How iTunes Match Works

Before: DRM-ed	After: Unprotected

Apple has always stored iTunes music “in the cloud”, but it was never accessible except at the time of purchase. In other words, Apple would allow you to buy a song and download it but you could not re-download purchases, let alone stream them to other computers or iDevices.

ITunes 10.5.1, now available for download, enables online streaming and re-downloading the of media to any authorized computer or device. This means that all of your past and future iTunes Store purchases are now available on all the devices you own. You can stream them over the Internet for casual listening or download them for off-line use. This includes movies, television shows, and books as well as music.

But iTunes Match is the signature feature of this upgrade. Using technology acquired from Lala, Apple now offers an annual subscription allowing you to “match” your off-line library with the online iTunes store. This match technology will scan your entire library and make available all songs in it, regardless of source.

ITunes Match allows you to “upgrade” your music library with legal, licensed, high-quality files regardless of the source. This includes DRM-protected iTunes store purchases, which are also upgraded to 256 K bit DRM-free AAC files. This is a huge benefit: Building a high-quality non-DRM library is well worth a year $25 per year even without online streaming.

For example, if you bought an album from Amazon or ripped a CD (or even if you downloaded music through Bittorrent), it will be available for streaming and downloading to iTunes, iPhones, iPads, and iPods. Even better, the downloaded version will be Apple’s high quality 256 kbps AAC “iTunes Plus” version, even if yours was a lowly 128 kbps MP3 file.

How to Upgrade a Song

Upgrading is fairly straightforward, and iCloud “has your back” if you make a mistake. Still, I recommend backing up your music files before proceeding!

Enable these headings to make it easier to locate songs to upgrade

The first step is subscribing to the iTunes Match service. Download and install the latest version of iTunes, and click on the new iTunes Match entry in the menu bar. Apple will prompt you to sign up and pay your $25 using your existing iTunes account.

Once you have subscribed to iTunes Match, iTunes will scan your library for songs, match them to the online library, and begin uploading any that it did not find. You can continue working with iTunes while the upload proceeds, since we will be working with files that do exist on the iTunes servers.

Right click on the menu bar above the song listing in iTunes’ Music pane and add the new “iCloud Status” column. You might also want to add the “Kind” column to determine which files should be upgraded.

Locate a file to upgrade. There’s no need to replace songs that are or 256 kb iTunes Plus format, so look for those with “Kind” listed as “MPEG audio file” or “Protected AAC audio file”.

Next, check the “iCloud Status” column to make sure the song is “Matched”. Now you’re good to go with the upgrade.

Any song that is "Matched" can be re-downloaded DRM-free!

I created a backup folder to save a copy of my music just in case the upgrade fails. Just drag and drop the file right out of iTunes and into a backup folder.

In iTunes, select the song you wish to upgrade and press the delete key. ITunes will ask if you’re sure: Go ahead and click “Delete Song” but do not select “Also delete this song from iCloud” just in case.

Scary! Delete your music (but save a backup first!)

Once the song file has been deleted, you will notice that it does not disappear from the iTunes interface. Instead, a new icon will appear in the “iCloud” column. This is the iCloud download button: Click it and iTunes will re-download the high quality version of that song directly into your library. Or just press “Play” to stream it over the Internet!

That nifty little icon (or a right-click) allows you re-download your deleted files

Note that any metadata, such as custom year or composer, will not be lost. Even star ratings will be retained, though it appears that play counts are not saved.

This process can be repeated for multiple items at once, allowing you to upgrade your library with just a few clicks.

Before: Low-bitrate MP3	After: 256 kbps AAC

Stephen’s Stance

The ability to “go legit” and upgrade older music files is a huge benefit, and makes iTunes Match well worth the $25 annual fee. Having all your music online for streaming is pretty cool, but probably wouldn’t have enticed me to spend money. I will definitely be upgrading my entire iTunes library this way!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | How to Legitimize and Upgrade Your Music Library Using iTunes Match
This post was categorized as Apple, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Do we really want to escape our cages?

