. If, like me, you’ve been fielding a lot of calls about what Match even is, this should prove a very handy resource.

The new iTunes Match page not only includes a couple of paragraphs describing the service, as did the brief blurb on the iCloud page that used to cover the topic; it also includes a simple four-step procedure for getting started matching your library and a 10-question FAQ featuring most of the things I’ve been asked by confused family and friends about the service. This includes whether or not iTunes Match streams or downloads a track (it can do either on a computer running iTunes; it does both simultaneously on an iOS device; it only streams on Apple TV) and what happens if you don’t renew your subscription. (Downloaded songs on any devices remain yours, cloud access is gone.)

Also included is an iTunes Match walkthrough video, which provides exact instructions for how to find and subscribe to iTunes Match on your Mac, as well as how to turn it on your iOS 5 device and Apple TV. It’s about as straightforward as a screencast gets, and the whole thing is just over a minute long. If relatives are calling about getting iTunes Match set up on their new iPad, this is definitely the direction to point them in.

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ITunes Match international rollout premature; refunds being issued

Darrell Etherington — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:54:36 +0000

If it seemed on late Wednesday like Apple’s rollout of iTunes Match to basically every international market where the iTunes music store is available was too good to be true, that’s because it was; Apple is telling customers on Thursday that beyond Brazil and the U.S., Match “will not function.”

The link that leads to iTunes Match in international stores still functions, surprisingly, allowing you to view the relevant sign-up page without issue, as you can see in the screenshot below. But signing up still doesn’t actually provide access to the service.

But even if you followed that link and signed up early like I did, Apple has you covered: The company is reportedly issuing refunds to customers who attempted to get in early. According to reports on Twitter, contacting iTunes Support about an ability to use the service results in a reversal of charges. It’s not clear whether charges will be reimbursed without first contacting Apple directly.

ITunes Match allows users to scan and match their entire music library in order to access it from anywhere on Apple’s servers. It launched in the U.S. to mixed reviews, and it was recently introduced in Brazil, too, alongside the launch of the iTunes Store there. While Apple doesn’t appear quite ready to launch it internationally, it is clearly headed in that direction, since it already has different pricing in place for the service’s annual subscription fees, specific to each market.

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iTunes Match rolling out internationally (and maybe accidentally)

Darrell Etherington — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 00:11:03 +0000

Apple is apparently in the process of setting up iTunes Match (its music library matching and cloud storage service) for international customers. According to reports, users can now access the iTunes Match sign-up page from this direct link. As of this writing, it was working here in Canada, where Match costs $27.99 per year.

I managed to sign up for iTunes Match using the link, too, though iTunes prompted me to log out and log back in because something had gone wrong. Upon logging back in and trying the link again, the purchase link was replaced with an “Add this computer” option, but that led to the same error message. Nevertheless, I received email confirmation that my iTunes Match subscription had indeed gone through, and others are reporting receiving the same.

Still, attempts to get the service actually matching and uploading my library haven’t yet been successful, which leads me to believe Apple didn’t yet intend to reveal this to the public. The Match sign-up page is also reported to be live in the U.K., Spain and New Zealand, and other international iTunes stores. Pricing varies by location. If you’ve had any luck signing up or have found the link works for you, let us know in the comments.

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This is how you should buy music online

Dan Kantor, exfm — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 17:00:38 +0000

With the recent launches of Google Music, Amazon Cloud Player and iCloud, there has never been an easier time to buy a song. Each service is different, though, and each has their strengths and weaknesses. Depending on your phone, listening habits and geekiness, you are better off going with one service over another. Here is a handy guide to help you choose which service is best for you.

Do you own an iPhone? Are you a geek?

Then you should use Amazon Cloud Player. iTunes still sells their music in AAC format. This is different from MP3. Even though many devices play AAC, you are still safer buying an MP3 file. Plus, Amazon always has deals, and you can pick up many albums for $5. After you purchase a song, you can listen to it on Amazon’s Cloud Player website, but you’ll likely want to get it on your phone. Amazon has a nice app that auto-downloads purchased tunes and sticks them right into iTunes. From there, you can use the new iOS5 Sync over Wifi and transfer the song to your iPhone without much hassle.

Do you own an iPhone, but are not a geek?

