# iTunes Match now available in Canada



## bob99 (Aug 16, 2007)

It's $27.99 per year. Has anyone signed up yet? Curious to see how long it takes to upload / download. It might be worth it just for the album art and proper ID3 tags for my ripped CD's from way back when.


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

If you're doing it just for the tags, you can find free programs to do it. iTunes can auto-fetch album art for all songs, even those you've ripped yourself.


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## monokitty (Jan 26, 2002)

Also, iTunes Match will not correct or modify pre-existing music in your iTunes library -- you would have to delete the songs you want modified by iTunes Match, then have iTunes re-download them from the iTunes Store. (Assuming your pre-existing library exists in the iTunes Store.)


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## Jason H (Feb 1, 2004)

I'm signing up now.... This is pretty interesting. :lmao:

I was worried I wouldn't be able to find a way to give apple more money this month! Go me!


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## Paul82 (Sep 19, 2007)

Maybe I'm an exception but am I the only one who can't use this because of the 25,000 song limit?


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## G-Mo (Sep 26, 2007)

Paul82 said:


> Maybe I'm an exception but am I the only one who can't use this because of the 25,000 song limit?


I didn't know about the limit, but I'd be in the same boat!


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## monokitty (Jan 26, 2002)

Paul82 said:


> Maybe I'm an exception but am I the only one who can't use this because of the 25,000 song limit?


Limited to 25,000 songs not purchased from the iTunes Store -- iTunes purchases are unlimited and do not count toward the 25,000 limit. Just clarifying it for everyone.


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## Paul82 (Sep 19, 2007)

It's true that iTunes purchases are unlimited but what's the point of subscribing to this for iTunes purchases? They've already been redownload able for some time, and would already be at the same quality... From what I've seen at least this is primarily for tunes you have gotten from other sources ( ripped CDs, downloads, etc)


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## Atroz (Aug 7, 2005)

I'm still trying to figure out why I'd want to use this. I have about 6700 songs, all legit and many bought from iTunes. Those not bought from iTunes were ripped from my own CD's in lossless and I have 256kbs editions. I put what I want on my iPhone and IPad. I stream to an Apple TV and Airport. What would $28 a year get me?


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## ethanlechcharles (Jun 27, 2008)

Atroz said:


> I'm still trying to figure out why I'd want to use this. I have about 6700 songs, all legit and many bought from iTunes. Those not bought from iTunes were ripped from my own CD's in lossless and I have 256kbs editions. I put what I want on my iPhone and IPad. I stream to an Apple TV and Airport. What would $28 a year get me?


I got it mostly for the ability to have my music on all my computers without actually having it on all my computers (my Air for instance, has limited space) or having to keep them all synced. I'm also planning on re-downloading my lower quality music from rips I made when I was 14 and didn't know any better. 

Overall it's something I could easily live without but I cancelled my Rdio subscription for it because it's pretty much doing the same thing (for me).


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

Wow, some people have so much music that I could not listen to it in my lifetime. My very select collection of about 978 songs will play for nearly five full days, more than enough for me. I have no interest at all in Match as my artwork is up to date, even on stuff I ripped from my own CDs, all free from online sources.


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## mjollymo (Dec 5, 2009)

Paul82 said:


> It's true that iTunes purchases are unlimited but what's the point of subscribing to this for iTunes purchases? They've already been redownload able for some time, and would already be at the same quality... From what I've seen at least this is primarily for tunes you have gotten from other sources ( ripped CDs, downloads, etc)


iTunes purchases plus songs that you ripped/downloaded that were matched to songs in iTunes. Both of those do not count to the 25,000 limit. The only songs that will be uploaded against that 25K marker are songs not purchased and non-purchased tracks that are not available in the iTunes store. Essentially, if your CD rips are less than 256Kbps, and iTunes matched them, you can upgrade to the higher quality store version.


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## mrhud (Oct 30, 2007)

Jason H said:


> I'm signing up now.... This is pretty interesting. :lmao:
> 
> I was worried I wouldn't be able to find a way to give apple more money this month! Go me!


LOL! Ditto.


