iTunes Match steaming why would you need more GB?

GoalieEd

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And AT&T and most other us carriers don't offer unlimited plans (and are planning to throttle excessive use)
 

Santa

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A few reasons:

1) data caps
2) international travel where data is too expensive
3) cell service isn't always available

And of course: bigger is always better.
 

Michael Baturin

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hmm I really am not sure how I feel about this. I like the idea, i think its awesome. $25 is not too much. I am concerned about what happens when you leave and chose not to renew? Is your music gone? Do you get to keep your music? Do they give you back your old music? Also, it would have to work perfect. The 10 different live versions of 1 song needs to play the correct version - otherwise, its a bust. I hope they use sound wave identification and not metadata. We'll see.
 

Tinman

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hmm I really am not sure how I feel about this. I like the idea, i think its awesome. $25 is not too much. I am concerned about what happens when you leave and chose not to renew? Is your music gone? Do you get to keep your music? Do they give you back your old music? Also, it would have to work perfect. The 10 different live versions of 1 song needs to play the correct version - otherwise, its a bust. I hope they use sound wave identification and not metadata. We'll see.
As an FYI iTunes Match in iCloud gives you the same access to your music as iTunes in iCloud, but for all your music not just iTunes store purchases.

By that I mean you actually download your music to your iOS device or Mac/PC. It is not streaming. About the closest it comes to streaming is simultaneous listen and download.

So basically you can have all your music matched by iTunes Match and then download it all again if you want. It is not held captive in the cloud. While I am sure you won't have access to the songs in the cloud from iTunes Match if you let it expire, they don't have to give it "back" as you had it in the first place and they never "took" it. In fact you can download better quality versions of the songs it matched--and once downloaded you don't lose them if you cancel iTunes Match.

And it for sure analyses the tracks themselves. You don't even need any metadata. But if you download them--yep, you get all the metadata (assuming it was a song iTunes has available: if not you are actually uploading your own copy).

But as for this thread? Well... there is no iTunes Match streaming so yes we still need local storage.

See here:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2392116,00.asp

Michael
 

Tinman

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One more thing.... the iTunes add-on TuneUp is using the same system to analyze music as iTunes Match (Gracenote's MusicID).

TuneUp is around $30 but has a free trial that only recognizes a limited number of tracks. But if you want to get an idea how iTunes Match will work with some various tracks from your collection it is a good way to find out.

Michael
 
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Michael Baturin

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As an FYI iTunes Match in iCloud gives you the same access to your music as iTunes in iCloud, but for all your music not just iTunes store purchases.

By that I mean you actually download your music to your iOS device or Mac/PC. It is not streaming. About the closest it comes to streaming is simultaneous listen and download.

So basically you can have all your music matched by iTunes Match and then download it all again if you want. It is not held captive in the cloud. While I am sure you won't have access to the songs in the cloud from iTunes Match if you let it expire, they don't have to give it "back" as you had it in the first place and they never "took" it. In fact you can download better quality versions of the songs it matched--and once downloaded you don't lose them if you cancel iTunes Match.

And it for sure analyses the tracks themselves. You don't even need any metadata. But if you download them--yep, you get all the metadata (assuming it was a song iTunes has available: if not you are actually uploading your own copy).

But as for this thread? Well... there is no iTunes Match streaming so yes we still need local storage.

See here:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2392116,00.asp

Michael
That is what I wanted to know. So in that case $25 is a steal. If you wanted, you could use this service to "upgrade" all of your music and cleanup an unorganized library. Pretty good - lots of debating going on about whether streaming exists or not in the blogosphere.
 
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Tinman

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That is what I wanted to know. So in that case $25 is a steal. If you wanted, you could use this service to "upgrade" all of your music and cleanup an unorganized library. Pretty good - lots of debating going on about whether streaming exists or not in the blogosphere.
Yes considering I almost bought TuneUp a month ago for around the same price I'd say $25 is a good deal for sure. Heck if I only use it to do what I was going to do with TuneUp I will be happy.