Things are getting awfully complicated, aren’t they? The custom parallel CPUs, proprietary communications networks, and encrypted data ports require extensive training, special tools, and a computerized reference library to comprehend, much less debug. And the manufacturers, who derive much of their money and differentiation from warranties and authorized repair centers, are loathe to see independent shops get a piece of the action.

Yes, today’s automobile market sure is complex. Did you think I was talking about computer systems? The current state of the retail auto industry has a lot to teach us in the computers and communication devices! There are many parallels between cars and computers, after all.

Selling an Ecosystem

The Lincoln Highway gave early motorists a reason to want a car

Early automobiles were a lot like early computers: Many were hand-made and none was all that useful. Sure, Bertha Benz managed to drive to Pforzheim in 1888 to visit her mother, but she had to repair her husband’s motorwagen multiple times during the 60 mile trip. While automobile technology has certainly improved since then, the real innovation that drove the world to drive cars was the ecosystem that surrounds them.

Carl Fisher may not be familiar to most, but he deserves as much credit as Henry Ford, Billy Durant, Ferdinand Porsche, Eiji Toyoda, and so many other engineers and industrialists. Fisher realized that, in addition to being technically sound and affordable, the automobile must be embraced by the public to succeed. He switched from supplying headlights to convincing the public that car ownership was a desirable thing, creating a multi-brand dealership, founding the Indianapolis 500, and redirecting the Good Roads Movement to support highways suitable for long-distance automobile trips.

Fisher’s insight was similar to that of Steve Jobs’ at the first incarnation of Apple: People want a place in an ecosystem not just a piece of technology. Fisher’s Lincoln and Dixie Highway projects gave the public a reason to buy a car. Similarly, Jobs’ Apple II and Macintosh projects focused as much on what people would do with the computers as what they were made of. Much of Apple’s current success is due to the way customers experience the company, from the upscale yet inviting Apple Stores to the curated iOS App Store.

Apple’s “walled garden” approach to computers and mobile devices may draw derision from techies but the public loves it. They don’t want a Macintosh, iPhone, or iPad; they want a thing that lets them do what they do. The ability to easily install and use applications and accessories easily outweighs the arbitrary and capricious limitations placed on them by Apple and AT&T. Regular people don’t want multiple windows on screen with multitasking applications; they want instantly to turn on their “pad”, perform a task, and set it aside. The Apple ecosystem empowers this.

Total Customer Experience

Lexus set the benchmark for modern automobile ownership after their 1989 debut in the United States. The company created a total customer experience, from inquiry to sales to ownership and support, recognizing that upscale buyers would pay a premium to be coddled by their car company, not just their car. In fact, if Apple is copying anyone with their glass Stores and Geniuses and AppleCare it is Lexus.

Every premium automobile marque labors to offer a Lexus-like customer experience today. Basic mechanical warranties became bumper-to-bumper service, and dealer service bays transformed into destinations with free car washes and cappuccino bars. Like Apple, today’s carmakers want to coddle their customers and shield them from the cruel world of discount stores and independent repairmen.

Right to Repair and DMCA Exemptions

Proprietary systems and "Total Customer Experience" threaten to marginalize independent shops

But Apple and the automakers might have stepped a bit too far, turning from walled garden to gilded cage. Worried that openness would corrupt both their pristine equipment and customer experience, manufacturers began to lock out unauthorized parts and modifications. But in so doing they also imposed restrictions that threaten to turn owners into mere users at the whim of the companies.

My Mazda MX-5 Miata is far from a walled-garden “experience” luxury car. I love it, in fact, because it’s a wonderfully basic, visceral, and mechanical car. But the Bose audio system that came with it is as complex and locked-down as anything in a Lexus. Adding a basic auxiliary input required decoding a proprietary bus and creating a custom chip to emulate the tape deck module, an admirable piece of work indeed!

With even a simple car’s audio system gaining this kind of complexity, it’s no wonder that independent repair shops are feeling squeezed out. This is why the Massachusetts “Right to Repair” law is getting such widespread attention. Independent repair shops (and yes, aftermarket equipment makers) are attempting to force automakers to allow them access to the proprietary technology in their cars. Yet even if they break open the gilded cage, the walls of “total customer experience” may prove harder to crack.