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## tdu (Sep 15, 2008)

ethanlechcharles said:


> I got it mostly for the ability to have my music on all my computers without actually having it on all my computers (my Air for instance, has limited space) or having to keep them all synced. I'm also planning on re-downloading my lower quality music from rips I made when I was 14 and didn't know any better.
> 
> Overall it's something I could easily live without but I cancelled my Rdio subscription for it because it's pretty much doing the same thing (for me).


That's a really good point. I know I did this in the past and don't have the CD's anymore. So, can you basically sign up for one month, upgrade your tracks and just stop the service?


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## Jason H (Feb 1, 2004)

So, just activated this on my iPad. Does it download the music from my MBP when they are both on the same wifi connection? 

This looks to be one hell of a bandwidth hog.


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## monokitty (Jan 26, 2002)

Jason H said:


> So, just activated this on my iPad. Does it download the music from my MBP when they are both on the same wifi connection?
> 
> This looks to be one hell of a bandwidth hog.


No, it downloads it from iCloud. Bandwidth hog indeed.


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## Jason H (Feb 1, 2004)

Lars said:


> No, it downloads it from iCloud. Bandwidth hog indeed.


Dare to dream....

Well, looks like I'll be cancelling this. I'm not going to wait to download 16 gigs of music to my iPhone and iPad. :lmao:


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## monokitty (Jan 26, 2002)

Jason H said:


> Dare to dream....
> 
> Well, looks like I'll be cancelling this. I'm not going to wait to download 16 gigs of music to my iPhone and iPad. :lmao:


Just sync your devices to your Mac and transfer over USB. iTunes Match doesn't disable manual, hard-wired syncing.


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## Jason H (Feb 1, 2004)

Lars said:


> Just sync your devices to your Mac and transfer over USB. iTunes Match doesn't disable manual, hard-wired syncing.


But it does disable wifi syncing. Weird.

Edit: Do I have to wait for match to finish its initial setup before it works?

Edit Again: Figured it out, it keeps whats on the device when you turn it on! I just didn't have much on my iPad to test it out. Got it now!


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## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

So in theory, a guy should be able to make a mediocre digital copy of an LP or cassette track and have iTunes Match upgrade it to a 256k version.


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## Jason H (Feb 1, 2004)

fjnmusic said:


> So in theory, a guy should be able to make a mediocre digital copy of an LP or cassette track and have iTunes Match upgrade it to a 256k version.


As long as the mediocre copy is over 96kbps then yes


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## keebler27 (Jan 5, 2007)

I can see the benefit, but for me, not so much.

I'm pretty picky about ripping CDs at a good enough bitrate and with networked computers, accessing my library is easy.

As for being out n' boot, I like to manually manage my music.


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## Andrew Pratt (Feb 16, 2007)

I enabled it last night and kept getting a 5002 error so I googled that and found a work around that involved removing the credit card I had assigned to my account. That trick worked and it spent the night syncing my account (~5000 songs). This morning when I checked it had finished and I now had a series of icons beside a number of songs that indicated they couldn't be matched or something as the icon was a cloud with a slash through it...there were often 2 or 3 copies of that song with one good one and a couple of bad ones so I manually went though and removed them all. I'm not sure what was going on with those. There was also a dozen or so that showed an empty cloud icon...I still don't know what's wrong with those ones as they play fine in iTunes.

Anyway I enabled it on my iPhone and I can now see all my songs and playlists and can import songs I want which is slick.


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## mcbg1 (Sep 27, 2007)

It seems some albums I've purchased on iTunes (in the UK and Italy stores) are only getting partially matched. Some tracks have to be uploaded to iCloud. And then I have some live recordings that are definitely not on iTunes but that have been matched. Weird...


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## nevrast (Dec 18, 2011)

So I can't seem to sign up now. I click on iTunes Match in the store sidebar and it brings me to a page with info on iCloud and Purchase re-downloading and then a thing for Match that only has a link "Learn More About iTunes Match" which takes me to the Canadian iTunes website. I don't see any place to buy it there either.

Am I missing it or has Apple removed the buying option now?