You should use iTunes. You don’t care about AAC. Saving $5 on an album is not worth the extra steps getting it on your phone. iCloud makes it easy to download purchased songs on to all your devices and computers. Maybe you’ll even use Ping to tell your friends what you bought (just kidding!).

Should you pay $25 a year for iTunes Match?

That’s a tougher question because both geeks and non-geeks alike will find things to love and hate about Match. On the geeky side, you are thinking that a lot of your music was ripped poorly at a low bitrate and has skips in it. Paying $25 to convert to cleaner files with a higher bitrate is enticing. Of course, they are still AAC and it’s not like there is a nice website to go stream all this from. You’ll still be downloading manually and you may have more than 25,000 songs which means you are SOL with Match. For the rest of you non-geeks, it’s probably worth it. You don’t use Dropbox to transfer songs from one computer to another. You don’t care about AAC. You are not sure what syncing songs over Wifi means. Match makes it easier to listen to your music on your computer at home and at work. You should do it.

Do you own an Android?

If so, let’s eliminate iTunes. Amazon Cloud Player and Google Music offer great experiences getting music on your phone. You can purchase from right within the app. You can also purchase from the web and the music will be instantly available on your device for streaming. So which of the two should you use? You are probably better off using Amazon at this point. As with the Kindle, Amazon is a retailer that is committed to being on all devices. That means that the music you purchase on Amazon today will find its way on to many devices in the future. Will we see Cloud Player on the iPhone? Most likely, at some point. Will we see Google Music? Maybe. But if it’s as good as Gmail or any other Google apps on the iPhone, then it won’t be worth it anyway. Another reason to use Amazon is that you can easily download songs to your phone for offline listening. As an added bonus, the music you download is available in other apps — like games and such. Google Music allows you to “pin” music for offline listening but that music only will play within Google Music. As far as I can tell, you cannot access it from other apps. One thing Google Music has going for it is integration with Google+. It remains to be seen how effective that is, but the idea of sharing purchased songs with your friends is a step in the right direction. Music is social, and none of the above services have cracked that yet.

So there you have it. A helpful guide to purchasing music. We’ve come a long way and it sure is great to see three big companies competing on features and price. We are all better off for it. As for me? I mostly purchase from Amazon and Bandcamp with the occasional iTunes and now Google Music sprinkled in. I guess if you are an ultra music geek with many devices, that’s your best bet!

Dan Kantor is the CEO of exfm, a social music service, as well as an adjunct professor at NYU ITP. He spends his days listening to music and wrote this post after repeatedly being asked by friends the best ways to buy music today.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Beneath_B1ue_Skies.

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TuneUp could improve your iTunes Match experience

Darrell Etherington — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 20:43:08 +0000

An app that just arrived on the Mac App Store on Thursday could help improve your initial iTunes Match experience, thanks to a host of features it includes for cleaning up your iTunes library. A clean collection with plenty of accurate metadata is probably easier for Apple’s Match servers to handle.

TuneUp is actually a suite of tools, including Clean, Cover Art, DeDuper and Tuniverse. The first three will be of particular interest to people with huge, unwieldy iTunes libraries dreading the iTunes Match scan and upload process. Here’s a quick look at what they do:

Clean. Fixes mislabeled tracks and fills in missing song info, using “acoustic fingerprint technology” that actually uses the track itself as the basis for filling in track information, which it retrieves from the same Gracenote MusicID database that iTunes itself uses when you rip tracks into iTunes from CDs.
Cover Art. Scans your library and finds all cover art, including multiple choices for each, in a convenient tool that lets you approve each selection individually or save them all at once. Great if you’ve got a lot of obscure music that isn’t available on Apple’s own iTunes Store, and want to have cover art show up in iTunes Match uploaded tracks.
DeDuper. If you own a lot of “Best Of” albums or compilations, or you’ve had a bad transfer of an existing library from one Mac to another, you may have a lot of duplicate tracks. This third tool included in TuneUp Goes through and finds duplicates, then presents you with a convenient list of potential duplicates so that you can review each and make sure a rare live bootleg isn’t deleted by accident. Also, TuneUp’s DeDuper uses “acoustic fingerprinting,” just like the Clean feature, so it goes deeper than just surface information like track and artist name.

The final component of TuneUp, called Tuniverse, is an intelligent sidebar that displays upcoming concert information, bios, tweets, YouTube videos and other content related to the artist you’re currently listening to, as well as providing sharing options for Facebook.