The exemptions to the DMCA handed down by the copyright office this week are remarkably similar. Although the Office did not go as far as many would have liked, they firmly stated that companies shouldn’t use copyright law to restrict the use, preservation, and repair of certain products. Of particular interest to both DMCA opponents and Right to Repair fans is the long-term implication of walled-off technology. What happens when a “dongle” or key is no longer manufactured or supported? Will anyone be able to repair a Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Lexus, or Apple in 20 years?

Stephen’s Stance

Consomers like living in a gilded cage

Unquestionably, the world is worse off if manufacturers completely restrict basic access to their products. The short-term impact on buyers, though concerning, are trumped by the long-term implications. The copyright office is wise to realize that DRM, encryption, hardware lock-in, and “dongles” threaten to effectively delete audio, video, print, and entertainment properties once their manufacturer decides they are obsolete. And Right to Repair is urgently needed to keep historically-important automobiles from becoming useless hunks once their manufacturers stop supporting them.

But the rosy picture painted by the EFF, iPhone jailbreakers, independent mechanics, and other freedom-loving folks aren’t entirely justified. As Carl Fisher and Steve Jobs proved, consumers want an ecosystem, and enjoy luxuriating in a gilded cage. The success of the iTunes store demonstrates that buyers value convenience over freedom when it comes to entertainment, making Apple’s move to remove DRM from their audio content gratifying indeed. And Apple and Lexus buyers remain loyal to the companies despite widely-publicized product defects. Perhaps Right to Repair and the DMCA exemptions are about protecting consumers from themselves rather than from predatory manufacturers.

Image credits: “Lemur Cage 2″ by Stephen Foskett, “Lincoln Highway Bridge, Tama, IA” by cwwycoff1, ”Mechanic Shop” by Tomas, “The View Through The Furry Handcuffs” by Annie in Beziers

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Walled Gardens, Gilded Cages, and Right to Repair
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer History, Everything, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

I was surprised this morning with an email from Amazon touting “five albums for $5″ on the MP3 store.  Turns out, it’s five albums (today only) for $5 each.  And it’s a great set, too – I already own and love two of them, bought a third, and suspect most folks already have the fourth:

1. R.E.M.’s new album, Accelerate is just great – short, snappy, easy to get into
2. Radiohead’s In Rainbows is an album I’ve written about before…
3. I’d been enjoying songs from She & Him lately, including their appearance in Paste magazine, so decided to pick up Volume One for five bucks.
4. Does anyone not know Hotel California?
5. Finally there’s Dreaming Out Loud from OneRepublic, which I’m not familiar with.

Also, if you like the Black Keys, you can get their new Attack & Release for $2.99…

Like I said, I’m not trying to advertize this.  I’m just happy to see some great music offered legally and without DRM for low bucks.

Note: Some of these links include affiliate codes that help pay for this blog. For example, buying an Amazon Kindle with this link sends a few bucks my way! But I don't write this blog to make money, and am happy to link to sites and stores that don't pay anything. I like Amazon and buy tons from them, but you're free to buy whatever and wherever you want.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Amazon MP3 Friday 5
This post was categorized as Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

• Apple now allows iPhone and iTouch users to buy iTunes songs without a computer and they’ve teamed up with Starbucks to offer in-store song shopping, but not yet…
• Amazon.com now sells real mp3s with no DRM or watermarking for less than iTunes, making Apple look like the bad guy
• Sony finally dropped their Connect store, but Microsoft is standing by the Zune, introducing a new version
• Radiohead gave the record labels, and Apple, the two-finger salute and decided to sell their new album themselves, for any price you feel like paying

It’s a weird new world. Where’s Newbury Comics when I need them?

