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We received the following question:

Hello! I recently signed up for iTunes Match for some reason, now I have a lot of questions. I hope you can help me)

1. iTunes match sometimes bugs me. I add a song to the playlist, and after a while it disappears from there. It's exactly Match's fault! Question - how can I clear my library in the cloud to flood it again?

2. Let's say I erase all the music, turn off iTunes Match, turn it on again. Will the songs be recognized again and downloaded there all day?

3. Is there anything you can do to prevent playlists from being uploaded to iTunes Match?

Hello!

We answer in order.

1) Yes you can delete music uploaded to iTunes Match... This must be done from a computer, preferably not from the one on which your entire media library is stored, but from any other connected to. In iTunes, under Music, select all songs, then press Delete on your keyboard. iTunes will ask you if you want to remove music from iCloud:

If you have a very large library, it's best to delete songs in batches of 1000. Then close iTunes, reopen, and from the Store menu, choose Update iTunes Match. If some songs appear again, delete them again. The fact that everything went well will be evidenced by the picture:

2) Erasing music from iTunes Match does not mean physically erasing files from iCloud servers. Previously uploaded songs will be stored there for a long time so that the next time you turn on iTunes Match, you do not waste time on their re-upload.

3) Yes, and you don't have to erase your library in iTunes Match;) iTunes Match only syncs playlists of songs. As soon as you add at least one video or clip to the playlist, it will stop syncing.

Hi everyone! Yes, just with such a problem - music is not recorded on the iPhone via iTunes, as many as 2 acquaintances contacted me in the last day! To be honest, I was a little confused when I first heard about this problem, since until that day there were no problems - you take a song from iTunes and drag it to your iPhone or iPad. But as it turned out, after the last iOS updates, something has changed in iGadgets, and now I will show you what exactly!

ICloud Music Library

The problem is buried in iCloud, or rather in the iCloud Media Library section, which synchronizes all songs on all your devices. What exactly is going on there, in this library and how it works, I will not say. And even Apple itself is already confused about why they need iTunes Match, iTunes Music Store and iCloud Music Library! I do not want to puzzle how iTunes Match and the iCloud library interact with each other, I will only say that by turning off the library in the settings, you can record music to iPhone / iPod / iPad from your computer via iTunes.

Before turning off iCloud Music Library, go to Music and see what's there:

As you can see, there are several folders and playlists - this is what I now have on my Mac in iTunes (I deleted the untitled folder from iTunes, but it doesn't want to disappear from the iPhone):

And in this mode we can't upload music to iPhone via iTunes from a computer ... We can only listen to music online or download some song or folder to the device, if we click on "..." to the right of the folder or song and click on Make available offline, although this does not always work:

Turn off iCloud Music Library

Now let's figure out how to get rid of this scourge and return to the original, classic look. Go to the iPhone / iPod / iPad in Settings, scroll down to the Music section, and turn off the iCloud Media Library inside it!

If for some reason the iPhone swears that it will delete all the music on the device - calmly ignore and delete! After that, the Music program on the device will show what it should, that is, nothing. In my case, we see some playlists and music, but this is just what I already bought for myself in iTMS 🙂

Now you can safely connect iPhone to iTunes and record music in any way convenient for you!

By the way, after several switching on and off the iCloud media library, folders with numbers appear in playlists - this is most likely an iOS jamb and will have to be fixed in the next update ... It's very easy to delete these folders - click on the "..." on the right and click on Delete.

As a result, I still did not understand through what mechanism the iCloud library works - through iTunes Match (taking into account that I am not subscribed to it) or somehow. Again, if iCloud Music Library allows you to listen to all the music from your computer, then why do you need this Match !? Most likely it is still somehow tied to Apple Music, but again, how? In general, I have more questions than answers. If you know the details, write in the comments, otherwise I'm completely confused!

Also, do not forget to subscribe to my group on social networks -

Yesterday, our beloved apple company released a new version of its multimedia harvester. The main innovation of this assembly is a service that was previously only available to developers. And now all the delights of the novelty can be used ... only by US residents. Sad, huh?

Actions:

1. Install the latest version of iTunes (download iTunes). At the moment it is 10.5.1.

2. In the left side menu of the program, under the familiar iTunes Store, there is an inscription iTunes Match. We click on it.

3 ... Click on the button Subscribe for $ 24.99, read the agreement and confirm it.

4. Next, iTunes will ask you to enter the details of your American card, which, most likely, you do not have. Here we need the data of the prepaid VISA card, which we carefully enter in the program window (read more in the section " The necessary conditions").

5. If you entered all the card data (address, name, surname, card number, CVV code) correctly, then iTunes will accept it and, not finding the required amount on it, will remove it from the balance of your iTunes account, which was replenished using the iTunes Gift Card ... Most likely, the option will also work when there is a sufficient amount (more than $ 25) on the prepaid card account to activate the iTunes Match service and the money will be withdrawn from it.

Attention! After activating Match, you need to return Payment Enzu to a No credit card on file (No).

6. Congratulations, you've signed up for iTunes Match!

Now you will have three stages:

Stage 1... Analysis of the media library

iTunes will scan your entire library and if it contains less than 25 thousand tracks, it will go to the second stage - checking for a match with the content in the iTunes Store.

If your iTunes has more songs, you need to use the following trick. Restart iTunes while holding down the Option key (Shift for Windows) and create a new empty library. Next, we register in iTunes Match and disable the "Copy to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" option in iTunes settings, which is located in the Settings - Advanced window, so that the application does not create duplicate tracks.

Add the music you want to the clean library and update iTunes Match through the Store menu.

Stage 2... Comparison

iTunes Match will compare the music in your library with the content in the iTunes Store. The matched song is immediately available from the cloud on all devices you authorized in AAC format with a bitrate of 256 Kbps.

