iTunes Match experience thus far

[kornchild2002]

I wasn't sure if this would go under the iTunes section or iTunes Store section. Seeing as how this feature goes through the iTunes Store, I placed it here. Anyway, I thought I would say something about my experience with iTunes Match since it just came out yesterday.

So far, things have not been good. When it comes to music, my iTunes library essentially has two categories: lossy and lossless. I rip my audio CDs to ALAC and then encode those to lossy files. I also have a bunch of lossy mp3 files collected over the years. My main goal for using iTunes Match was to have a lossy backup of my library and so I would be able to turn those mp3 files, some of which were obtained back in the Napster days, to 256kbps DRM-free AAC files. However, iTunes Match is not working out as planned.

First, it lacks the ability to recognize duplicate songs. So any album that I rip to ALAC and then encode to lossy for portable use is counted twice. That means that approximately 10,000 songs are duplicated. Given that iTunes Match limits you to 25,000 songs, I am already low on space. Why iTunes Match is doing this is beyond me but it is annoying. That means that I need to go through and delete my ALAC files from my iTunes library if I want this to work.

Second, iTunes Match is uploading files from my iTunes library even though they are in the iTunes Store. It isn't doing it for every song in an album either. I have a Black Sabbath greatest hits album that came out in 2006. The album is in the iTunes Store and the track tags match as best I could. iTunes Match was able to pair up every song with the iTunes Store release (meaning I will get 256kbps mp3 files) except for one. It is on the iTunes Store but iTunes Match still uploaded one song from this album. That means that all 16 of the tracks were changed to 256kbps AAC files except for one, that will remain an mp3 files (and I actually ripped this CD but straight to mp3 and I ended up losing the CD somewhere along the lines). Why is there this inconsistency? iTunes Match is being just as picky as iTunes when it cannot locate the artwork for an album that you know is in the iTunes Store (which happens a lot).

Third, as of now, I have no way of telling which songs were uploaded and which ones are from the iTunes Store. So when I go to replace my mp3 files, it is simply trial and error. I essentially have to download the files and see what they are.

Fourth, performance is still buggy at best. iTunes Match scanned my library, matched songs in the iTunes Store, and started uploading about 2000 of my tracks. During the upload process, I decided to browse through the iTunes Store. I wanted to see what songs had been matched so I clicked on iTunes Match from within the iTunes Store. It brought me back to the beginning and started the whole process over. It should not take 15 hours to figure out what is going on in my library especially since I have actually decreased its size. I am sure Apple's servers are getting hammered but still, this is buggy.

That is it for now. I am sure I will have more input once things get back up and running again. Some people weren't able to subscribe to iTunes Match yesterday when it came out so I guess I am "lucky" in that regard.

[Cold Irons]

Thanks for the update. I've been wanting to hear how this is working from someone "experienced" here on the boards vs. reading from unknown sources. I love to try this out, but with no way to control what is uploaded & a 10Gb per month internet limit, I'll have to watch from the sidelines.

[Code Monkey]

Thanks for the report, look forward to more information. Just one thing I would point out: I would have assumed there would have been no duplicate identification, but now that you have been screwed by the oversight, I'll be curious as to whether you've permanently lost all those track "credits" or not.

I still need to purge about 13K tracks from my library before I'll be in a position of signing up, so I've got plenty of time for others to serve as the guinea pigs.

I'll close with this: as big and meticulous as your library is, you were a brave man to sign up on day one

[decafjava]

Good report kornchild. Yes you were brave, and you saved me the trouble of singing up for now. I think I'll wait a couple of months.

[rockmyplimsoul]

Well, somebody's gotta be first!


Pioneer

Noun: A person lying face down in the mud with arrows in his back.

[kornchild2002]

I have some positive news. I finally figured out how to delete songs from my iCloud account so I can do that. It is going to take me a while but it looks like iTunes is finally acting as it should with that respect. I still have no way of actually accessing my songs in iCloud but, if I delete a song from my iTunes library (without deleting it from my iCloud account), I can re-download it to see if I get a 256kbps AAC version or an mp3 file that was manually uploaded. That means there is a lot of trial and error to see if your music can be upgraded.

[kornchild2002]

I have had even more experience with iTunes Match and things are still hit or miss. It isn't always able to find content in the iTunes Store despite me finding the songs in the iTunes Store manually. Unfortunately I have no way of pointing iTunes Match to the correct song so I still have some albums that were mp3 files but now 2-3 songs are only mp3s, the rest are 256kbps AACs. On top of that, I have other albums were 2-3 songs were upgraded and the rest weren't. So I am not sure what criteria iTunes Match is using since I have a program on my Mac that updates track tag information for manually selected songs so that everything exactly matches what is in the iTunes Store. There must be other things going on besides just looking at the track tags.

I can confirm that streaming works. I streamed songs with my iPad 2 today over my university's wi-fi connection. I was even able to stream songs in iTunes on my Mac. So streaming has definitely been added though iTunes Match as a whole is still buggy.

[hardcle]

Originally Posted by kornchild2002

Third, as of now, I have no way of telling which songs were uploaded and which ones are from the iTunes Store. So when I go to replace my mp3 files, it is simply trial and error. I essentially have to download the files and see what they are.

There is a new sorting criteria available for your library: "iCloud status". You can add this as a column in your library or playlist or you can create Smart Playlists based on it. The statuses are Matched, Uploaded, Purchased and Ineligible.

Here's how to make a Smart Playlist to upgrade your library. In the Instant expert article on the front page right now is a Smart Playlist that will ID which songs in your library have DRM but were matched in the iTunes store.

