Has Apple gone public about the iTunes Match disaster?
Any official word from the company about this major embarrassment? Or are its PR and Legal departments advising Apple to keep it hush hush?
iPhone 4, iOS 5
What was the disaster? What happened?
55 replies
Evidently someone hasn't been reading this forum. Does three wasteful days and counting of managing the failed iTunes Match process, and fruitlessly at that, mean anything?
I admit I haven't been on the forum in awhile. Could you bring me up to speed?
Start reading and good luck. Or why don't you subscribe to iTunes Match and then see how soon you and your music library get up to speed?
I'll bet if you did a survey you'd find 90%+ of people who did Match are perfectly satisfied with it.
Being in the computer business all my grown up life - we'd love people who installed software on its first day but we'd never do it ourselves. There is no test of software like a full load of people all trying things out day 1.
I'm not denying that you had problems most people on this forum did but trying to write software and systems that deal with every possible type of user configuration and every type of music file is a huge issue and there will always be problems. It is bad when it effects you but great when it all works.
CTJon, I am sorry if I am mistaken here but you are writing like a fan, like an Apple fanatic. Writing software and systems that deal with almost every possible type of user config, etc, and that work in the real world too (at $24.99/head/year) is the job of the software company's team of engineers, including software testers, all getting paid pretty decent salaries. It is certainly or shouldn't be my job or yours to test it out for them, at no salary. It is what is getting to be known as SHADOW WORK. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/sunday/our-unpaid-extra-shadow-work.ht ml?_r=1&scp=1&sq=shadow%20work&st=cse
I'll be glad to read a survey that supports your bet. Should you find it, do please send it our way. Meanwhile, no product should ever EVER get released to market in this sorry buggy state.
I'm afraid that iTunes Match has worked correctly for me, perhaps a little more detail about your issue would help me understand, and thus to help.
Just because you are having some problems doesn't mean everyone is. Keep that in mind.
iTunes Match is working correctly for me, although, it is taking some time to get everything matched up. This is to be expected.
Sorry to have to report that it's clearly not just me having serious problems with Match. And have you checked your wireless provider's data usage? If you are not paying for unlimited, how is that holding up? Do please report.
ohneSchatten, you're right that something is way wrong here, at least for larger song libraries. I say this as a loyal Apple user (20+ years) and former Apple software engineer. Here's a guess.
Like you, I've watched iTunes Match run for 3, going on 4 days here. It's finally in the home stretch, 2/3 of the way through Step 3.
The problem appears pretty simple: iTunes failed to match much of my personal song library (ripped at 320kbps from my own physical CD library), and so began uploading something like 40 gigabytes of songs to iCloud. That is just a ton of data, even if you have a fast connection.
I have 2 dedicated high-speed internet lines. Each currently shows 1mbps upstream, and >10mbps downstream. The upstream number is relevant here. At 1mbps upstream, it takes 89 hours to upload 40 gigabytes, even if there are no bottlenecks anywhere else.
But this is a onetime setup hassle. Download speeds are much faster than upload speeds for cable modem users, so it should run better in the other direction.
I still think Apple blew it here by not communicating what to expect, and by not testing the matching service more carefully, and by not configuring iTunes to upload your library in the background, so it wouldn't be so obvious how long it was taking. But these mess up setup only, so as long as nothing else is wrong, it should be a onetime hassle.
Really appreciate your considered response, zipflash. I am still waiting for Apple to acknowledge my Match subscription refund request. I have since turned Match off and am back to syncing the old fashioned way. Too bad because I wanted access to my entire music library, which of course won't fit in my iOS device. In any case, Apple engineers and software testers needed to realize that not everyone lives in an ivory tower surrounded with the latest and best and fastest. I am certain my sorry wi-fi connection at home doesn't meet their upload criteria. It's the reason so many of us are/were stuck/stalled somewhere in the process for days on end, unacceptable even for a onetime setup scenario. Unacceptable by any standards. But who knew? And, agreed, the marketing and documentation folks needed to also communicate clear expectations. But they too failed us.
No refund for me. I'll wait, and eventually it will work. $25 is pretty trivial, like 1% of what we've each spent on Apple gear, so not even worth our time to chase a refund, in my opinion. Especially when I'd just turn around and buy it again when it does work.
@ ohneSchatten - Sorry you have had so much trouble. While there are quite a few posts on the forum from those in situations like yours, the vast majority of those who have used iTunes Match do not post on the forum. My library is close to 17,000 songs, abourt 95% ripped in Apple Lossless. iTunes Match did not match about 4,000 songs, and it took 2.5 days for it to upload them (lossless files are quite large -- my library is 380 GB). It finished this morning with about 28 songs it didn't match. Ran it again and it worked. I was able to create a smart playlist of all songs that matched that were under 256, deleted them then downloaded the higher bit rate versions (about 250). To upgrade at 30 cents each would have been way more expensive than one year of Match, so it was worth it to me.
If match doesn't do it for you, I hope you can retrieve your library from a backup. Check out the ORB app for iOS. I have it and I can stream all my iTunes songs and playlists over both wifi and 3G from my MacPro...it's like my own cloud! Works well and does not place the songs on your device.
Good luck.
Its still in beta. this is not the final product so of course you are going to have some issues. i uploaded 13,000 songs and it works fine for me. it took a day and a half but it works. just give it some more time.
ITunes Match is is 100% absolutely a disaster. It should never have been released with major bugs.
Uploading certain songs crashes the Windows version of iTunes.
This problem could certainly have been detected before release -- it's not hard to find people with large libraries.
The bug is major because there's no workaround, and it renders the product unusuable. It's not just in a feature you that you can avoid (unless you avoid Match altogether, of course).
Apple will fix it eventually. But it would be nice if they would issue a statement apologizing for wasting everyone's time.
Has Apple gone public about the iTunes Match disaster?