Apple has just launched a beta test version for a new piece of software called ‘iTunes Match’ which will work with iTunes and the forthcoming iCloud service.
Developers are now able to download a beta version of iTunes 10.5 which contains the new iTunes Match service. But what is iTunes Match? iTunes Match is a new iTunes feature which allows you to upload your music library to ‘The Cloud’ using Apple’s new iCloud service.
If you subscribe to iCloud when it is launched later this year, you’ll be able to upload your entire music collection to a storage space online which can then be accessed wirelessly using a PC, Mac, iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad.
To save users having to upload hundreds or thousands of songs in one go, Apple has developed iTunes Match to ‘match’ songs in a user’s library with ones already available to buy from the iTunes store. If there is music in your library that Apple can match with content in their iTunes Store, it will automatically be uploaded for you, so you only have to manually upload the content that Apple can’t match.
The way Apple puts it is as follows:
“Here’s how it works: iTunes determines which songs in your collection are available in the iTunes Store. Any music with a match is automatically added to your iCloud library for you to listen to anytime, on any device. Since there are more than 18 million songs in the iTunes Store, most of your music is probably already in iCloud. All you have to upload is what iTunes can’t match. Which is much faster than starting from scratch. And all the music iTunes matches plays back at 256-Kbps iTunes Plus quality — even if your original copy was of lower quality.”
You can subscribe to iTunes Match Beta now and use the beta service for free for a short while. You’ll need to subscribe to iCloud in order to use Match, but if you subscribe to the Beta version then you’ll get three month’s membership thrown in on top of a 12 month subscription, which is due to cost $24.99 for 25,000 songs.