To Match or Not To Match: A look at moving from iTunes Match to Google Play Music or Amazon Cloud Player

I'm contemplating a move away from iTunes Match.

I have had it for the last year, and have been very happy with it.  I have an iPhone 5c at this point, and used it on my iPhone 4 previous to that, and it worked very well on both.  Importing was easy, one step, just drop a CD into the drive while iTunes was running, and it would rip them locally, then match or upload the songs.  Easy to use on the iPhone as well.  If I want to stream it, I can play it the same way I would songs synced to my iPhone before the days of Match.  If I want it available offline (which is important with the phone service in parts of the Rocky Mountains, and having moved from unlimited data to limited where I have to pay for the extra), all I do is hit the download icon, and the phone does the rest.  Perfect.  Almost.

The limitation comes in the form of iTunes itself.  Despite Apple having made almost everything available without having to have Windows or a Mac, a few things require the iTunes application itself, which won't run easily in Linux, nor on tablets or Chromebooks or anything else not running Windows or MacOS.  And the application continues to grow in size and overhead, making it unusable on older computers.  Everything else has now moved to be available online or straight from the phone, but two things, to my knowledge, remain.

There is no way to put ringtones on the iPhone that aren't purchased through an app without a computer, and very difficult without using iTunes itself.  This requires the iPhone to be synced to that specific installation of iTunes.  Using another computer later, even with the same Apple ID, requires syncing the iPhone before ringtones can be added.  And syncing it will wipe any existing ringtones.  A minor thing, and not too important, but it's odd that with everything tied to the Apple ID, Apple still requires a one-to-one iTunes installation to iPhone link, and can't sync what's on the phone to a different installation under the same ID.  But this is not the topic of this post.

The bigger concern is that iTunes Match requires an iTunes installation.  Now, to import music, this makes some sense.  But I discovered today that if your iTunes Match subscription expires, and you don't update billing soon, there is no option to renew it on the iPhone.  It tells you you don't have a subscription, please use iTunes on a PC or a Mac.  And there is no way to update it through the Apple website.  I called the Apple tech support, and they confirmed this.  There is no way through Apple, whether on the phone, through their website, or from the iPhone itself.  This is true for iPods and iPads as well.  It is not possible to renew your subscription if you don't have a Mac or Windows machine that can run iTunes.  In a world where more and more people are moving to cloud based computing, and moving away from traditional computers to tablets and Chromebooks and similar devices, this seems very odd.

Apple is doing nothing to keep my business.  If it wasn't for my dislike of Android, the limitations of the Blackberry, and my dislike of the Windows mobile platforms, I would move away from the iPhone completely in favour of something I can actually use as a true mobile devise without depending on a traditional computer.

I have just under 8000 songs in my iTunes library, 33GB of data.  These are all in iTunes Match.  I am very mobile, as I work in Colorado and own a house in Wyoming where my wife is.  I have imported songs into iTunes Match from a number of computers, and in most cases I have removed the local copy, as I don't listen to music from that device, as I always have my iPhone with me.  My computer here in Colorado has iTunes on it, but is old enough that it is barely usable.  I am contemplating if it is worth the time and effort it will take to get the application loaded up, get logged in, and resubscribe.  The issue being, I don't have that music in one place to import into a different service.

If I move, my main options are Google Play Music and Amazon Cloud Player.  There are pluses and minuses to both, as there will always be.

Both allow playback online, which allows their use on MacOS, Windows, Linux, ChromeOS, and most other platforms without installation of an application.  In addition, there are apps in both iOS, and, Android, and likely other mobile platforms.  Amazon Cloud Player is also available on the Roku, and has a native Windows app.  This means any music in them is available in many places.  Amazon Cloud Player also makes the music available on my Kindle Fire.  In contrast, iTunes Match is available on Macs and Windows machines that have iTunes, and on iOS devices.  Much more limited.

One of the big advantages of iTunes Match is that if you have a low quality, low bitrate, or poor rip (for instance, if your CD is too scratched for a good rip of it), iTunes Match makes the high quality version available in most cases.  This has been a plus for me.  Both Google Play Music or Amazon Cloud Player have added this feature since my initial iTunes Match subscription last November.

Library size can be an issue.  Apple will match up to 25,000 songs, not including those purchased from iTunes, and has no limit on what you can upload, for $24.99 a month.  Google Play Music will allow 20,000 songs to be uploaded, for free.  Their pay service, $9.99 a month, gives access to streaming of music you don't own, which can't be downloaded, but does not increase your song limit, more a service competing with things like iHeartRadio custom stations, Spotify, iTunes Radio, and Pandora than with Amazon Cloud Player or iTunes Match.  Amazon Cloud Player only allows 250 imported songs on their free service, but 250,000 for the $24.99 premium version.

