So many problems with iTunes Match...

Almost 2 days in and I'm still unable to use iTunes Match.

I wrote to Apple stating I'm unable to use the service and requested a refund. Got a reply just now.

Apple will not refund my $24.99!

Unbeliveable! 😮

Sorry Apple. I've been a loyal customer for years. But you're losing me now.

Amazing how quickly after Steve Jobs passing the rot is setting in at Apple.

Crappy software meets crappy customer service. Great combo.

That is very strange and frustrating. It's a bit of a PIA, but you could just re-rip that song at 256kbps or even 320kbps if you wanted.

I have to believe they'll get this ironed out, but this one or two songs not matched when the rest of the album is, well, just weird.

Russa wrote:

Lost album art work. And I have many duplicate songs on my iPhone.

Here's how I got all of my album cover art back...

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3494271?answerId=16737862022#16737862022

Hope that helps!

The Apple Care guys I spoke to was offering me a refund since the promotion of Match tricked me into thinking I could stream from the cloud.

IndianaDan wrote:

The bigger problem is on my iPad. After activating Match on the iPad, now a lot of albums are splintered...meaning that some tracks have been separated from their original albums and placed into their own "albums".

I figured, "no problem, I'll just sync it back to my iMac which will reorganize everything." No dice, it didn't work.

If you're viewing albums under the "Artists" option on your iPad there may be several entries for the same album. It all depends on how the album is tagged. For instance, if a majority of the songs on an album are by the same artist, band, etc. but one includes another artist, two "albums" will be represented. If Eric Clapton performs nine songs on an album but one track included Eric Clapton and George Harrison, you would see two albums listed.

You can adjust this on your iPad by going into Settings > Music > Group By Album Artist > On/Off.

IndianaDan wrote:

The Apple Care guys I spoke to was offering me a refund since the promotion of Match tricked me into thinking I could stream from the cloud.

I was expecting a bit different behavior with the streaming and I think it's something they can patch in the near future. The way it works now is with Mac and Apple TV, you can stream fully without downloading. For iOS, you have to download (it plays while it downloads, which Apple is referring to as "streaming", which is what is causing the confusion). Apple could put a toggle switch in the iOS settings somewhere to choose full streaming or download as your choice. I would personally perfer full streaming so I could access my whole iTunes Library (46GB) from my iPhone 4S 32GB which doesn't have space to fit it all.

I'm also having matching issues. About 25% of my songs did not match. The strange thing is that if I click on the Ping icon and select "Show in iTunes Store", the "unmatched" song is found. I'm not sure why Ping can find the song but iTunes match can't. Very frustrating.

Richard Brown4 wrote:

I'm also having matching issues. About 25% of my songs did not match. The strange thing is that if I click on the Ping icon and select "Show in iTunes Store", the "unmatched" song is found. I'm not sure why Ping can find the song but iTunes match can't. Very frustrating.

That's a good point!

I believe Ping uses ID3 metadata only, whereas iTunes Match is using metadata plus track fingerprinting to verify it matches the exact track. If Ping takes you to wrong place (yet very close), it's not a big deal. If Match comes up with the wrong track and you somehow lose your original (delete and download the higher quality version), that is a big deal. I think that's what Apple is doing with Match, but I could be wrong.

IndianaDan wrote:

The Apple Care guys I spoke to was offering me a refund since the promotion of Match tricked me into thinking I could stream from the cloud.

That's cool. Shame Apple can't offer a refund to me. I've wasted 2 days on this now.

Seems I was tricked into thinking iTunes Match would actaully work. 😟

np. Apple, have it your way. I'll just get my money back from my credit card issuer. We're done.

mjbanks wrote:

IndianaDan wrote:

The Apple Care guys I spoke to was offering me a refund since the promotion of Match tricked me into thinking I could stream from the cloud.

I was expecting a bit different behavior with the streaming and I think it's something they can patch in the near future. The way it works now is with Mac and Apple TV, you can stream fully without downloading. For iOS, you have to download (it plays while it downloads, which Apple is referring to as "streaming", which is what is causing the confusion). Apple could put a toggle switch in the iOS settings somewhere to choose full streaming or download as your choice. I would personally perfer full streaming so I could access my whole iTunes Library (46GB) from my iPhone 4S 32GB which doesn't have space to fit it all.

