As An Apple Fan I’m Ditching iTunes For Something Much Better – Part 2
by Tim · Filed Under: Gadgets
WHY DIDN’T I MENTION APPLE’S ICLOUD SERVICE, ITUNES MATCH, AS ONE OF THESE SOLUTIONS
In Part 1 I explained why I was ditching iTunes, laid out the top three services for streaming and why I believe these are much better for any music fanatic than iTunes. But you may be wondering why I didn’t even mention Apple’s new iCloud music service called iTunes Match.
Apple has done a great job on marketing iTunes Match as having your entire music collection at your fingertips and not having to worry about syncing multiple devices because your music is stored in the cloud and is available on any Apple product. Can’t argue, this is a “semi” true statement, but a little flawed once you take a look at the “at your fingertips” part. First, the iCloud service as allowed me not to have to worry about syncing my devices every time I would purchase music, all I have to do is look in the purchased area on my iPhone and it’s all right there. Here’s the interesting part, I have to download the music to my device, taking up storage. So essentially, I don’t have my entire music collection at my fingertips. I can download as many songs as I want that will fit on my 16gb iPhone.
This is where the iTunes Match service and Apple have missed the boat by a long shot and it’s why I didn’t mention it as a solution. You cannot stream music from the iCloud as of yet. So once you have downloaded what will fit on your device and want to listen to more from your collection, you have to delete the music that is already on the device so you can fit more onto it. Kinda lame in my mind. You have to keep downloading a deleting music so you can listen to all your music.
Apple has already released that by 2015 it will profit more from apps than it will in music. So I have a feeling that eventually Apple will have to get into this game of streaming music. And not just streaming your own purchased music, I think they will have to have a separate service like Rhapsody, where users can opt into a monthly fee to stream music from iTunes like cloud.
Even if they came out with an iTunes Match streaming service of your own collection, I still would stick to Rhapsody because there is still the issue of purchasing the music to listen to and with Rhapsody a small monthly fee gets you a ton more music to stream or download.
Talk soon,
P.S. Rhapsody just hit me up with a 30 day free trail to all my music fanatic friends out there who want to try it out. The normal free trial is only 14 days if you visit their website directly, so this is an added bonus for 16 days if you hit the link below.