Stage 3.Downloading unmatched music

Tracks not found in the iTunes Store are downloaded from your computer to Apple servers and will be available at a bitrate of up to 320 Kbps. All lossless music is converted to ACC with a bitrate of 256 Kbps and only then goes to iCloud.

It is important to note that during the recognition procedure no changes are made to your library, but you can make replacements afterwards, manually. After you delete a track from your library, it remains in the list with a cloud icon, which means there is no track in your library, but you can download it from the cloud.

iCloud does not support uploading files larger than 200 MB, or with a bitrate of less than 95 kbps / more than 320 kbps.

Don't forget to enable iTunes Match on your iOS devices as well.

If the instruction was useful for you, share the information with your friends.

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18.02.2012

The idea of \u200b\u200bgetting constant access to music with iTunes Match has found the widest resonance in the hearts of users

Dan Moren. Hands_on_with_itunes_match. macworld.com
Lex Friedman. Secrets_of_itunes_match. macworld.com

Perhaps none of the components of the service Apple iCloud does not generate the same interest as iTunes Match. This is due to a number of factors: the dominance of the Apple Music Store in the industry, the built-in library search and track comparison support in iTunes Match, and the integration of this component with all Apple devices. But the main thing is that the idea of \u200b\u200bgetting constant access to music has found the widest response in the hearts of users.

What it is?
ITunes Match lets you play a variety of music from your iTunes library on any Apple device. All tracks from the iTunes library are loaded on any stationary computers or portable devices that operate under iOS control... ITunes Match is a paid add-on to Apple's iCloud online service. Access to it during the year costs $ 25.Payment is made through the account iTunes recording, and this is not surprising.

All of the above applies to iTunes, but what about Match? Instead of transferring all previously uploaded tracks to the cloud (as competing services Google and Amazon do), iTunes scans your library and compares the songs there with the iTunes Store catalog. If you can find a track with a song from your library in the iTunes Store, the music file stored on your computer will not be transferred to the cloud, saving you time and bandwidth.
It is possible that some of the tracks in your library will not be found in the iTunes Store. In this case, iTunes will upload the missing files to the cloud. The total storage capacity provided by iCloud to each user (for both found and not found files) is 5 GB.
In addition, iTunes Match has certain limitations. Many music lovers have already noticed that if the library contains more than 25,000 songs that were not purchased from the iTunes Store, it will not work to subscribe to iTunes Match services without additional manipulations.

Installing iTunes Match
To install iTunes Match, you need iTunes 10.5.1 or later. Click on iTunes Match in the iTunes sidebar (or select Store / Turn On iTunes Match). When prompted, enter your Apple ID and password.

After activating iTunes Match, the program will start browsing your library. This procedure - like the subsequent loading of unrecognized tracks - will take some time. Please note that you cannot run the Match procedure on several computers at the same time, and therefore you should not try to process tracks on the second computer until the first one has finished this operation.
After the scan and download process is complete, a cloud icon will appear next to the Music item in the iTunes sidebar, and a new column with the same icon in the header will be added to the library. There will be a small icon in this column next to songs stored on the Internet, symbolizing a download from the cloud.
You can display the iCloud Status column. To do this, right-click on the table header or go to the View / View Options menu and select iCloud Status. The new column contains information about the status of the track (passed the comparison procedure, pending comparison, is a duplicate of the found song, not recognized, was deleted from one of the devices, or purchased from the iTunes Store).
If songs are downloaded from iTunes Match to your computer, their Kind property will be Matched AAC. The fact is that iTunes Match replaces all found tracks with high-quality files in AAC format with a bitrate of 256 Kbps. The file's metadata will contain your account name.

To activate iTunes Match on an iOS device,
go to Settings / Music menu.

You can appreciate the real usefulness of iTunes Match by activating the service on iOS devices. To do this, go to the Settings / Music menu and set the iTunes Match switch to On. Despite the fact that iOS warns about the replacement of the music library, all the tracks already stored on the device (synced via iTunes) will remain on it. (If you turn off iTunes Match, these songs must also be left intact.)

When you turn on iTunes Match, all music you purchase from the iTunes Store will automatically be available to play on all devices, regardless of whether it's physically on them. To hide a purchased song, open the iTunes Store app on your iOS device, go to the Purchased tab, and swipe across the album, artist, or track name. A Hide button will appear on the screen to help you hide the composition.
To do the same on a computer, open the iTunes Store app, select the Purchased option, select any song, and click the X that appears next to it. To re-display hidden purchases, go to Account Settings, under Cloud, select iTunes, and click View Hidden Purchases. Then specify which songs you want to display on the screen.

How to use it?
There is a button next to the tracks that are not stored on the device, by pressing which, you initiate the download of the song. It should be noted that tracks stored in the cloud have a slight delay between selecting a song and starting to play it. Otherwise, everything happens in the same way as with tracks placed directly on the device. Search, sort, browse by album and artist, drag and drop songs to playlist and even search are supported similar songs with the Genius function.
In essence, initiating playback of recognized tracks in iTunes results in their downloading and playing in streaming mode. In this case, the next time you do not need to download the song. On 3G-enabled iPhones and iPads, iTunes Match is configured to download music either over Wi-Fi or over 3G networks. In the second option, open the Settings / Store menu and set the Use Cellular Data parameter. If you try to access a track over a 3G network without first activating this function, an error message will appear on the screen indicating to enable data transfer in cellular networks.
If you want to listen to music without network connection, you can immediately download tracks to your device. Touch the download icon next to any song, artist, or album and iTunes Match will automatically start transferring music to your computer. You can check multiple songs at once by holding the Control key and then clicking Download. If at some point you need to free up additional space on your device, you can delete songs from the library. To do this, mark the tracks to be deleted and press the Delete button in iTunes.
In cases where access to the network library is not available (for example, during a long flight), you can configure iOS device so that only tracks stored directly on it are displayed. To do this, open the Settings / Music category and turn the Show All Music switch to Off. To get the same effect on a computer, set the View / Hide Music Not On This Computer option.
Because iTunes syncs your music library, any playlists are synced across each device. The existing playlists on your device will be removed. Any changes made to playlists are instantly synced across all devices. Playlists that contain non-music files (voice memos, digital booklets, etc.) will not sync.
While iTunes Match currently only syncs music - podcasts, ringtones, audiobooks, TV shows, movies, and e-books are out of the question, in the long term it is possible to sync music videos between devices, as well as download and play it.