As for the streaming... I am pretty sure Apple has said it is not streaming. But even the reports about steaming don't say just streaming: it is streaming or downloading. Though again, I think Apple says otherwise:

Apple told ATD, however, that music will be accessible from the cloud, but will still have to be stored on an iOS device or your computer. The image that looked like streaming on the video was really just “a simultaneous listen and download,” ATD said.


Michael
 

Michael Baturin

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Yes considering I almost bought TuneUp a month ago for around the same price I'd say $25 is a good deal for sure. Heck if I only use it to do what I was going to do with TuneUp I will be happy.

As for the streaming... I am pretty sure Apple has said it is not streaming. But even the reports about steaming don't say just streaming: it is streaming or downloading. Though again, I think Apple says otherwise:

Michael
I read the linked article. The thing is, if you can play and download at the same time, I would consider it to be quasi streaming. You can just "download" it and listen while it downloads, then delete it off your device immediately after. Its kind of like streaming, with an added annoyance.
 

Tinman

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I read the linked article. The thing is, if you can play and download at the same time, I would consider it to be quasi streaming. You can just "download" it and listen while it downloads, then delete it off your device immediately after. Its kind of like streaming, with an added annoyance.
yes I was going to mention that you can download and delete. But I thought about how practical that was on a regular basis and figured that would only work for those times you just need to listen to that one song and you have it in the cloud but don't want to keep it around (and you can't get it from Pandora, etc. ;)).

But for normal music storage it will be similar to what we have now. I actually like how it works and am glad it is not just a streaming thing.

And indeed I can see myself storing less music on my iPhone (I already store next to no music on my iPad as it is usually used at home and can use iTunes sharing).

Looking at the music on my iPhone I see a whole lot of tracks that are only there "just in case." Now I can trim the music down and if the off-chance I need one of those tracks I will grab it from the cloud. I'm liking it.

Michael
 

Arcangel2176

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you guys can think what you like but I'm not paying 25 dollars for this or any money for the non free iCloud storage, i have better things to spend my money on
 

Arcangel2176

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and I bet here in the UK they will match the $25 to £25. Which is near enough $50. Bugger that!
yes its just crap, especially since i will never listen to my whole music library on my phone. I only put my most listened to music for the occasional music use
 

Sharunda

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This is a nice idea. I'm liking this. I commutte every day and I listen to a few playlists. This way I can delete all the music off of my iPhone and put the play lists I frequently listen to on. Nice. I guess theoretically I can do this myself, but for some odd reason, I don't want to take off all my play lists in fear that I may want to listen to something different and it's not on there, but with this service, I have the option to choose and not to horde music on my iPhone just in case I want to hear it.

To bad you can't do this with TV shows or movies. Maybe that's next.
 

Tinman

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This is a nice idea. I'm liking this. I commutte every day and I listen to a few playlists. This way I can delete all the music off of my iPhone and put the play lists I frequently listen to on. Nice. I guess theoretically I can do this myself, but for some odd reason, I don't want to take off all my play lists in fear that I may want to listen to something different and it's not on there, but with this service, I have the option to choose and not to horde music on my iPhone just in case I want to hear it.

To bad you can't do this with TV shows or movies. Maybe that's next.
To be clear getting your music off iCloud is almost exactly the same as you how get previously purchased music in the iTunes app right now. You won't be playing any playlists or streaming from the cloud. You download it via iTunes app and play it in the Music (iPod) app. Unlike iOS 4.x and earlier, however, you will be able to delete tracks from the iOS device itself (I can only see a way to do that one at a time).

As for TV shows you can already download previously purchased shows. This will work the same in iOS 5. You won't be storing TV shows in iCloud like you can music (yet) so all you have is what you previously purchased.

Again, this is nothing like streaming, at least how I think of streaming. It is downloading with the added benefit of being able to delete what you download and also to begin playing it before it has completely downloaded.

Michael