Not all my music is in iTunes currently.  I have CDs I never ripped because I haven't had the desire to listen to them.  I have ones I ripped before my iPod days that are in MP3 format and I haven't imported because I haven't had the desire to listen to them.  And I have music I bought from iTunes or ripped from my CDs that are only in iTunes.  For a long time, I ripped both a copy into iTunes and a separate MP3, in case I ever moved away from Apple, but I stopped doing these when I got iTunes Match.

When Google Music first came out (before the change in branding and name), I was an early adopter.  I started the process of importing my MP3 music, and have 16,000 songs in it.  This puts me close to the limit, and I'm unsure what is and isn't there of the music I'd specifically want.

On the web app, both Google and Amazon have a limitation that is of note.  Google only allows one song downloaded at a time.  This means if you ever want to download your entire library, it will be infeasible.  The Download Manager, which installs on MacOS or Windows, might have an option to do this now, I haven't used it for a few years.  Amazon allows multiple downloads on MacOS and Windows but not on Linux or any derivative of it, including ChromeOS.

The iPhone apps are of course the most important for someone looking at moving away from iTunes Match.  Both allow streaming of music just as iTunes Match does.  And both allow downloading of albums or songs.  The only real significant feature difference is that music downloaded from Google Play Music is available in the native iPhone Music app and Amazon songs are only available to their player.  On the other hand, music in the built in iPhone Music app are not available within the Google Play Music app, but are in the Amazon app.

Google is of course the best cost point, free.  But the limit of 20,000 songs might or might not prove an issue unless I delete the entire Google library and start over with only the songs in iTunes.  iTunes Match and Amazon Cloud Player are the same cost, but the Amazon limit is high enough that I'd never hit it.  Being able to manage my subscription online without needing iTunes is a big plus for Amazon, and Google doesn't require managing it at all.

The availability on the Kindle Fire is a big plus for Amazon, for my situation, and both Amazon and Google are far more accessible across all my devices that Apple.  Being able to import from anywhere without an application is a big plus for both over iTunes, it allows a moving away from a dependency on a traditional computer, as I can use shared computers to rip the songs and upload them.  The ripping is a bit more complex, and Apple does so in one step, but the Windows apps for the other two may be able to do this as well.  The Amazon one appears to.  It appears Google may be able to import AAC files, the format Apple uses.  Amazon does not.

The biggest show stopper is getting music into either of the other two services.  I would need to renew my iTunes Match subscription for another year, download my entire library, convert the AAC files to MP3, then import them into whichever service I went with.  With 33GB of music, this would take a very long time, and require over 70GB of free disk space on a machine able to run iTunes.  A daunting task for sure.

Bethany Kennedy
IT Professional

Next Generation IOS: A Review of IOS on an iPhone4

This week, Apple released IOS6, the next generation of the operating system for their iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad.  I've been looking forward to this version for a while based on one feature, their Do Not Disturb setting.  Mine phone is an iPhone4, which is the oldest model IOS6 will install on. Apple supports two generations back with each version, so IOS5 supported the iPhone4S which was released around the time IOS5 was, the iPhone4, and the iPhone3.  IOS6 supports the new iPhone5 that's coming out next month, the iPhone4S, and the iPhone4.  Similar things in iPod Touch and iPad lines.

I was a bit nervous upgrading, as those I knew with iPhone3's when IOS5 came out had a lot of problems.  Their phones slowed to a crawl.  As that was the oldest supported model for IOS5, I was worried about IOS6 on an iPhone4.  I need not to have worried.  IOS6 runs as fast as IOS4 did, a bit faster than IOS5, honestly.  IOS6 runs great on the iPhone4.

There are a lot of changes, but most of them are small and unnoticed, small changes in interface or placement of options.  A few things, however, stick out, and I'd like to address a few of them here.

App Store

One major change is the App Store.  It felt out of date and clunky in IOS4, and wasn't updated in IOS5.  It's about time it got an overhaul.  I often said it was ironic that the worst app on the iPhone was the Apple App Store where you get the apps from.  The new interface is very slick and pleasing to look at, a much better design.  Apps scroll right to left like a book rather than up and down like the old version.  There is more detail shown on the search screens making it easier to determine what might be a good app, and the app detail screen now shows what has changed in the newest version and a version history, which was a big missing hole in the old version.The screen shots are now at the top of the detail page, which gives a good visual, but means more scrolling to look at the description which is my main interest.  Not really a flaw there, just a change that is better for some and worse for others.  The only down side I've found is they failed to correct one thing I disliked in the old version.  When you're scrolling through apps and go to the detail of one, then press back, it still goes to the beginning of the list you're scrolling through.  When you're a ways into the list, this is a big problem, one I hope they fix at some point, preferably sooner than later.  There are times I stop looking at apps because of it.  This could mean lost sales, purely do to not saving a page state.