Secrets of iTunes Match
Downloaded songs are automatically deleted to free up extra space
While playing a song on a device with an operating iOS systemthat supports iTunes Match, the music is buffered. So if you listened today on your iPhone track Je Suis Rick Springfield by Jonathan Coulton, you won't have to reload it tomorrow.
One of the great benefits of iTunes Match is that you can save space on your iOS device without transferring your entire library during the sync process. After connecting to iTunes Match, your iOS device will automatically remove previously downloaded songs after a while. The oldest tracks and the least played songs are deleted first. Tracks can also be deleted manually from the device (they are saved in iCloud, and several megabytes are freed on the device), but in general this is not necessary. Your device will take care of deleting rarely played and old songs automatically.
Some songs are not recognized by iTunes Match, but these restrictions can be bypassed
ITunes Match does not recognize very short songs and songs encoded at very low bit rates. They are all marked as Not Eligible. (To find unrecognized iTunes Match tracks, create a Smart Playlist with iCloud Status set to Ineligible and Media Kind set to Music.) So far, we have not been able to get iTunes Match to recognize songs less than 5 seconds long. But the restrictions for low bitrate tunes can be bypassed.
Click on the unrecognized song with the mouse while holding the key (or right-click on it) and select Create AAC Version from the context menu. ITunes app recodes the selected track with a higher bitrate. Of course, the quality of the song will not improve as a result, but iTunes Match sees a higher bitrate and recognizes it as suitable for comparison. Click on the new version of the track with the mouse, hold down the key, select the Add to iCloud item from the context menu, and then delete it from the cloud old version.
iTunes Match offers songs that are not digitally protected, but they contain a link to your personal information
FROM using iTunes Match, you can exchange your existing songs for higher bitrate versions. And these versions will not be subject to digital copyright restrictions. But, dear reader, before you start distributing these quality unprotected recordings over the Internet, I would advise you to think twice. After all, everything that is downloaded through iTunes Match (as with purchases through the iTunes Store) contains a link to your good name.

Track versions offered by iTunes Match have no funds
digital protection, but they contain links to your
personal data

Click on the track downloaded from iCloud in iTunes and select File-\u003e Get Info. You will see your name and address in the song metadata emailspecified in iTunes. Now consider if there is a reason to share new version improved quality Stacy’s Mom track with the Internet community? A copy of the song, including your name and email address, is likely to pop up on some file-sharing networks, becoming the object of close scrutiny by the Fountains of Wayne (or the record company that releases its albums, or the record company's lawyers).
You can, of course, remove your personal information from the records, and there is nothing illegal in this. There are many different ways to do this (for example, converting a song to another 256 Kbps AAC file). But we hope you will not do this by indulging the distribution of music in dishonest and illegal ways.
It is not your fault that some songs are uploaded to the server unrecognized
When iTunes Match finds a different version of your song on Apple's servers, you don't have to worry about transferring it from your device to the cloud; Apple already has a high quality, well-encoded copy. If the songs are not found, your version is uploaded to the server.
And now let us turn to the fans of the Beatles. If you check the Abbey Road album in iTunes, you will notice that all songs are marked Matched, except for one: She Came In Through The Bathroom Window. I would not want to drag in otherworldly forces here, but, according to the observations of the editors of Macworld and our friends, the program, for unknown reasons, almost never finds this track until you buy it from the iTunes Store. (Only once in our experiments was a copy made from a Beatles gift set successfully recognized.) The same thing happened with the songs of other artists. Some tracks on the album were recognized, while others were not. Since most often difficulties arose with the same song, we think that the answer should be sought on the side of Apple.

The instruction has been updated to version 2.0.

With the opening of a fully functional iTunes Store in Russia, all compatriots had the opportunity to try one of the most convenient Apple services. iTunes Match - a must-have companion for the owner of a large music library, and we will help you squeeze out maximumbenefits from this offer. Two members of the editorial board - me and Arthur - cannot get enough of the functionality of Apple's music offer, which almost no one in our country talks about until now.

What is iTunes Match, who needs it in Russia and how to set it up in the harsh conditions of earflaps, vodka and bears without getting paid - further in our material, sealed by harsh practice.

What is iTunes Match?

In short? This is a service for remote storage and playback of your music files. And before you start thinking about Yandex, Google, Zuneand Amazon- iTunes Match differs from all of the above services in a number of features and very, very deep integration into all Apple gadgets.

The principle of operation is briefly as follows. At the first launch iTunes Match finds all music files in a given folder and compares them to the contents of the huge iTunes Store. Compares not by tags, but by the sum of bytes. Exact matches of your tracks with tracks from the iTunes Store skipped, and all the rest are uploaded to remote Apple servers directly from your own computer, file by file. Upon completion of this process, the remaining tracks appear in the cloud library without your help, which matches the content of the iTunes Store. Music below 256 kbps that matches the iTunes Store content will be replaced with much higher quality tracks from the Apple database. Everything else will be downloaded from the computer as it is.