TuneUp has been around for a while, but it has celebrated its Mac App Store availability with a sale of 20 percent off the regular sticker price for a lifetime subscription. That makes the whole bundle just $39.99 for a version you can install on multiple Macs, instead of the standard price of $49.95 for a one-computer license. Plus, it’s a timely arrival for a tool that could clear up some confusion as you move your library to the cloud.

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Hands on with iTunes Match: Frustrating, but rewarding

Geoffrey Goetz — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:34:35 +0000

Apple officially launched iTunes Match on Monday, and things did not go entirely smoothly. I managed to sign up, and take the service for a test ride using a sandboxed segment of my iTunes library to see how it would handle iTunes purchases, ripped tracks and anything else I could think to throw at it.

A tale of two iClouds

I have a respectable library of around 15,000 songs, or about 100 GB of music from a mix of iTunes and CD purchases. With iTunes Match, I decided to ease into things using an account that has a respectable number of iTunes Music Store purchases, but on a machine that started off with zero ripped tracks in its music library.

While the activation of iTunes Match on this account from this particular Mac was rather quick — since the library was small — it wasn’t painless. After activating one of my iOS devices, I noticed right away that a little over half my music wasn’t added to my iTunes Match iCloud music library. I made the mistake of assuming that iTunes Match would add my purchase history to my Match library, when it actually just uses your locally stored iTunes content. In the end, iTunes Match did recognize all of my iTunes music (once it was all downloaded to the computer I was using), but it would be in Apple’s interest to clarify this point.

Adding ripped music to iTunes Match

About 20 percent of my music library comes from just one artist: the Grateful Dead. I took the first ten albums in the infamous Dick’s Picks series and ripped them to my Mac’s iTunes library to see if I could have them matched. iTunes Match performed well (assuming that’s because all the albums are available in the iTunes store), and started to match my ripped tracks as soon as they were added to my local iTunes music library.

I also added music I’d ripped previously by dragging the files to my iTunes library. As I was doing this, I checked the iCloud status of each track using the iCloud Status column, which you can enable in the View > View Options… menu. Valid iCloud Statuses include Waiting, Error, Removed, Duplicate, Ineligible, Matched, Uploaded and Purchased. You can create a Smart Playlist to keep track of which of your tracks fall into which iTunes Match category, as pictured above. Note that “Purchased” tracks, which are bought through iTunes, don’t count against your 25,000 song limit.

As each music file was added, I watched the status change from ‘waiting’ to ‘matched’. This was the outcome I was hoping for. Six of the ten albums I matched has one or more tracks not matched, but they were uploaded instead, and thus still available via iCloud.

I tried everything to get iTunes to match all of my music, but there are some music files that it flagged as ineligible. These are files that are either larger than 200 MB in size, have DRM from another music store or account, or were ripped at either a lower bit rate or to a format that iTunes doesn’t recognize.

To try to reduce ineligible tracks and increase matched vs. uploaded ones, I tried re-ripping problem songs from their original CDs to a higher bit rate. Despite my efforts, certain songs (which were available in the iTunes Store) just wouldn’t match. Hopefully the service’s ability to match tracks improves over time. In my opinion, 11 out of 189 songs being uploaded rather than matched isn’t a very good ratio, especially since the high bit rate of matched tracks is such a selling point of the service.

One last observation was that my album artwork wasn’t making the leap to the cloud immediately. I’m kind of fanatic when it comes to album art, so at first this was troubling, but as time passed, I noticed that some of the covers started appearing. I probably just need to be a little patient as iTunes Match catches up with demand. It’s good that Apple is prioritizing music uploads over artwork, too, if it comes down to a choice between the two.

Deleting, then downloading matched music

I recall a time when you could pay a company to rip your music collection for you. Apple’s iTunes Match is sort of like that, in that it takes your existing collection and provides you with a better, more usable version, which is exactly why I wanted to delete my source library and rebuild it using Apple’s higher-quality cloud-based tracks.

To test out how it would work, I went to a single album that had all of its tracks matched in my iCloud library, and deleted them. I was careful not to delete the music from iCloud, too. Rather, I deleted the music from my local iTunes library without ticking the box next to “Also delete these songs from iCloud.” The music was not actually removed from my library, but the status of the tracks I removed changed to reflect their presence in the cloud but not in local storage. Upon re-downloading, all of my 128 Kbps music files had been replaced with a collection of 256 Kbps music files.