The true streaming option as you've described...and how most people understand it did in fact work that way with iTunes Match up until the second to last developer release (IIRC). It was changed to what we have today. Speculation at the time had to do with legal issues being raised by some music copyright owners. Hard to say.

So yes, you're correct...iTunes Match is fully capable of true streaming. For whatever reason they decided to go with the current system. Hopefully we'll have real streaming one of these days.

richsadams wrote:

mjbanks wrote:

IndianaDan wrote:

The Apple Care guys I spoke to was offering me a refund since the promotion of Match tricked me into thinking I could stream from the cloud.

I was expecting a bit different behavior with the streaming and I think it's something they can patch in the near future. The way it works now is with Mac and Apple TV, you can stream fully without downloading. For iOS, you have to download (it plays while it downloads, which Apple is referring to as "streaming", which is what is causing the confusion). Apple could put a toggle switch in the iOS settings somewhere to choose full streaming or download as your choice. I would personally perfer full streaming so I could access my whole iTunes Library (46GB) from my iPhone 4S 32GB which doesn't have space to fit it all.

The true streaming option as you've described...and how most people understand it did in fact work that way with iTunes Match up until the second to last developer release (IIRC). It was changed to what we have today. Speculation at the time had to do with legal issues being raised by the copyright owners. Hard to say.

So yes, you're correct...iTunes Match is fully capable of true streaming. For whatever reason they decided to go with the current system. Hopefully we'll have real streaming one of these days.

Not a lawyer, but I would assume it's not a legal issue as true streaming is in place on Mac and Apple TV (I'm streaming music on my work iMac now). The downloads only occur on iOS. My belief it that it's tied to the fact that you may not have internet connection and wanting to save bandwidth, so Apple wants to ensure the track is still available locally after you listen. A simple toggle to set if you want streaming or storage would solve the confusion (as a developer, I realize it's not just a simple task of popping that in place, but from an end user standpoint, it's a perfect solution).

When it comes to legal issues I would never assume anything. 😉 However, yes it can work that way and it may be concerns with Wi-Fi and/or 3G or perhaps just wanting to save storage space on iOS devices, again, hard to say.

Bottom line is that it is capable of true streaming and hopefully that will be enabled for iOS devices sooner than later.

richsadams wrote:

IndianaDan wrote:

The bigger problem is on my iPad. After activating Match on the iPad, now a lot of albums are splintered...meaning that some tracks have been separated from their original albums and placed into their own "albums".

I figured, "no problem, I'll just sync it back to my iMac which will reorganize everything." No dice, it didn't work.

If you're viewing albums under the "Artists" option on your iPad there may be several entries for the same album. It all depends on how the album is tagged. For instance, if a majority of the songs on an album are by the same artist, band, etc. but one includes another artist, two "albums" will be represented. If Eric Clapton performs nine songs on an album but one track included Eric Clapton and George Harrison, you would see two albums listed.

You can adjust this on your iPad by going into Settings > Music > Group By Album Artist > On/Off.

Thanks for the feedback, but it still doesn't remedy the issue. I did follow your advice and switch that toggle "off". I closed "music", restarted it..even tried it with Match both "off" and "on", no change.

To show the anamoly, let's just use my soundtrack to the movie "Cars" for example.

Two tracks (by Brad Paisley) are in their own album, with the Cars album artwork.

Every other track, by other artists (Randy Newman, Sheryl Crow, The Chords, Rascal Flatts, and James Taylor) are grouped together in a 2nd album (but with no artwork!!??).

No streaming means there is no need for me to use iTunes Match. The whole reason for me to even sign up for iTunes Match is that my music collection is too large to properly fit on my iPhone or iPads. If I have to DOWNLOAD music from iCloud to play it, that sort of defeats the purpose of iTunes Match -- if I had enough space to download the music, I would have put it on my iPhone and iPads in the first place.

I've requested and received a refund for $24.99 based on this fact.

Clayton - I agree with what you said.

Luckily, I started a new iTunes library file and didn't use my primary Apple ID when I signed up for the service.

I heard there are no refunds, so I'll pretty much abandon that iTunes library file and iTunes ID and go about as I was before and chalk the $25 as a fee as a price I paid to see the latest and greatest tech and move on. It will be nice if one day Apple agrees to refund people who tried the service when it first came out who had a bumpy experience, but if they don't perhaps I'll try to start up with the service in 4 months or so once they've ironed out many of the kinks.

Cheers.