Apple's iTunes Match, which was first announced at the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference in June, is almost here. Apple has launched the iTunes Match developer beta, bringing the music-listening world one step closer to streaming their playlists on Apple devices of their choice.
In an email to U.S.-based developers posted by MacRumors, Apple warned users to keep a local backup of their iTunes library and any music added to iCloud.
"Apple will periodically reset your iCloud library during the beta and it is critical that you backup your music regularly," the email said. "Some features and optimizations of iTunes Match will not be available during the beta."
Reviewing the Specs
iTunes Match works with iTunes in the cloud. With iCloud, the music consumers purchase in iTunes appears automatically on all their Apple devices. iTunes Match aims at consumers who have music that wasn't purchased on iTunes.
ITunes Match lets you store your entire music collection, including music you have ripped from CDs or purchased from Apple competitors (like Amazon). The cost? About $25 a year. For that price, you can transfer 25,000 songs.
As Apple describes it, 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.
Upgrading Old Collections
Since there are more than 18 million songs in the iTunes Store, Apple figures most of your music is probably already in iCloud. All you have to upload is what iTunes can't match. That's makes for a much faster process than uploading everything from scratch. All the music iTunes matches plays back at 256-Kbps iTunes Plus quality -- even if your original copy was of lower quality.
"I talked to a couple of folks who started putting together digital music libraries nearly a decade ago when the most common sampling rate was 128 bits," said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT. "So they see the benefit because, in essence, the older part of their music library is being updated to the latest and greatest sampling technology and they can enjoy a higher quality of MP3 recording that way."
ITunes Match gives Apple a competitive advantage in the new space that is cloud music storage. Apple has more licenses than Amazon or Google, which makes it possible to launch the matching service. Apple also lets you download songs onto devices from the cloud. But will consumers pay for the service?
"Apples' cachet in the market and the strength of iTunes puts them in a very good position to go to market with this," King said "Whether or not a paid-for service is really going to attract too many users in challenging economic times, is a question that has to be answered.
"If you take a look at the kind of hammering that pay per view and cable television companies are taking right now, it doesn't seem like a great time to ask consumers to dig into their pockets for a monthly fee."
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