Mail App

The main change I have noticed in the Mail App is VIP contacts.  You can set in a contact for it to be VIP.  What this means is that there's a new item on the Mailboxes page called VIP.  In it, you will find all conversations from all accounts where one of the senders is a VIP.  Very helpful when you get as many emails a day as I do.

Photos App

The big change here is the changes to the Photo Stream and iCloud.  Apple added the ability to have multiple streams, and to share those streams.  It still has the default Photo Stream that everything is automatically added to, though it's now on an Photo Stream tab in the Album view instead of listed as an album, but now you can have more than one stream.  You can create a stream on the Photo Stream tab, or when you are adding photos to it.  You add them, not by clicking Add To, but clicking Share and choosing Photo Stream.  In other apps, when you go to select a photo, it no longer shows all albums, just those with pictures in them.  Empty albums are hidden now.  Below your albums, other apps show your photo streams, and you can select pictures in them the same way you do in regular albums.  The only thing you can't do is edit them in the Photos App.  On the computer now, Photo Stream now shows up as a drive in Windows with all the streams there.  You can create streams there and add photos to them.  You can also share photo streams, except the default, with other people, both in the Photo App and from the computer.  It sends them an invite and they can accept and it adds the stream to their account, if they have an Apple ID, or gives them access via the web if they don't.  The stream is read only for them, and they show as subscribers from your end.  You can also make a stream public, which makes it available to anyone via a web link.

Do Not Disturb

This is the function I was waiting for, and it's very simple.  In the root of the Settings App, there is now a switch for Do Not Disturb.  Switch it and all alerts, sounds, and vibrations are temporarily turned off until you turn Do Not Disturb back off.  This means not having to change the settings, then going back in and setting them all back, and means not having to turn the phone off if you want to be sure it won't make a sound, won't vibrate, and won't create light.  A very good feature.

Facebook Integration

A major feature added is Facebook integration.  In IOS5, Apple added Twitter integration, allowing sharing to Twitter natively in apps and allowing authentication with Twitter without a separate login in apps.  And the ability to have multiple Twitter accounts that you can switch to to share to different ones without logging out and back in, including within the Twitter App itself.  I was looking forward to the addition of Facebook integration, hoping it would be the same.  And it does, all except the multiple accounts part.  That was a part I was hoping for, because I have a Facebook account specifically for some pages I run that I want kept separate from those for my friends and family.  It isn't uncommon in this day and age where Facebook is sometimes required for professional or work purposes to separate those aspects from personal friend and family aspects.  Facebook integration doesn't allow this.  If you use multiple Facebook accounts, you have to log out of one and into the other to share to another Facebook account.  However, unlike Twitter, the active Facebook account for IOS isn't the active Facebook account in the Facebook App, so you can change the account in the app without effecting the account in IOS.  The other Facebook apps, Facebook Messenger, Facebook Pages, and Facebook Camera, use the Facebook App as the default no login required account to log into and don't connect to the IOS account at this point.  I have not had a chance yet to work with the sharing, so can't yet judge on how it works yet.

Podcasts and iTunes U

In the past, the only way to put podcasts and classes from iTunes U onto your IOS device was using iTunes on a computer and syncing them.  They appeared within the Music App.  With IOS6, these have been separated out.  They are no longer present at all within the Music App, but each have their own app.  These are installed apps, not built in, so have to be installed from the App Store.  They allow management of your podcasts and iTune U classes respectively from in the app on the device.  You can purchase or subscribe from in the app, and download them as needed, either manually or automatically, just like songs you purchase from iTunes and songs that you have in iTune Match.  You can delete them from the device and redownload them later if you want to.  A big improvement.

Cosmetic Changes

The rest of the changes I've noticed are cosmetic.  Colours have changed in the Camera App.  The Music App has been completely reworked in how it looks, with reordering of the default placement of tabs, but no real changes I can see except the removing of podcasts and iTune U classes.  There are some small cosmetic changes in the Mail App.  The iTunes App has been reworked in the same way the Music App has, so the two match. The Find My Phone App looks a bit different after the update as well.  There are supposed to be a lot of enhancements to the Maps App but other than cosmetic changes, I don't see much difference.  Maybe I will find more as I use it more.

Bethany Kennedy
IT Professional