Two conclusions

If your library is composed of mainly iTunes-purchased music, then I think you will enjoy what iTunes Match has to offer. Beyond simply keeping your music files in the iCloud, you’ll also be able to manage and share a set of playlists. This is a value-add feature that you can’t get by just downloading your previously purchased music from the iTunes Store. Plus, if you have a lot of legacy iTunes tracks with DRM, this is a good way of getting rid of that protection without having to pay per track to upgrade with iTunes Plus.

If, on the other hand, you have a substantial music library built mostly through ripping, then you may find yourself having to do a significant amount of pruning to get it in good enough shape to take full advantage of iTunes Match. After getting past the initial ordeal, however, I think most music fans will enjoy the cloud-based convenience features that iTunes match has to offer.

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iTunes Match: What are your first impressions?

Darrell Etherington — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:15:31 +0000

On Monday, Apple made iTunes Match available to any U.S. iTunes account holder for $24.99 per year. For that fee, you get your entire music library stored in the cloud and made available to your Mac computers and iOS devices. On the surface, it’s an appealing process, but going from subscribing to Match to getting a usable library isn’t exactly a piece of cake.

Delay the pay

Apple has been having difficulty dealing with demand for the service in its first day of operation, and it seems to be implementing rolling brownouts of registration to cope with the issue. Many users complained that, like me when I initially went to confirm that the service was live, they are seeing a message advising them to try again at a later time. Subsequent attempts to get to the registration process worked, but Apple is still pacing sign-ups, presumably to prevent server overload.

Scanning of epic proportions

In the end, it’s probably for the best, since once users are in, they’re often faced with huge delays as iTunes scans their library, matches tracks and then uploads tracks that couldn’t be matched. The process is taking hours for some, and it threatens to be a process spanning multiple days for others. Many are complaining about the need to stop and restart the process on a regular basis to get past stalls, which is an issue we heard about from people during the developer beta. Were Apple to open the floodgates to everyone at once, this process would likely be more painful.

Hit or miss

Apple’s scan-and-match tech isn’t perfect, and it often requires that your library be in fairly good shape in terms of track, artist and album information. It runs into issues with low-quality tracks (it won’t match ones that are under 96 Kbps, for example, but Apple states this clearly on its website), and users are finding the difference between “purchased” and “matched” tracks a bit confusing (hint: one has to do with what you buy in the iTunes store, and the other is strictly limited to what’s included in the local library on the Macs you use for your iTunes Match scan and upload process).

Pay now, get satisfaction later

Despite its problems, once iTunes Match is set up, it seems to work as advertised, providing tracks for download from Apple’s servers. But it takes a long time and a lot of hiccups to get to that point, and users don’t seem to be all that clear on what (or what not) to expect from the service to begin with. Paying for delayed gratification is not something Apple users and iTunes music shoppers are used to.

So based on the above and your own experiences, what do you think of iTunes Match? Did it need more time in the oven, despite already arriving late? Or is it just a different kind of service that inevitably requires a lengthy initial setup process in order to accomplish the magic it advertises?

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Apple Launches iTunes Match, But Puts Temporary Hold On New Subscriptions

Tom Krazit — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:11:23 +0000

It took a little longer than expected, but Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) launched iTunes Match Monday with the release of a new version of iTunes just days before Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is expected to unveil new developments in its own music strategy.

iTunes Match allows iTunes users to create a music library on Apple’s servers through iCloud and software that scans your hard drive. That software creates duplicate copies of songs that are available in iTunes on iCloud, which means you don’t have to spend hours uploading the files to Apple’s servers. It costs $24.99 a year for this service, but it’s a much faster way to get up and running with a cloud-based music system than the music lockers offered by Google and Amazon.

Apple was overwhelmed in the first few hours the service was available, telling those who had downloaded iTunes 10.5.1 that “new iTunes Match subscriptions are temporarily unavailable” and to check back later in the day. During an event in October to launch the iPhone 4S and iCloud, Apple promised that iTunes Match would be available by the end of that month, but missed that deadline. The new software can be now downloaded here.

And in competitive news, Google is scheduled to hold an event on Wednesday that will likely see the launch of its own online music service after years of negotiations with the music industry.

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