How does it actually work, step by step?

christopherfromstanmore wrote:

So let me get this right.

If a track is in the cloud and I am not connected to wi-fi, I won't be able to play it.

I need to download it while on wi-fi first. Is this right.

Yes, this is correct. For example, if you are going to take a trip that requires a plane flight you will need to pre-download the music you think you will want to listen to on the flight.

christopherfromstanmore wrote:

Also I read above that when I join iTunes Match with my iPhone it won't delete the music on it just add what is in the cloud. This is not what happened. I am at home setting up a PC laptop to use iTunes and Itunes Match. When I turned on iTunes Match on my iPhone all the tracks I had loaded from CD onto my Mac at work and synced with my iphone have now disappeared.

When I get back to work and turn on iTunes Match on my work Mac will all those tracks (barring invalid ones or errors become available on my iPhone?

The way this works is that when you enable iTM on your iDevice, and there is already music on the iDevice, as long as that same music is also in the cloud the tracks will stay on your device. What most likely happened in your case is because the initial scan, match and uploade process had not finished in iTunes, when you enabled the service on your iPhone the tracks were not yet in the cloud so they were removed from the iPhone, just as the warning said they would be.

It is a "best practice" to let the initial scan, match and upload process complete in iTunes before you enable the service on any devices or other computers.

christopherfromstanmore wrote:

I am at home setting up a PC laptop to use iTunes and Itunes Match. When I turned on iTunes Match on my iPhone all the tracks I had loaded from CD onto my Mac at work and synced with my iphone have now disappeared.

When I get back to work and turn on iTunes Match on my work Mac will all those tracks (barring invalid ones or errors become available on my iPhone?

If I understand correctly, at some point you loaded music through a USB sync onto your iPhone and that music came from a CD you originally loaded into iTunes on your "work" computer, not the computer that you used to first enable iTunes match. While I can't speak to why they disappeared, if you add iTunes Match to your office computer, those songs will be added to the cloud and will become available to you on the first computer, as well as your iPhone, iPad, Apple TV Etc. Apple doesn't really point it out, but if you have music in iTunes libraries on more than one computer, if you add each computer in turn and then turn Match on the iPhone, you may avoid such headaches.

I need to download it while on wi-fi first. Is this right.

it is best to download it while being on wifi. However, you can turn on a setting in your music app that will allow iTunes match downloads while on 3g. It is off by default so you don't eat up your 3g data allotment.

I'm getting too old for all this new technology maybe I should have stuck with the wind up gramaphone.

I'm 59 and I prefer my 60's-era Dual 1219 turntable. However, reading through the postings here, you'll find age is certainly not a factor, or if it is, not much of one. I'm fairly certain people of all ages have had some difficulty getting iTunes Match to work properly. A survey done in the past year pretty much confirmed that even though many people use cloud-based services all the time (g-mail, yahoo mail, etc.) quite a few of them really don't understand the "cloud" concept. Take heart. You are certainly not alone.

Message was edited by: JiminMissouri

have two goals for iTM: First, upgrade the older, lower quality tracks. Second, to be able to swap music around without the hassle of connecting the device to a computer. Also, we have two not-quite-fully overlapping libraries on two Macs. My phone is only connected with one, obviously. So, eventually getting both libraries in the cloud would enable me to access *all* the music, not just that on the "paired" computer and iTunes Store pruchases.

As I mentioned earlier, you should have good luck getting matches for many of your tracks, but you should not expect all tracks to match. You will be creating a central library of all of your music that is currently in iTunes on both of your computers. If you have music on an iPhone right now, and that music was not purchased through iTunes and is not on one of the computers, you will want to get transfereed to one of them.

As for the unalterably ineligble tracks: I can go back and forth between iTM on and off. Turn off to load on ineligible tracks then back on for everything else, correct?

If you have music that simply cannot be made eligible, I would think the tracks would either be corrupted or DRM protected and if so, they're not likely to play on your computer either, so I'd be trying to make the tracks play in iTunes before I did anything more with them. Unless you regularly record source material in certain lossless formats, you really shouldn't have anything else that is "unalterably ineligible."

If you are talking about music videos and audiobooks, I don't have any experience with them. I would imagine the first thing you want to do - BEFORE you subscribe to iTunes match, would be to turn off any automatic syncing for all media, most importantly music.

Manually adding videos and audiobooks via USB should still be possible, but I will leave it to someone with experience in USB sync to give you pointers.

Thanks all of you

I think I get it now and will have all my tracks on my phone as soon as I get to work and turn on iTunes Match on my work Mac.

Yours

Chris

Glad we were all able to help. By the way you mentioned having a lot of old CDs, and I think you were concerned that because they were ten years old or older that they would turn out to be ineligible. You will probably find that most of these will, in fact, be eligible. Further, unless they are simply not available for sale in the iTunes store, many of them will likely match.

A good portion of my library in iTunes match came from CDs that are 15 years old or older. I had no trouble with those tracks at all. Eligiblity of music for iTunes Match has nothing to do with how old it is.

Message was edited by: JiminMissouri

I have to say I don't think iTunes Match is for me.

I had hundreds of tracks imported from CD and I now have to download them one at a time (well some at a time) by hitting the cloud icon next to each one on my phone. I listen to my phone as I travel (ok so I shouldn't have headphones on while cycling) and am therefore not connected to any wi-fi (3G would get too expensive and anyway it's all too slow).

Still you live and learn and perhaps I'm missing something.

I have to say I don't think iTunes Match is for me.

I had hundreds of tracks imported from CD and I now have to download them one at a time (well some at a time) by hitting the cloud icon next to each one on my phone. I listen to my phone as I travel (ok so I shouldn't have headphones on while cycling) and am therefore not connected to any wi-fi (3G would get too expensive and anyway it's all too slow).

Still you live and learn and perhaps I'm missing something.

Only you can decide if the service is right for you, but there are several ways to download, including an entire playlist. While I wouldn't recommend setting up a playlist based on something like "rock," since you could easily end up with much mor music than you could hold on your iPhone, the point is when you have a playlist on your iPhone or iPod, there is a download icon on the playlist.

SO for instance, if you wanted to set up a "cycling" playlist, you certainly could do that. This is what I do for music I want to listen to in the car. While my upload speed isn't that great (comcast) the download speed is more than good enough to give me enough music for days of tooling around, all while I take a shower and shave.

There are plenty of people with a lot more knowledge of setting up playlists on here, and if you posted asking for ideas of what kind of playlists would be good, you'd probably get a lot of suggestions.