Now all tens of thousands of your musical compositions, regardless of their size, weight, artist or bit rate, are available from anywhere in the world with Internet access and a computer with iTunes. Thanks to iTunes Match, you will be able to play, sort and redownload your music on any PC, Mac or iOS gadget. The contents of your iTunes Match library are added to the iOS player, making it feel like hundreds of gigabytes of tracks are already on your iPhone or iPad. The amount of built-in memory does not matter at all. The same applies to full iTunes, in which you can work with a cloud media library in the same volume as with a local one.

Why iTunes Match?

The answer to this question is unique to each user. First, there may be multiple computers in your home. Media library with all tracks, playlists, ratings and other iTunes goodies is alwayswill be on each of them, and in constant synchronization with each other. The presence of music files on any of them is not required.

Secondly, you can go somewhere, connect to wi-Fi networks from a computer or iDevice and listen to your favorite music in any volume without bothering to preload it to the hard drive or device memory.

Third, iTunes Match completely eliminates the need to sync music between mobile gadgets and “desktop” iTunes. It is enough to add new tracks to your iTunes library from any computer once, so that these tracks will soon "appear" on all your other devices - including remote ones. Ratings, playlists, play counters - all this and much more will be transferred, and any changes in this data will be promptly reflected in the media libraries of other devices.

Fourthly, iTunes Match allows you to download any track from a remote storage. And not only in iTunes on the computer, but also in the player of the device on iOS. It is not yet possible to pull out the entire media library "at once", but no one bothers to download songs in whole albums or playlists, whether there are ten, one hundred or a thousand compositions. Thus, once connected to Wi-Fi, you can "rebuild" the entire media library on your iPhone or iPad without having to turn on or even have a computer at hand. And then hit the road with your favorite music available offline.

Fifth, iTunes Match specifically frees up space on hard disk... In ten years my media library has accumulated about 10 thousand compositions, the total weight of which exceeded 120 gigabytes. After the entire media library was uploaded to the Apple server, I, without a shadow of a doubt, removed all the files from the hard drive. Why do I need them, when now all the songs are so and so at hand? In addition, only a small percentage of users have more than 25 thousand tracks (iTunes Match limit). In the end, you have nothing to lose.

I suspect that the list of positive aspects of the service can be continued. But it's worth mentioning the other side of the coin in advance.

Who can't use iTunes Match?

Firstly, the service does not make any sense if there are less than 300-500 music files on the computer hard drive. If your music collection over the years has not grown beyond a couple of albums and two dozen scrappy tracks, there is no point in paying for iTunes Match. It will be easier to load all this into the device memory once.

Secondly, if your apartment or work does not have unlimitedthe Internet, do not buy iTunes Match. Moreover, I sincerely do not advise all users to subscribe to the service with Internet speeds below one megabit for “download” and at least 200-400 kbps for “upload”. For uploading a more or less decent library to iTunes Match servers with such a narrow channel can take weeks.

Thirdly, iTunes Match is contraindicated for owners of media libraries, most of the files in which are not MP3 files. iTunes Match will not upload .wma, .flac, .ogg, or other non-standard file formats to the remote server. At the same time, give up Match if the effective (and useful) volume of your library is at least one and a half times the service limit of 25 thousand files.

Fourth, iTunes Match is not available on Android OS devices or through web browsers. At the moment, access to a remote library can only be obtained through iTunes for PC and Mac, Apple TV, as well as from iOS devices through the built-in music player... In other words, the owners of the "wrong" devices, please do not worry. Yes, and one more thing: iOS 4 is not supported by the service.

Fifth, do not rush to start iTunes Match if you regularly use multiple Apple ID accounts. When you log out of one account and connect to another, the system can erase the local data of the remote library. You can restore access to it only by logging back into the account where the service was connected. "Jumping" back and forth - extra hemorrhoids.

Finally, iTunes Match does not favor downloads from hares. If the overwhelming majority of files in your library are not tagged (at least partially), and its name is something like "12345" - you will damn everything in the world, trying to find the desired track in the "cloud".

We connect and pay

Now that only the potential audience of the service is left with us, let's start connecting iTunes Match. There are two strikingly different sequences of actions: one is relevant for the owners of Russian Apple ID accounts, and the other is for everyone who does not live in Russia and / or uses an account in the American iTunes store and App Store... If you have both accounts, answer the following questions:

• Do you use your Russian account more often than your American one?
• Do you have your own bank or credit card?

If you answered “yes” - immediately start connecting iTunes Match in your Russian account. If you use an American account more often than a Russian, I advise you to think hard. Alternatively, you can "change the country" to Russia in the settings of your foreign account. How to do this - read our and. If the answers to both questions are negative, proceed to connecting iTunes Match in the US iTunes Store.

Connect iTunes Match to russian iTunes Store

For everything about everything we need:

- A card of any Russian bank linked to your iTunes account
- 800 rubles on the account iTunes account or on the bank card account
- 3-5 minutes and iTunes on the computer

If you use the Russian iTunes Store account most of the time, you won't have to reinvent the wheel. We open iTunes on the PC or Mac that contains most of your music library. Go to home page store by clicking on the button iTunes Store in the upper right corner and look for an obviously incredible item ITunes Match in the window on the right. Click on it and see an offer to connect the service of the same name for 799 rubles in year.

Note: after consent and entering a password, funds can be debited from the card with a delay of up to three days. Therefore, we highly recommend waiting for the entire amount to be debited before spending the balance on the card.

And one more thing, before you get distracted: if your iTunes account has unused funds from gift cards, the system will first try to write them off. If they are not enough for a subscription, then iTunes will turn to the bank card account. Those. the priority of debiting is the account balance, not the card.

Your iTunes Match subscription will be tied to your credit card. After 11 months, Apple will notify you of the imminent renewal of the subscription and the re-debiting of funds (799 rubles). Prepare your money for this moment, otherwise you risk losing access to your cloud media library. If you change your card since then, be sure to change its details in your account settings. The write-off should take place without delay on your part - it is in your best interest.