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## mjollymo (Dec 5, 2009)

nevrast said:


> So I can't seem to sign up now. I click on iTunes Match in the store sidebar and it brings me to a page with info on iCloud and Purchase re-downloading and then a thing for Match that only has a link "Learn More About iTunes Match" which takes me to the Canadian iTunes website. I don't see any place to buy it there either.
> 
> Am I missing it or has Apple removed the buying option now?


You enable iTunes match within iTunes itself, and not the actual store. If you go to the menu bar, and click on Store, the drop down menu will have the option to Turn On iTunes Match. 

However, not sure if it will work for you right now though. Apple has temporarily stopped accepting new sign ups due to high demand for the service. That was as of Friday, so it could be open again.


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## PosterBoy (Jan 22, 2002)

I just signed up moments ago. Worth it just so I can download that one song that's stuck in my head that doesn't happen to be on my iPad/iPhone and I'm nowhere near my computers.


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## chimo (Jun 9, 2008)

I signed up over the weekend. 

I have between 5000-6000 songs in my library and I only had about 2000 of them at 256kbps with most of the remainder (>3000 songs) at 128kbps. I signed up to get the bitrate upgrades - it beats the price of iTunes+! From all that I have read, even if you do not renew after a year, you still keep the higher res songs.

I had some trouble figuring out how to get the songs on my MBP and iMac upgraded. They would show as "Matched" in iTunes, however, the higher resolution version did not download. Last night I found the following link and it worked fine for me. (I have to admit, I was a little nervous deleting the songs but I knew I had a copy on the iMac I could resync to if things went bad.)

How to upgrade tracks to iTunes Match, fast | Macworld

I think this is a first step by Apple to get us comfortable with the Cloud concept with the long-term goal of cloud storage becoming the norm. I like the idea of cloud backup (off-site storage), however, I still prefer having my data content local.


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

I decided to sign up for this. I'm running out of disc space and it'd be great to free up my hard disk of albums I don't really listen to anymore. Been way too lazy to upgrade the hard drives.


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## okcomputer (Jul 18, 2005)

Worked like a charm. I have about 4000 songs in my library currently. I slimmed down when I got the new iMac. 

Everything's working great on my MBP and iPhone. This will be awesome for me, as I often put music on my iMac and then wish I had it on my MBP at work or iPhone on the go.


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## iMatt (Dec 3, 2004)

dona83 said:


> I decided to sign up for this. I'm running out of disc space and it'd be great to free up my hard disk of albums I don't really listen to anymore. Been way too lazy to upgrade the hard drives.


My understanding was that you still need one full local copy of your library somewhere. (Except iTunes purchases?)

Is there some way around that, or was I completely mistaken?

More general question: how is this service working so far? With the initial US rollout there seemed to be tons of glitches... does it work fairly smoothly now?


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## monokitty (Jan 26, 2002)

iMatt said:


> My understanding was that you still need one full local copy of your library somewhere. (Except iTunes purchases?)
> 
> Is there some way around that, or was I completely mistaken?


Your entire library can be in the cloud - no local copy required, including non-purchased music.


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## iMatt (Dec 3, 2004)

Lars said:


> Your entire library can be in the cloud - no local copy required, including non-purchased music.


That's pretty cool. I knew the whole thing would be available in the cloud for use on secondary devices, but had thought there was always a master device with everything on it (which would sync both additions and deletions with the cloud library). 

Thanks for clearing that up.


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## Jason H (Feb 1, 2004)

Anyone else enjoying the new iCloud music player on the apple tv?


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## monokitty (Jan 26, 2002)

iMatt said:


> That's pretty cool. I knew the whole thing would be available in the cloud for use on secondary devices, but had thought there was always a master device with everything on it (which would sync both additions and deletions with the cloud library).
> 
> Thanks for clearing that up.


Additionally, it serves as a good backup for your music if you're someone who is, uh, poor at keeping backups current (or at all).


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## chimo (Jun 9, 2008)

Jason H said:


> Anyone else enjoying the new iCloud music player on the apple tv?


I have seen it on my ATV2, but I prefer to stream over WiFi from my iPhone/iMac/MBP to reduce the ISP bandwidth requirements.


