Michal Marek Apple has been active in the music industry for a good number of years, and in the course of these years it has also brought many music-related services to users. Already in 2011, the Californian technology giant introduced the interesting service iTunes Match, the functionality of which overlaps somewhat with the new Apple Music in some respects. So we bring you an overview of what these two paid services offer, how they differ and who they are suitable for.
Apple Music
Apple's new music service offers unlimited access to more than 5,99 million songs in the Czech Republic for €8,99 (or €6 in the case of a family subscription for up to 30 members), which you can either stream from Apple's servers or simply download to the phone's memory and listen to them even without an Internet connection. In addition, Apple adds the possibility of listening to the unique Beats 1 radio and manually compiled playlists.
In addition, Apple Music also allows you to listen to your own music in the same way, which you got into iTunes yourself, for example by importing from a CD, downloading from the Internet, etc. You can now upload 25 songs to the cloud, and according to Eddy Cue, this limit will be increased to 000 with the arrival of iOS 9.
If you have Apple Music activated, songs uploaded to iTunes go immediately to the so-called iCloud Music Library, making them accessible from all your devices. You can play them again directly by streaming from Apple's servers, or by downloading them to the device's memory and playing them locally. It's important to add that even though your songs are technically stored on iCloud, they don't use up iCloud's data limit in any way. iCloud Music Library is limited only by the already mentioned number of songs (now 25, from autumn 000).
But pay attention to one thing. All songs in your Apple Music catalog (including those you've uploaded yourself) are encrypted using Digital Rights Management (DRM). So if you cancel your Apple Music subscription, all your music on the service will disappear from all devices except the one it was originally uploaded to.
iTunes Match
As previously mentioned, iTunes Match is a service that has been around since 2011 and its purpose is simple. For a price of €25 per year, similar to Apple Music now, it will allow you to upload up to 25 songs from your local collection in iTunes to the cloud and subsequently access them from up to ten devices within one Apple ID, including up to five computers. Songs purchased through the iTunes Store do not count towards the limit, so that 000 song space is available to you for music imported from CDs or obtained through other distribution channels.
However, iTunes Match "streams" music to your device in a slightly different way. So if you play music from iTunes Match, you are downloading the so-called cache. However, even this service offers the possibility to completely download music from the cloud to the device for local playback without the need for an Internet connection. Music from iTunes Match is downloaded in a slightly higher quality than that from Apple Music.
However, the big difference between iTunes Match and Apple Music is that songs downloaded via iTunes Match are not encrypted with DRM technology. Therefore, if you stop paying for the service, all songs that have already been downloaded to individual devices will remain on them. You will only lose access to the songs in the cloud, to which naturally you will not be able to upload other songs.
What service do I need?
So if you just need to conveniently access your own music from your devices and always have it within reach, iTunes Match is enough for you. For a price of about $2 a month, this is certainly a handy service. It will serve as a solution for those who have a lot of music and want to have constant access to it, but due to limited storage, they cannot have it all on their phone or tablet. However, if you want to have access to almost all the music in the world and not just the music you already own, Apple Music is the right choice for you. But of course you will pay more.
User-unfriendly misery, unfortunately. iTunes, in particular, could be in the running for worst streaming app.
Try to elaborate a little more; iTunes 12.2 was enough for me; I have already removed Spotify from the Dock.
+ iTunes is much better in scrolling fluidity (finally),
– Apple Music deleted my ratings for some songs,
– when creating a radio from a song it usually gets stuck and nothing plays,
– I want to right-click and view other albums of the artist or similar groups, but I did not find such an option (max. view similar, which links to the itunes store),
– in Connect, I removed the fact that I don't want to follow some performers and I still have them there, moreover, they are strangely jumping on each other (overlapping statuses),
- song recommendations are much weaker than on Spotify and I expected much more from the "For You" offer, at least according to how they presented it
And then, from a personal point of view, it is inconvenient for me when I listen to something in iTunes and find out that I want to add it to my library, I automatically have it on my iPhone, but of course only online, so I still have to manually come to the iPhone and download it (the option is turned off synchronization).
Without Apple Music, I can set up automatic recording of 4 and 5 star songs, and I just mark them and it automatically transfers to my iPhone via WiFi, and I don't have to worry about anything and download on the iPhone. So here the convenience goes aside (purely for me).
So much in a nutshell.
I only have previous experience with radiotunes. I like Apple
Music really pleases. In the next version, iTunes will (probably) fine-tune based on your observations
of users ... it's just (ordinary) SW after all. Otherwise, I would also be interested in how many people
the "music base" was/is filled/fed/administered... Well, it's nice, isn't it
there were also Czech creators or interpreters.
... what I would improve is a "finer" division of genres.
For Apple employees: read Jablíčkář so you know what to improve.
I would just add that for those of us from OldSchool, who still occasionally use CD Audio, songs from iTunes Match CAN be burned onto a CD, and songs from Apple Music CANNOT.
This is probably related to DRM, see e.g. here: http://bit.ly/1HAALLr
Just a question, how is it now with Apple TV? It was stolen from me and I'm waiting for a new model. Before 30.6. I played the entire iTunes Match library through it. Will something from Apple Music appear there now if I add something "TO MY MUSIC"?
THX