Note: Some of these links include affiliate codes that help pay for this blog. For example, buying an Amazon Kindle with this link sends a few bucks my way! But I don't write this blog to make money, and am happy to link to sites and stores that don't pay anything. I like Amazon and buy tons from them, but you're free to buy whatever and wherever you want.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2007. | Music in the Wild World
This post was categorized as Apple, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Buyers have a grand total of 2 days to enjoy their downloaded video before losing access to it forever. Not that I used this source, and not that they really had much content, but it should put the fear in anyone who does buy DRM-ed content online.

I personally use Apple’s iTunes Store and Amazon Unbox on TiVo fairly frequently, and both could easily lock me out of my purchases if they so desired. I’ve already been bitten by the handcuffs put on Amazon by content providers – new releases can’t be re-downloaded within so many days (usually 90 from the looks of it) even if you didn’t watch them yet. I’ve so far paid for 3 rental movies that I didn’t get to see because they were deleted off the TiVo before I could watch them. At least they were $.99 sale items…

By the way, being the “do no evil” company (and probably lacking customers for this service) Google has decided to refund 100% of Video purchase cost in the form of Google Checkout credits. At least they are being nice-ish…

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2007. | DRM Lock-In Becomes Lock-Out
This post was categorized as Apple, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Although both of my TiVos can browse and play mp3 files, they require the television to be on and a special server running on a PC (or so I thought, more on that later). It was critical that any digital music solution be directly browsable and searchable using a remote control, since the kids perk up whenever they hear the big tube on our Sony TV burp to life.

Although there are a good many home music players available, two immediately rose above the rest: the Slim Devices Squeezebox, and the Roku SoundBridge M1001. Both are somewhat similar in that they are designed to connect to a home network and browse and play digital music in a variety of formats to an audio receiver. I rejected out of hand all those devices that lacked their own display, sadly including Apple’s intriguing AirPort Express with Air Tunes.

My research quickly revealed that the Squeezebox was the audiophile-preferred solution with its fancy Burr-Brown digital audio converters, while the SoundBridge was the hackers choice with its open interfaces and wider server compatibility. It was widely claimed that only the Squeezebox supported lossless codecs, but I found that this was not the case – although FLAC must be transcoded, the SoundBridge does support ALAC and even WAV for high quality audio. The difference in DACs made no difference to me, since I would be using a digital (S/PDIF) connection to bypass the SoundBridge’s DAC in favor of the one in my Denon receiver.

In the end, the flexible SoundBridge won me over with its wide range of interfaces. It can browse and stream an iTunes library directly, since Roku licensed Apple’s DAAP API. There are a variety of other DAAP servers that can use, too, including Slim Devices Slimserver! But I settled on the open source Firefly (nee mt-daapd) server, since it was full featured, and lightweight enough to run on an embedded NAS server like the Linksys NSLU2, which I intended to add in short order. The SoundBridge also has an open API and telnet interface!

Making my choice even sweeter, at $127, the SoundBridge was half the price of the Squeezebox, too! I placed my order, and thenerds.net delivered it the very next day, even though I chose ground shipping!

The SoundBridge is amazing! It does exactly what I wanted, letting me listen to the tunes stored on my wife’s and my laptop as well as my home PC server without any configuration required. Once I discovered that you can quickly move from letter to letter with the right and left buttons, locating the right song from our 7800-tune collection could not be easier either.

The one major letdown that I had is that Apple will not allow any other hardware, even under license, to play the protected m4p files purchased from iTunes. Although most of my music is ripped from CD, I have got a few dozen iTunes purchased songs. There is a way to crack that DRM protection on these files, but it galls me to have to hack them open just to listen to them!

All in all, I’m very pleased with my new digital music solution at home. I’m seriously considering buying Roku’s SoundBridge Radio, which would let me wirelessly browse and play music anywhere within range of my access point. And I did add that home server – more on this next time.

Note: Some of these links include affiliate codes that help pay for this blog. For example, buying an Amazon Kindle with this link sends a few bucks my way! But I don't write this blog to make money, and am happy to link to sites and stores that don't pay anything. I like Amazon and buy tons from them, but you're free to buy whatever and wherever you want.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2007. | Making the Switch to Digital Music at Home
This post was categorized as Apple, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.