authorized number of devices 5 or 10?

The total for iTunes Match is 10, but the confusion comes from the addition of iOS devices I believe. I guess you got a L1 rep.

http://www.apple.com/itunes/itunes-match/

Jim has the answer. You can have 10 devices (computers and iOS devices) associate with iTunes Match. However you can only have 5 computers authorized to play your iTunes Store content.

So, for example, you could have 5 computers authorized to play iTunes Store content, but only 3 of those computers authorized for iTunes Match and 7 iOS devices.

Make sense?

You can have up to 10 devices, of which up to 5 can be computers - any given computer may have 1 or more libraries. Computers and Devices should be running the lastest version of iTunes (10.5.2+) / IOS (5+) as appropriate.

It is possible for a single Computer to appear more than once - for example, following a major upgrade. The guidance is to de-authorise any device prior to any major re-configuration.

There may be other instances when it is possible to get apparently more devices than there actually are.

Great to know all is now working.

I'm experiencing the exact same problem. I'm trying to configure iTunes Match on a new PC, am being told "you have reach the limit of 5 authorized computers". If I'm reading this thread correctly, it sounds like the conventional wisdom is that 10 DEVICES can be authorized but only 5 of those can be COMPUTERS. When I click on "manage devices" on the Account Information page in iTunes, I see a list of 4 DEVICES (2 Macs, 1 iPad and 1 iPhone). Thus, based upon everything I can see, I don't have 5 authorized DEVICES, much less 5 COMPUTERS.

Some observations:

On the "Account Information" page, the "AppleID Summary" section, I'm told 5 computers have been authorized to play content associated with my AppleID.

In the "iTunes in the Cloud" section, I'm told 4 devices are associated with my AppleID.

I am unable to play protected songs on this new computer because I have 5 computers already authorized. So maybe authorizing a computer (as related to the "AppleID Summary" section of Account Information) must preceed authorizing a computer (as related to the "iTunes in the Cloud" section)?

If nothing else, this is starting to make my head spin.

Best route here would be to de-authorise all, re-authorise only those required starting with your computers.

Computer authorization is not the same thing as a computer being authorized for iTunes Match. "Authorization" is a fuction of Apple's FairPlay DRM that is still used to protect Movies, TV Shows and Apps. There is a limit of 5 computers that can be authorized to play this content.

So, as I wrote above (Re: authorized number of devices 5 or 10?) a computer can be authorized to play store content but not necessarly be authorized for iTunes Match. To see how many computers you have authorized to play iTunes store content pull down Store > View My Account and log in. At the top of the page you will see a section called Apple ID Summary which will tell you how many computers you have authorized to play content with that Apple ID (iTunes Store account ID). So in my account I see that I have 1 computer authorized to play content, but I have 3 devices authorized to associated with my iTunes store account ID.

To associate a computer with an Apple ID (iTunes Store account ID) to be eligible for iTunes Match that computer must first be authorized.

In order to see which devices are authorized on your account:

Open iTunes

Click Store

Click Account

Click View Account

Enter your password

Look in the second section iTunes in the Cloud

To the far right you'll see Manage Devices

Once it's clicked you will see all of the devices currently authorized in iTunes/on your account

I was going to say, "Hope this helps," but based on the above, I'm pretty sure it did!

Thanks guys...

For anyone who may come across this thread, Tina is incorrect. That doesn't show all the systems that are authorized to a given account, only those which are set up for automatic downloads or redownloading, which isn't the same as those that are authorized to an account to play protected content. There is no way to see a list of those systems which are authorized to the account.

Regards.

Sorry Mike129. Just trying to help. I called Apple and that's what they told me and walked me through. Good luck!

The 5 computer limit / 10 devices is really, really dumb. Setting up a new computer here and wanted to listen to my library in iTunes match and I get this:

APPLE people have more than 5 computers, not to mention all the mobile devices. We should be able to listen to our music from anywhere we want maybe not simultaneous playback but Google Music lets you stream your entire library from your web browser.

Before you go off on your "dumb' tantrum, make sure you are not looking dumb yourself before doing so. This is not a limit that Apple just set up one day for no reason, or wanted to set up at all. There is this enterprise out there called the media industry, maybe you have heard of it? Apple was forced into this kind of scheme or you wouldn't be able to play your media legitly at all. It has to do with copyrights and exploitation methods of those ownerships.

You are venting at the wrong place.

Amazon has to play by rules as well, as I ran into these recently with Cloud Player. Though I'm not too sure at the moment what the limitations are.