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## PosterBoy (Jan 22, 2002)

Has anyone else noticed that the Genius button is AWOL on iPod/iPhone/iPad since activating iTunes Match? Irksome!


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## Garry (Jan 27, 2002)

So I should be able to back up my library on my computer, then never use it again?


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## Jason H (Feb 1, 2004)

PosterBoy said:


> Has anyone else noticed that the Genius button is AWOL on iPod/iPhone/iPad since activating iTunes Match? Irksome!


I've got it on my iPhone, but not my iPad. I can't figure it out.


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## PosterBoy (Jan 22, 2002)

Jason H said:


> I've got it on my iPhone, but not my iPad. I can't figure it out.


I don't know if it's by design or a glitch, but I've been reading many people having the same issue. I'm wondering if it's by design so it doesn't end up putting cloud based songs in your genius mixes and then stream them.


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

I noticed something I think is quite intelligent. The music app will automatically bump off old songs when you're running low on space on your iOS device, provided you subscribe to iTunes Match. Since music on the cloud plays within seconds, I consider this more of a streaming with a few GB of buffer space. Word of advice, if you're planning to go on a road trip where coverage is sparse, make sure you have the songs you want on your iOS device beforehand.


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## Jason H (Feb 1, 2004)

Anyone else have all their cover art disappear? Only a small amount of my cover art is intact on my iphone/ipad, but its all still in iTunes.


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## PosterBoy (Jan 22, 2002)

Jason H said:


> Anyone else have all their cover art disappear? Only a small amount of my cover art is intact on my iphone/ipad, but its all still in iTunes.


All my cover art is available in iTunes, but some of it doesn't seem to be syncing to the other devices, yes. The minority of albums, but enough to be annoying.


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## Jason H (Feb 1, 2004)

PosterBoy said:


> All my cover art is available in iTunes, but some of it doesn't seem to be syncing to the other devices, yes. The minority of albums, but enough to be annoying.


The weirdest part is that I don't even get cover art on some albums purchased from iTunes!


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## psycosis (Mar 29, 2005)

dona83 said:


> I noticed something I think is quite intelligent. The music app will automatically bump off old songs when you're running low on space on your iOS device, provided you subscribe to iTunes Match. Since music on the cloud plays within seconds, I consider this more of a streaming with a few GB of buffer space. Word to the advice, if you're planning to go on a road trip where coverage is sparse, make sure you have the songs you want on your iOS device beforehand.


I wish it was true streaming. I want to use those few GB of buffer space for other things (specifically videos), but have to deal with the space filling up with music instead.


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## Andrew Pratt (Feb 16, 2007)

I have the same cover art issues as well. Annoying.


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## csonni (Feb 8, 2001)

Will iTunes March upgrade songs that I recorded off of YouTube?


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## Jason H (Feb 1, 2004)

csonni said:


> Will iTunes March upgrade songs that I recorded off of YouTube?


If they are otherwise eligible I don't see why it wouldn't.


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## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

Jason H said:


> If they are otherwise eligible I don't see why it wouldn't.


If they met the 96kb requirement, it's possible. But I wouldn't count on it


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## csonni (Feb 8, 2001)

According to my iTunes info, most of my songs are between 96kb and 192kb. The ones purchase mostly seem to be 256kb.


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## G-Mo (Sep 26, 2007)

csonni said:


> What exactly is this 92kb referring to?


iTunes Match won't match anything that's at a bit rate less than 96 Kbps.


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## csonni (Feb 8, 2001)

I don't think I could find anything under 96kb. I found this and am wondering about deleting songs as suggested. When using Match, are songs still stored locally and, if not, where do they all go- in the Cloud? Do you have to redownload them to get them two reside locally? Also, does one have to "take a leap of faith" and delete songs hoping iTunes will find a match?

"After subscribing to iTunes Match and letting it back up your library, all you need to do is create a Smart Playlist to round up all the songs in your library with bit rates less than 256kbps, take the leap of faith of deleting those files, and then use iTunes Match to download 256kbps versions of the songs you just deleted..."

What about those songs that iTunes couldn't match? If they're not stored in the Cloud, I wouldn't want to delete those.


