So many problems with iTunes Match...

It seems that most of the rough patches have been ironed out...iTunes Match is working as advertised for me.

I hate the hassles of being an "early adopter" and for the most part it's not an issue with Apple, but this time was not pleasant.

I think (hope) Apple is finally coming to realize how popular what they have to offer is and when they release something new it's not hundreds of thousands but millions, probably tens of millions of people that will want whatever it is and want it NOW! Whether it's products or services, the demand is truly staggering by any measure.

I'm not one to cut Apple too much slack, but when they get it right, they get it very right. I'm spoiled by that and am dissapointed when it doesn't always happen that way.

Moving forward I think iTunes Match will be a real winner...particularly if they keep expanding its capabilites.

[/EDITORIAL] 🙂

I'm with you - I'm overall happy with the service. I do hope they iron out album artwork being stripped, fix track matching where most of an album matches but some songs upload, and add the choice of whether to stream or download on iOS. That said, I feel I've already gotten my $24.99 worth with the service!

Agreed...those weird bugs are a puzzle. "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" missing from The Abbey Road album and having to be uploaded when all of the other tracks are matched is a good example. It matched on mine no problem, but apparently it depends on which CD you ripped originally. However I have seen it with some of my other albums though. Strange.

Cover art issues are problematic, but better now. I was pleasantly surprised when Apple reached out to me and a few others here to get more info. Sometimes their silence is maddening, but at least they're aware and working on it.

I could live with the downloading/deleting function that iTunes Match offers rather than pure streaming that other services offer because of the full access to my personal music library that it gives me wherever, whenever. What I can't tolerate is going into my iTunes library, currently comprised of 17,450 songs compiled into over 2,000 playlists, after going through the iTunes Match set up process and finding over 200 of my playlists missing songs and/or album artwork or finding that some of the songs are not able to be played while iTunes Match is on. It took 24 hours for iTunes Match to complete the 3 step process of setting up my iTunes library. It then took me 7 hours to go back through all of my playlists and return the missing songs and/or artwork back to where and how I WANT THEM! Is there a way to turn Match back on without repeating the playlist foul ups of my first run? Anyone? Please? Help?

(Remember Apple, I own my songs and my library. It should be respected and left how I have set it up. I will pay the extremely reasonable yearly membership fee to access my music through iTunes Match, but you need to respect the consumers desire to keep and access their library the way they have it set up. This isn't the time for a Steve Jobs-like moment where you give us what you know we want the way you know we want it. This is the time to respect the consumer and work jointly to present and produce a product that is mutually enjoyed.)

I am finding Match to be wonderful and impression when it comes to matching and syncing content between computers (it match 98% of my 20,000+ songs).

However iOS match is a disaster! Until Apple fixes the completely broken Smart Playlist ability in iOS I have no choice but not to us it on my iPhone. Tonight I am giving up and switching match off on my phone and going back to USB/Wifi syncs.

Thank god I checked these threads, I too thought it would be expanding my library for my 32gb iPhone, I am completely at at a loss for what exactly the benefit would be for me?, I have three 120gb ipods loaded with music for home use primarily, I wanted to expand my "on the go music"with the iPhone, I did think it would allow me to stream from the cloud, I can't remember what the exact limit was I read, but now, knowing this would not give me that expansion benefit, why bother, obviously. With all the problems, and headaches, I would have been very angry at the wasted time, and trying to fix the inconveniences .

darkprinceofjazz wrote:

Thank god I checked these threads, I too thought it would be expanding my library for my 32gb iPhone, I am completely at at a loss for what exactly the benefit would be for me?, I have three 120gb ipods loaded with music for home use primarily, I wanted to expand my "on the go music"with the iPhone, I did think it would allow me to stream from the cloud, I can't remember what the exact limit was I read, but now, knowing this would not give me that expansion benefit, why bother, obviously. With all the problems, and headaches, I would have been very angry at the wasted time, and trying to fix the inconveniences .

Putting aside your other concerns (valid or otherwise), iTunes Match does in fact allow streaming your iTunes library of music to the iPhone via Wi-Fi or 3G. The "benefit" is to have all of your iTunes library avialble wherever you have service to your iPhone. The only "limit" to the iTunes Match service is 25,000 songs.

I will also say it does stream - it may not stream like a Pandora (or similar service) but it can stream. If you have an AppleTV, you can shutdow iTunes and/or Computer and still be able to listen to music via the Cloud. So, with that said it does stream the music from the cloud. I think the service has great potential and just need to get through the honeymoon period.

I wish I could agree with you... I still have a large number of MATCHED songs that I can't play at all, on any device, let alone download. I have an iPhone, an iPad, an ATV2, and a MacBook Air, none of which is working. And this is after repeatedly updating iTunes Match, over several days, and turning it on and off in iTunes. I have approximately 12,000 songs, most in Apple Lossless format, and most of which were matched in iCloud.