Connect iTunes Match to american iTunes Store

First, we need:

- computer with unlimited quick access to the Internet;
- iTunes program latest versionwhich can be downloaded from here;
- American (US) Apple ID account;
- 1150-1400 rubles (you can in dollars)
or
- 135 rubles on a card or internet wallet account and $ 25-26 on an iTunes Store US account.

Open iTunes and log into your American account. In the iTunes Store window, select iTunes Match. See the blue button? Do not rush to press it. We will return here only when all preparations are completed. For now, let's add all your music files to the program's library. You can do this by simply dragging and dropping all folders to the "Music" tab.

Let's proceed to depositing funds. There is one a big problemthat all Russians face when trying to connect to iTunes Match. For the transaction to be approved, your US account must be linked a valid US bank card... The presence of $ 25 on it ( in theory) is mandatory, and if they are there, then the connection process can be simplified to a minimum. If you don't have such a card (or don't have money on it) - do not despair, because the situation can be solved without getting up from the chair.

Annual iTunes Match subscription costs 25 dollars... You can add them to your account and use to buy access onlyin the following two ways. All of them have proven their effectiveness, having been repeatedly tested by the editorial staff of the site. You will not find cheaper options. In no case do not experiment to "maybe work": I personally lost more than a thousand rubles on various stupid ideas.

I know that smart people read our site, but I warn you again: carefullyread all three instructions before starting. There will be a lot of underwater mines if you dare to turn in the wrong direction.

Option 1. Simple

Demand: 1400 rubles (42-44 dollars) on a card or internet wallet account.

If money is not a question for you, but in your Apple ID account no$ 25, you can buy a ready-made card to connect iTunes Match on the portal Plati.ru, eg:

thirty? In addition to the cost of the service ($ 25), another $ 1 will be temporarily blocked when checking the card in iTunes. And the tax of the state in which it was issued will be added to the amount that will be debited from the card. Therefore, the additional $ 5 is a kind of "safety cushion" that protects against force majeure during a transaction. The case when the savings will be unnecessary.

After purchasing this card, you must receive accurateBilling address and enter it in your account settings. You can find out this address and other data by writing an appropriate request to the seller on his e-mail: either (first links), or (links with "alternative"). An example of a request (it makes no sense to copy it exactly):

Sellers on Plati.ru they respond promptly - within a couple of hours, although sometimes there are delays up to 12. If no answer comes - necessarilycheck your spam folder, as response letters from sellers have a bad habit of getting there. Once you have received a billing address or created it yourself by following the seller's instructions, enter all these data in the section Payment Methods Account Information). You can get to them by clicking on e-mail your iTunes account:

Once the system accepts your card, return to the iTunes Match page and click on "Subscribe for 24.99". After entering the password, the transaction should be successful, and you will be immediately notified of this. You can spend the balance on the card at your own discretion. Don't forget to untie the spent cardby removing it from the menu Payment Methods... If you used a different billing address before, change it too.

Option 2. Profitable

Demand:
- 1200 rubles (36 dollars) on a card or internet wallet account
or
135-300 rubles (4-10 dollars) on a card or internet wallet account + $ 25-26 in iTunes Store account.

This method exploits a "gap" in the service payment system, but requires a little more body movements and time than the previous one. But at the same time, you will spend less money and will be able to use not the balance of the bank card, but the balance of your account in the iTunes Store.

Many of us actively use the US App Store and constantly replenish its account with the help of gift apple cards... Because of this, you may have more than $ 25 accumulated in your iTunes account. By default, this money cannot be used to pay for a subscription to iTunes Match - the same US bank card is required. But there is one simple trick... Using a relatively cheap blank card as a plug for the billing address, we will force Apple to write off the full amount of payment from iTunes balance.

If you don't have $ 25 in your iTunes account, top up or beforefill it up by purchasing a Gift-card of the required denomination for Plati.ru, eg:

When the required amount is in your iTunes account, you can proceed to the next step.

Now we need a plug for the Billing address. A card of any US bank with a balance is suitable as it less25 dollars. This is very important: if there is more money on the card, the money will be debited exactlyfrom her, not from your iTunes account. If you don't have one, you can get one for ten dollars. Its face value is two times less, but for our purposes this will be more than enough.

Any of the cards below will do:

After purchasing this card, you need to get the exact Billing address and enter it in your account settings. You can find out this address and other data by writing an appropriate request to the seller on his e-mail - or vpayland (at) gmail.com (first three links), or idigishop (at) gmail.com (links with "analogs"). Example of a request:

Once you have received a billing address or created it yourself by following the seller's instructions, enter all this data in the section Payment Methods in your account settings ( Account Information). You can get to them by clicking on the e-mail of your iTunes account:

Help filling out (clickable):

Once the system accepts your card, return to the iTunes Match page and click on the "Subscribe for 24.99" button. After entering the password, iTunes will warn you about the lack of funds on the linked card and will offer to debit them from your iTunes Store account. Be sure to agree - this is exactly what you need. If your iTunes account has $ 25 or more, the transaction should be successful. Congratulations: the service is already connected. Be sure to untie spent card by removing it from the menu Payment Methods... If you used a different billing address before, you can return it. If you like the service, by the end of this period, simply repeat all the actions (except for the subscription itself) so that the system will write off the funds again and extend the service term for one more year. Whichever method you choose, iTunes Match will connect to that apple account ID for exactly 12 months. One way or another, the hardest part is over.