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## csonni (Feb 8, 2001)

Subscribed for the year and my songs are now being matched to the iTunes Store. Did I see somewhere that there is a trial on this, or is it set in mud for a year?


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## csonni (Feb 8, 2001)

The uploading process sure takes some time. I left it going overnight and woke up to find only 420 songs uploaded out of 1231.


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## csonni (Feb 8, 2001)

This is crazy slow. At 7 p.m., almost 24 hours later when started last night, uploading is only at 668 out of 1231 songs. Yikes!


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## PosterBoy (Jan 22, 2002)

csonni said:


> This is crazy slow. At 7 p.m., almost 24 hours later when started last night, uploading is only at 668 out of 1231 songs. Yikes!


That's crazy! My ~13000 took just a couple hours....


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## csonni (Feb 8, 2001)

There must be something haywire in the Cloud. The way this is going, it won't be finished till Monday!


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## MacUnited (Nov 1, 2009)

Ummm how's that affecting your bandwidth usage, 1300 songs is probably my monthly allowance from mother bell!!


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## csonni (Feb 8, 2001)

All done uploading, but I'm confused. In the iTunes Match, I am told that there are 2209 songs available in the Cloud. When I scroll through all of my Music, I see lots of music with no icon next to it, some with a Cloud with a line through it, some with a Cloud, small number with a Download icon and some with an exclamation mark (error in uploading). What do these indicate? The ones with a Download icon and a Cloud- are those the only ones that were uploaded? I don't get it. What ones can I actually delete locally? When I select all of my Music, there is 3422 items listed. So, does that mean that only 2209 out of 3422 songs are available in the Cloud? I see that many of my songs such as the Beatles, Queen, etc. have no icon and are only 128 bit. I would have that iTunes Store would have a match on many of these. Strange? Some of these which are not in the Cloud, I actually bought from iTunes.

In checking my iPod Touch, there are quite a few more songs with the Download icon. Is this normal?


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

You can delete 128kbps songs and redownload them in 256, provided there is a match available. 

Songs that don't have icons are uploaded or matched.


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## csonni (Feb 8, 2001)

But all those songs without a Cloud must not be in the Cloud. How would I be able to download that song if it's not listed in my Cloud? I have very few songs that actually have the Download icon. All my "major" songs have no icon at all. If I delete them, are you saying I can download them from the Cloud?

Another thing. I see a number of songs on my iPod Touch that are grayed out now. What's with that? What's strange is that these particular songs, even though they're graded out, will play on my iPad when tapping on them, but won't play on my iPod Touch.


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## csonni (Feb 8, 2001)

My take...I wasted $27+ of mine on subscribing to iTunes Match. It's either no ready for prime time or just not worth the hassle of figuring out what to do with it. Just turned it off on my devices as well as my Mac. It might be me, but I don't think iTunes Match did what it supposed to do. After 2 days of matching and uploading, not many of my songs at all matched up.


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## mjollymo (Dec 5, 2009)

csonni said:


> My take...I wasted $27+ of mine on subscribing to iTunes Match. It's either no ready for prime time or just not worth the hassle of figuring out what to do with it. Just turned it off on my devices as well as my Mac. It might be me, but I don't think iTunes Match did what it supposed to do. After 2 days of matching and uploading, not many of my songs at all matched up.


Can't speak to the problems you are finding with it. In my case I have 11,300 songs and the service has worked flawlessly. Vast majority of my songs were matched, with 1200 requiring an upload to iCloud as they do not exist in the music store. I created a smart playlist to show me matched songs lower than 256kbps, deleted them, and downloaded the higher quality from the music store. Service works as advertised in my case.


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## psycosis (Mar 29, 2005)

I had a problem where i could not download any of the songs after I put them into iCloud. They were available on my iOS devices, but my Macbook iTunes could not download the files (after I deleted the files). The iCloud Download column was just blank. I fixed it by deleting the my iTunes library. The next start of iTunes created a new Library, I put in my iCloud credentials, then all my songs were available to be downloaded.