[kornchild2002]

I came across the new column last night, that helps quite a bit though I am still confused as to why some songs in an album are matched and others aren't. The column is also reporting false information for some songs. I have many songs that simply say "uploaded" yet iTunes is reporting the file type as being "matched AAC" whenever I download them. So there are still bugs with this whole ID system thing especially since iTunes Match seems to be getting its wires crossed somewhere along the lines.

Additionally, last night, I was unable to download most content from my iTunes Match account. Some unknown error kept occurring where iTunes would ask me for my Apple ID, I would input it, and then iTunes would instruct me that my songs could not be downloaded due to some unknown error. It was happening randomly where one or two tracks out of 300 would not download but, for whatever reason, it was worse last night. I could select 100 tracks and only 7 would download and I would see that error 93 times (while also getting asked for my Apple ID 93 times).

[Mr. E.]

Code Monkey, I'm waiting for you to try it. I mostly play my music from a smart playlist designed after reading your document. It doesn't live update on my device, but it does refresh the playlist every time I sync. I can't tell if iTunes Match will make that impossible or not.

From the iLounge article:

iTunes Match on iOS replaces your Music Library. Once you enable iTunes Match on an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad, Apple says that any music that you have previously synced to your device from iTunes will be erased in favor of the cloud-based iTunes library—even if music already on your device matches what’s in iCloud.

It’s also worth noting that once you’ve enabled iTunes Match on an iOS device, the option to sync music to that device from iTunes effectively disappears, replaced with a note that you’re syncing via iCloud.

Nested Smart Playlists are excluded. Smart Playlists that use the “Playlist” criteria to determine if a track is in another playlist will not be uploaded to iCloud and shared with other computers. These will be indicated with the standard “Not Eligible” symbol beside the playlist in your iTunes library, and attempting to create a new Smart Playlist that includes the “Playlist” criteria will present a warning dialog box advising you of this.

This makes it sound like the main playlist I listen to, which is a smart playlist that pulls music from several other playlists based on play count, rating, and last played, would be wiped from my iOS devices and inaccessible from iCloud. I have one playlist that is simply a duplicate of my "Music" library that omits every song in the "Xmas music" playlist and songs over about 10 minutes long. Almost every other playlist is based off of that one, which keeps Christmas music from popping up the other 11 months of the year.

That sounds like a lot to give up. The convenience of iCloud making all of my music accessible everywhere sounds great, but breaking every playlist I have is pretty big price to pay.

[Code Monkey]

Originally Posted by Mr. E.

Code Monkey, I'm waiting for you to try it.

You will be waiting a while

Among other reasons is I'm not even eligible to sign up for it until I pare another 8K tracks from the library, but I'm not going to bother until I've done a thorough audit of every thing AND got the total below 20K tracks, I want to have a nice buffer for future music acquisitions.

It could very well wind up being some time in 2013 before I sign up. And even then, I'm only approaching this as a quasi-remote backup. Until the system can actually replace iTunes in the cloud with full smartlists, podcasts, etc., it's pointless as a music service in my book.

[Mr. E.]

Originally Posted by Code Monkey

You will be waiting a while

...Until the system can actually replace iTunes in the cloud with full smartlists, podcasts, etc., it's pointless as a music service in my book.

But you were the perfect guinea pig because I know you use the smart playlist to maximum effectiveness.

I hear you, though. If all it did was keep a copy of my music in the cloud, then I think I'd find it worthwhile. Instead it looks like it breaks the parts of iTunes that I find most useful.

Every once in a while I find that a song/album that I want did not end up on my iOS device, and it'd be nice to have easy access to it. Plus it's always nice to have a back up of your music in place. But if, in order to get access to a song on iCloud, I have to wipe the device of all current music and playlists, the whole service seems a lot less useful.

[kornchild2002]

I haven't had to wipe my iOS devices of their content (including smart playlists) in order to access music stored on my iCloud. Both my 4G iPod touch and iPad 2 work as usual.

[Code Monkey]

Originally Posted by Mr. E.

But if, in order to get access to a song on iCloud, I have to wipe the device of all current music and playlists, the whole service seems a lot less useful.

I suspect Apple has deliberately made the service near useless on the go intentionally. With data caps in place for the vast majority of iPhone owners and touch owners relying on hotspots in the wild, they had to know how irksome the current implementation was ahead of time. The only scenario that syncing devices from the cloud is practical is when you're at home on a solid wi-fi network, and you've got your computer there already. It's a very niche user who will actually be able to migrate to a cloud only music syncing on an i-Device.

So, millions of people sign up and become the real beta testers for their matching algorithms, maybe do a full library replacement once to upgrade older files, and that's it. Apple pockets their $25 for $5 worth of bandwidth and server space and decides where to take it next year.

[hardcle]

I am so disappointed in this product. What I wanted and what this seemed to be was a way to access my entire library from my iPhone. It can do that, but it breaks so many other things as to make it virtually worthless.

Here's what I've found:
Handling of podcast playlists is inexplicably bizarre. I have a smart playlist of of podcasts that has my unplayed podcasts and a dumb playlist of podcasts so I can order the podcasts in the way I want. The smart playlist is not supposed to be synced to my phone. After iTunes match the dumb playlist disappeared because it was full of podcasts and the smart playlist appeared because (?)

No dependent playlists. I too use a version of Code Monkey's system and the only one that syncs is the Exclusion list.

Album art for most songs disappeared. The only songs with album art seemed to be my top rated songs that were previously stored on my phone.

No Genius mixes or Genius playlists. Haven't seen this mentioned anywhere, but they're just gone.

Why does it have to be this way? Why can't the cloud be in addition to your local storage instead of replacing it? Shouldn't items not eligible for the cloud default to local storage instead of just deleting it? It just doesn't make sense.

Without an update, I'll just use it to upgrade my library, then try to forget it exists.