We set up and understand

Immediately after connecting, iTunes Match will offer to start syncing all music files downloaded to the program. This is a fully automated, but extremely time-consuming process, directly dependent on how much music you add to your library, how much files weigh and how many tracks among them have matches in the iTunes Store. The limit on the number of tracks in the service is 25 thousand pieces, and only owners of music databases from 200-300 gigabytes will be able to resist it. As soon as you exceed this threshold, the system will refuse to add new content. The old one, however, can be deleted directly from iCloud, thereby freeing up space or putting things in order.

Synchronization. The first one went

At first, all added tracks will be verifiediTunes program. If there are more than five thousand of them in your database, this process can take several hours. At the first stage, a unique acoustic stamp for each music file is formed. All collected stamps are sent to Apple servers at a time. They are processed there for some time, so do not rush to panic and close the program if it seems that it is frozen. This, by the way, concerns absolutely all stages of the first synchronization. Hundreds of gigabytes are not easy to handle.

The server will return back the results of processing the stamps, and the second stage will begin. This is the very same "match" - matching the acoustic stamps of your tracks and content in the iTunes Store. Moreover, the comparison process itself for some reason takes place andon your computer, andon the server and both are constantly exchanging data with each other. When you first sync your computer anysort of can begin to lag indecently: powerful mathematics comes into play. Even if you have an overclocked i7 mega stone last generation, you will only get an increase in the speed of matching, but you will not lose the brakes. There is only one recommendation - to endure. Better yet, put it overnight, or even for the whole day. Or even two, if there are more than 5 thousand files, and all are Russian.

At night, the matching (and the next stage, loading) must be left very carefully. "Gnawed" at a bad ripping off the disc, tracks that you have not downloaded in the past and other disabled people of the world of digital music can put the program into a dead stupor, which ends in a minute with an unexpected shutdown window. I came across a whole album of poorly "ripped" tracks and a few similar ones.

In this situation, the problem should be put on privatethe control. Do not rush to click on the confirmation of closing the program! The top bar of iTunes shows the reconciliation status of each track and its title. Therefore, when the program hangs, the culprit track remains in the title. Turn off iTunes, delete the track, and restart the mapping. Don't worry, it will pass many times faster.

As soon as all the files are matched, the final stage will begin - uploading tracks to Apple servers. At this point, iTunes Match has already figured out which tracks you need to "add" to your cloud library directly from the iTunes Store. To do this, you do not need to have a track with the same name as in the Store: when matching tags and bitrate do not play noroles. Moreover, no one guarantees that your track, which seems to be exactly the same as in the Apple store, will be fortunatelycombined. The mechanism of Match is a terrible secret, and for a whole year of operation of the service, no one has been able to calculate the exact logical chain by which iTunes determines whether to give a track the status of matched or require it to be manually uploaded to the server.

So the number of tracks that iTunes will start to unload at the last stage is practically independent of your actions. We only know that .m4a (AAC) files compare better than MP3. Thus, copies of from one to several tens of thousands of your music files will begin to float to Apple servers, testing the speed of your Internet channel. This is not empty bravado: iTunes Match unloads the entire track "as is", whether it has a weight of 10 megabytes, 50 megabytes, or at least all 150. So if your upload does not exceed 200-300 kbps, you have to leave your computer not just for the night, but for whole days, or even weeks. Fortunately, if the Internet is suddenly turned off, or the computer itself needs to be turned off, the next time you start iTunes pretty quickly will resumeloading from the track where you stopped it.

Sooner or later, you will go through all the circles and see the coveted final screen. Pay attention to the number of files: this is allwhat's now stored in your cloud media library, including mapped (unloaded) tracks. If their number is strikingly different from the volume of your library, it's time to look at the clouds. In a figurative sense. And even if everything went smoothly, it's time for us to move on to the next section.

Debriefing

So, your media library has successfully gone into the "cloud". Or not very successful? After the first sync, it makes sense to start sorting and cleaning up whatever you sent or couldn't send in iTunes Match. Smart playlists in iTunes will help us a lot. Let's create one and name it "Service".

Advice: turn on the iTunes sidebar in top menu: « View» -> « Show side menu". This will save you a lot of nerves and time.

The result is a list of all the files that did not go to iCloud for various reasons. There may be several reasons, and each of them corresponds to a certain "iCloud Status" shown in a separate column of the list as a "cloud" picture (clickable):

This table is available on the official Apple website. Brief information about the status can also be obtained by hovering the cursor over the "cloud" in iTunes. Notes from my own experience: it makes sense to immediately delete songs with the "error" status from the local library and look for another copy; do the same with tracks with the "duplicate" status; the “not supported” status requires a deeper analysis of the situation. It could be a video file - then just leave it as it is. It can be a file weighing more than 200 megabytes - convert it with a lower bitrate and add it to the media library again, remembering to delete the previous one. Finally, it can be a file with a bitrate of less than 96 Kbps - convert it to 128 Kbps and feel free to add it to your library after deleting the old copy.

After that, I'm sure you will look around your library of music files and be horrified: did you really have all this terrible music? How do you find your favorite songs now? How do I delete tons of unwanted songs from iCloud? All these issues can be solved quite simply ... if you initially know how to solve them. To begin with, I recommend that you deal with all the underloaded tracks. As soon as there are only one local video files in the playlist "Service", there is one non-obvious thing to do to save your own nerves in the future. Go to Music, select everything and ... delete to hell. Just don't select "Also remove these songs from iCloud".

The fact is that the mechanism for working with music in iTunes Match is still far from perfect. As long as the link to the physical music file on the hard drive is stored in the library of your program, you will work with it, and not with its "cloud" copy. All actions, be it deletion, editing, and so on, will be performed primarily over local file, and only then add it to iTunes Match. This is unnecessary hemorrhoids. Just delete everything from the library, and if you want to and work done with the "Service" playlist - and the physical files themselves. If you do everything correctly, the list of tracks will remain in iTunes, but rectangular buttons with a "bubble" will appear next to them. This is a sign that this track is not on the hard drive, but it is in iCloud.