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## psycosis (Mar 29, 2005)

csonni said:


> My take...I wasted $27+ of mine on subscribing to iTunes Match. It's either no ready for prime time or just not worth the hassle of figuring out what to do with it. Just turned it off on my devices as well as my Mac. It might be me, but I don't think iTunes Match did what it supposed to do. After 2 days of matching and uploading, not many of my songs at all matched up.


Take a look at Apples new video describing how it works. 

Apple - iTunes - Match

If your songs are matched or uploaded, you can delete the file and download again later. Note, this is not done by default. By default the files stay in your library as if nothing has been done (there will not be a download button because you already have the file). If you delete the file, you should see the download icon. Click that and you will get the file back. Anything not matched or uploaded, are not in iCloud and therefore can not be re-downloaded.


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## csonni (Feb 8, 2001)

I may give it a try again. I assume all I would need to do is turn all the switches back on. So, how do you know what songs were matched- the ones with a Cloud and a Download icon? If that's the case, it might not be worth my time. All my classic, popular songs are neither. I really hesitate to trash my iTunes library.


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## psycosis (Mar 29, 2005)

csonni said:


> I may give it a try again. I assume all I would need to do is turn all the switches back on. So, how do you know what songs were matched- the ones with a Cloud and a Download icon? If that's the case, it might not be worth my time. All my classic, popular songs are neither. I really hesitate to trash my iTunes library.


The "iCloud Status" column in iTunes will tell you if matched, downloaded or other. Make sure you are showing that.


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## csonni (Feb 8, 2001)

Okay, that helps. I turned Match back on and selected the Cloud Status box which wasn't selected. I see quite a few more matched songs. I deleted some and re-downloaded the better file. Some of my matched are 320 kbps. If I delete those, will I only have access to a 256 kbps file? I have around 15 songs identified as "waiting." I wonder what's up with those.


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## mjollymo (Dec 5, 2009)

csonni said:


> Okay, that helps. I turned Match back on and selected the Cloud Status box which wasn't selected. No I see that there are quite a few more matched. So, I would delete all the matched songs in my local Library? Some are actually 320 kbps. If I delete those, will I only have access to a 256 kbps file?


Yes, only the 256 file will exist. If you follow the instructions here:"http://www.macworld.com/article/163620/2011/11/how_to_upgrade_tracks_to_itunes_match_fast.html it will tell you how to create a smart playlist to show matched songs with lower than 256kbps, which you can then replace.


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## csonni (Feb 8, 2001)

Thanks. I was actually just going to do that. I guess my question with the 320 bits is, is AAC any better the MPEG? My son says that you can't burn AAC files and it's a pain to convert them over to something for burning.


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## Jason H (Feb 1, 2004)

csonni said:


> Thanks. I was actually just going to do that. I guess my question with the 320 bits is, is AAC any better the MPEG? My son says that you can't burn AAC files and it's a pain to convert them over to something for burning.


They'll burn like any other iTunes file.


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## PierreB (Mar 5, 2007)

Lots of my iTunes purchased music is at 128K, Match gives me access to the 256K version


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## jimbotelecom (May 29, 2009)

Decided to use an itunes card I received over the holidays and buy match. Thwarted by my over 25k songs I started a new library and loaded all of Miles Davis stuff I have into a playlist. It's been choking for 2 days in various states of uploaded, matched, waiting. You can monitor this all by enabling the 2 icloud settings under view options in itunes.

Found out that song titles over 200 MB will not be matched in iCloud.

Cool experience driving around streaming off of 3G. Drove an hour into the countryside to the west of Ottawa and did not drop a packet.

So far so slow this will take a while to propagate on Apple's servers.

The upload stream is going to itunes and what looks like amazon see pic.


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## PierreB (Mar 5, 2007)

I have a similar size library (20,000). Match took about a week for the initial run through for me.


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## jimbotelecom (May 29, 2009)

2 weeks in and I have to say I love it. All the stuff that iTunes can't match gets uploaded and it's always accessible. iCloud will take anything you throw at it so it's really quite ideal. Now I can pull bootleg recordings out of the air when I want to refer something to my any of my friends no matter where I am.

ID tags are a jumble but I really don't care about album covers.

I highly recommend match if you are a music addict.


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