I would simply like to be able to play all the songs in my library. Apparently that's too much to ask. In the 20+ years that I've been a dedicated Apple customer, I can't recall any launch that they've botched this badly.

Now I am really confused, What was all the mention here of the downloading, where actual space was being used on the iphone, and it was mentioned that what it does now was not the original plan, possible legal issues? So currently If I had a properly working cloud, and connection. I could have 25,000 songs at my disposal? and have it completely free of music actually taking up space? I could use that extra space for videos apps photos or what ever? But now I am wondering how much data usage this would cause streaming music, I wonder if it would be along the lines of app use? it might be a problem especially if you don't have an unlimited data plan or Wi-fi isn't available, my main use would be on the phone company network, not Wi-fi.

It's probably been said a few times in the thread but it won't hurt to throw it out there again - hit up Apple Feedback with suggestions and complaints about streaming. It streams on the Mac/PC side so why can't we have it on the iOS side?

http://www.apple.com/feedback/

For me, I also wanted to be able to free up space for other things, either by streaming (which is a data hog) or by downloading and later shrinking the music memory space if needed (either as a % setting or asking when I am low on memory and need space). I think either solution would work for me. What I did find is it will delete older music when full but only when you are trying to play more music that isn't yet on the device. If you do something outside of the music app (like record a video or take a picture), you will just get out of memory message telling you to go delete stuff. So it's sort of half way to just works.

Overall, I'm liking that my ipad, iphone, and multiple computers all have the same music library. I can add something on one machine and it shows up instantly everywhere. Before, I used to have to sync and copy to make it show up in the different libraries or import with homesharing etc. Also, the matching was pretty good (missed 2000 out of 13000 songs). And yes, there were strange ones where the time of the song and tags were good and it would match all but one of the songs. I even re-ripped some CD's in iTunes and it still wouldn't perfectly match. Probably still needs some fine tuning on the detection. For some reason, I'm one of the few that had a complete match for Abbey Road 🙂

From my experience playing a song downloads it to your phone. You can easily swipe it and delete it though. Not the same as pure streaming but it still does give you 25,000 songs in your pocket even if they can't all be installed at the same time. The data usage will be moderate. More than browsing websites but much less than using YouTube. I am lucky to be grandfathered into att's unlimited plan so I don't have any worries on that front. The missing cover art and some songs showing up twice are the biggest annoyances for me but I will eventually take care of that.

Here is some irony, or maybe poetic justice...

I convinced myself that my issues with iTunes match have been resolved (or in some ways were non-existent), though there was confusing information from Apple at first.

I decided that I was ready to be a customer again.

Having received cancellation of the service and a refund, my iTunes page says that my Match subscription has expired. I selected to "renew" the service, but am now being alerted on that page that I cannot renew the service for ONE YEAR because I had received a refund.

I hope this isn't some kind of retributive punishment for BEING OFFERRED a refund in the first place.

darkprinceofjazz wrote:

Now I am really confused, <snip>

Probably learning more about iTunes Match would be beneficial. Here's a good start...

http://www.apple.com/icloud/features/

http://www.macrumors.com/2011/11/14/a-clear-explanation-of-itunes-match/

http://www.macworld.com/article/163676/2011/11/secrets_of_itunes_match.html

I have about 7,700 songs on iTunes Match/iCloud now. Of that total about 5,700 songs were matched, about 2,000 songs had to be uploaded and about 40 had errors of some nature and could not be used (I had to delete them). The 40 that I had to delete came from custom made CD's and other odd MP3's.

FWIW iTunes Match was able to match all of the songs ripped from my CD of the 2009 Stereo Remasterd version of Abbey Road. 🙂 However there are some other albums that had a few songs that were not matched and had to be uploaded although it did match the rest of the songs on the same album. Certainly a bug of some sort.

I've been able to get all of my cover art (a good deal of which I added manually) on all of my devices using various methods mentioned here and elsewhere. Another bug that needs to be ironed out...no one should have to do these things manually.

I've been able to "upgrade" all of the older songs that I had ripped from CD's at 128kbps to 256kbps by deleting them and downloading new copies from Apple's servers. Here's how:

http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57326759-285/how-to-use-itunes-match-to-upgr ade-audio-quality/

As mentioned earlier, after a pretty rocky start iTunes Match is working fine for me, with all of my iMac's iTunes library available on my iPhone 4, my iPad and my Macbook Air.

Hope that helps!

IndianaDan wrote:

Here is some irony, or maybe poetic justice...

I convinced myself that my issues with iTunes match have been resolved (or in some ways were non-existent), though there was confusing information from Apple at first.

I decided that I was ready to be a customer again.

Having received cancellation of the service and a refund, my iTunes page says that my Match subscription has expired. I selected to "renew" the service, but am now being alerted on that page that I cannot renew the service for ONE YEAR because I had received a refund.

I hope this isn't some kind of retributive punishment for BEING OFFERRED a refund in the first place.

Call Apple and have them fix it...they can almost always adjust accounts.