Feeling relieved? Mission Complete. Now all your music in whole (or almost entirely) has finally gone to the Apple servers. From now on, you can safely start sorting it. If you want to clean up this corral of tracks, you can create dozens of smart playlists by genre, by album, and so on, without fear that the tracks (or playlists) themselves will get lost somewhere. This is where the honeymoon - or year - of using iTunes Match begins.

But everyday life, as in any family union, is inevitable. You need to prepare for it in advance. So let's take a look at what it's like to use iTunes Match on PC / Mac and iOS, and then we'll answer the most common questions and tackle minor issues with the service.

iTunes Match in ... iTunes

All basic operations with your personal iTunes Match library are performed through the full version of iTunes. And nowhere else. To access all your songs on any computer, install iTunes, open it and sign in to your account Apple ID. Then open the Store tab and select Turn on iTunes Match.

Immediately after that, in the "Music" tab will appear iTunes item Match and then all playlists you created will be displayed. The same will happen with the music itself: everything that you have in the "cloud" will appear along with your local media library. The only difference will be in the presence of a rectangular button "Download from iCloud".

Fun fact: iTunes Match can be connected on five iTunes copies... To access your media library on other PCs, you need deauthorize any of the previously authorized computers (sorry for the pun). All this is done in the "Store" tab.

A big plus of iTunes Match is the ability to work with the cloud library in the same volume as with the local one. For example, you want to rename a song or change the artist name of all the tracks on an album. No question - open "Information" and edit whatever your heart desires. All changes made within a minute will be reflected on all devices connected to your account - be it computers or iOS devices.

Adding new tracks to iTunes Match is no more difficult than adding them to iTunes: just drag the folder or tracks into the "Library" block and wait while the system analyzes (or copies) the files. Synchronization with the Match service will start automatically after processing the added tracks. If it doesn't, select Update iTunes Match in the Store tab.

You can track the sync status by opening the iTunes Match menu in the Music tab of the window. Please note: this item appears onlyon / after data synchronization with the Match server. In the window that opens, you can find out the number of tracks stored on remote servers under your name.

When playing a track from a remote server, iTunes does not wait for it to be fully downloaded to the computer. Instead, the program begins to broadcast ("stream" - from the word stream, that is "flow") it from the first second to the last. In this case, loading goes "in the background", even if you have paused the track. The song will be downloaded in its entirety sooner or later, but it is not saved in the local media library, but in temporalfolder on your computer. The track will be available for offline playback for some time until you clean the temporary files ("Temp").

I am sure that in the first two hours after synchronization, you put your remote library in order and created different and very smart playlists in it. How about downloading something "forever"? We are dealing with the brainchild of a very conservative company, and therefore it is very strange that Apple allows download absolutely everything songs from the "cloud" in a couple of clicks. "Edit" - "Select All", then right-click on the selected files and select "Load". Everything for the next 24 hours inbound channel the Internet is packed tightly. The download will continue until the last file or until iTunes is closed. Once opened, the download will resume.

You can also download songs from playlists ...

... and by album (in the corresponding view mode), if you hover the cursor over the "cloud" ...

... and by performer using context menu... And by genre too. Anyway, in any order, as long as it was recorded in iTunes.

Files downloaded from iTunes Match differ in many ways from those that were once uploaded there. Firstly, all "matched" tracks - that is, those found in the iTunes Store - will be downloaded as .m4a (AAC) files - this is never not.mp3. This format is understood by all Apple devices, but not all players and car radio... The mapped tracks will be downloaded back in .m4a format, even if the original bitrate was equal to or exceeded 256 Kbps. Yes, don't forget the 96 Kbps minimum threshold! If your music falls short of that level, convert it.

All "unmatched" tracks will be loaded back in the same format and bitrate in which you provided them. Those. the file "Butyrka-boys.mp3" with a bitrate of 96 Kbps will be uploaded back with the same bitrate and name.

Fun fact: iTunes Match ignores the ID3 tags of the downloaded tracks. Even if the file was matched with the content of the iTunes Store, and back you download a better copy in.m4a, its tags will remain the same as they were in the original. This means that the file "1.mp3" with the tags "Cool Song1", which is actually a Madonna's single, will be downloaded back as the file "1.m4a" with the tags ... "Cool Song1". Only the quality will be better.

Pay attention to a useful feature: if a track you uploaded is converted in poor quality (from 96 to 256 Kbps), but it was successfully "matched", then you will download (and listen) back to the version of the song that is sold in iTunes Store. As a rule, these are tracks with a bitrate of 256 Kbps in the .m4a format, which were provided by the record companies. Thanks to this nice little thing, many of your tracks will turn into much higher quality recordings after they are placed in iTunes Match. Just remember to delete the old version before downloading the new one - the name and tags for both files will be the same.

This is curious: rumor has it that iTunes Match actually matches the downloaded track not only with the content of the iTunes store, but also with ... other users' libraries. Some musicians, whose work is not for sale in the iTunes Store, complained that their music, when converted in low quality, received the status "matched" in iTunes Match, and a copy of 256 Kbps was downloaded back. One way or another, Apple does not share the work of the service and does not provide answers to questions about how it works. Like, competitors and all that. But we know ...

If you buy something from the iTunes Store, that track or album is instantly available on all your devices without having to download it. This also applies to all those songs that you bought before connecting to Match. I am gnawed by doubts that any of the readers generally buys something in the iTunes Store, but if you do it - "respect" and all that, because it is not very convenient to do this, being a Russian.

Downloading and listening to quality copies of poor tracks is good. Going to jail for pirating music distributions is bad. Never run to share music downloaded from iTunes Match. All uploaded tracks are marked with your personal "tag" - the name of the account and its mailing address. Across third party programs only ID3 tags can be removed mailing addressbut not a name. Using it, it will not be difficult to determine the distributor. So the pirates cannot roam here. Although I very poorly understand how and how iTunes Match can help in such a bad business.

It will be pointless to talk about Match in iTunes further. Not because there is nothing to talk about. It's just about the obvious things. After all, iTunes Match simply replaces your local library with a remote one. Everything you could do with these files before, you can do now. We'd better turn our eyes to iOS and see what it's like to use this service outside of iTunes. After all, many bought Match for this ...

iTunes Match on iOS

Note: the functionality of iTunes Match is examined using the example of iOS 6.

Before continuing, pick up your Apple gadget, go to Music and say goodbye to all the files placed there. By a strange logic, clearly imposed by record corporations, you cannot simultaneously use your iTunes Match library and local music files on iOS. The latter will simply "disappear" from the list, and you can listen to them only after disabling iTunes Match completely in the Device Settings. The same goes for playlists if they were only saved on the device. Moreover, you will lose the opportunity manuallysync music when wired to iTunes: instead, you will be prompted to add all the tracks or playlists you want to iTunes Match. All of this is logical in places, tolerable in places, but unpleasant for those who are accustomed to the synchronization system - especially considering that the local media library is not "hiding" in the desktop version of iTunes.

To access your cloud-based iTunes Match library on iOS, go to Settings\u003e Music and click the iTunes Match radio button. Two pop-ups warn you of what I've described above, so be okay - you are clearly familiar with the rates. If immediately after that you open the player in iOS, you will witness the process of downloading the list of songs and the service information of iTunes Match. All this time, the media library will be unavailable, but, as a rule, this process does not take more than a minute and is very rarely repeated in the future.

Note: The 3/4 generation iPod Touch and iPhone 3GS show very poor performance with iTunes Match library, and their users regularly complain about low speed loading tracks and constant "lags" of sound. To be fair, the owners of other devices may also encounter playback problems, because the source of connection breaks is not the hardware of the gadget (in most cases). Sin is on quality and strength wi-Fi signal, router settings and internet speed. But the Ministry of Health, as they say, warned you.

Here comes Match on iOS. Do you see the difference with "regular" music? Most likely no. This is the whole essence of the service: the user should not feel the difference between local tracks downloaded to the device and remote ones stored in iCloud. It is as if all the music is already in the iOS player - just click and listen to your heart's content. In this case, the amount of memory does not matter: you can listen to more than two tens of thousands of songs on an iPhone with 8 gigabytes of memory.

Starting with iOS 6, the built-in player starts playing a song immediately after selecting it, without waiting for the complete download of the file. The file itself is still loaded "in the background" and after disconnecting from the Internet remains available for playback for a while. It is impossible to understand which files were uploaded without your knowledge - there are no status icons for them. Disorder.

To fully download a track from iTunes Match to your iOS device, click on the cloud next to its name. This feature was introduced with iOS 6.1.2.

As in the full-fledged iTunes, it supports downloading songs by any criterion: individual tracks, albums, artists, playlists, and so on. At the time of downloading, a circle with a stop button appears next to the song, which fills up as it downloads and at the end it simply disappears. It is worth remembering that when unloading albums, the tracks are loaded by the whole crowd, whether there are five, one hundred fifty or two thousand songs. If you do not calculate appetites, the download will stop only when the gadget runs out free place or the Internet will "fall off". The process can also be stopped by clicking on the "stop" in the circle next to the song. You have to click on eachtrack - and this is long and inconvenient and in general Scott Forstall - noob!

Attention: this segment only applies to firmware prior to iOS 6.1.2 and below.

So how do you download specific songs instead of an entire album? The answer comes from the dibilism of the system itself. Since Apple allows you to download playlists, we will create one directly on the device and download songs from it. Let's call it "" and add there all the tracks that you want to download for local playback.

Now it remains to click on the rectangular "cloud" below - and that's it, the process has started. Even if you add new tracks to the list and initiate the download of the playlist again, all old and already downloaded ones will be ignored.

(not) Fun Fact: You can also listen to songs from Match via the operator's 3G connection - just enable the corresponding function in the Network settings. Another thing is that their speeds in our country are often very poor, and the prices for tariffs without a limit threshold are unpleasantly high. Therefore, I do not advise you to rely on this aspect of the service's functionality. Better to find a normal Wi-Fi and download songs "on the road" already from it.

In general, the functionality of iTunes Match on iOS does not differ ... in functionality. The principle, which is relevant for the desktop version of iTunes, also works here. Anything you could do with a local media library, you can do with a remote one. With one big exception: you can only delete files from iCloud in iOS 5. Why Apple forbade this in new firmware versions is a mystery without the prospect of a logical answer.

But enough of the negative and nagging from us. For a straight-handed user, iTunes Match does not cause any seriousproblems. The ratings displayed in the player are quickly reflected on other devices. The same can be said for created playlists. The number of playbacks is also strictly controlled and summed up with the data of the general library - useful for those who are fond of smart playlists. Well, do not forget the benefits and buzz of the fact that hundreds of gigabytes of music are almost always at hand, regardless of free space.

For example, an iPhone or iPad can be turned into a central part home theater - like storage of huge heaps of music with wireless syncing. Somewhere far away, where trains are buzzing, you can fill your local library with fresh songs without having to look for a computer, lace and iTunes. With iTunes Match connected, the need to synchronize the device with iTunes completely disappears: I opened the program, threw a sea of \u200b\u200btracks there, took my iPhone - and they are already “there”. For other things, like saving games and documents, iCloud will answer. Conveniently.

There are a lot of prospects and opportunities for using the service, and at the end of the day I simply do not have enough imagination to cover all the possibilities. I'm sure readers will come up with something his