Apple Launches iTunes Match To All Apple Music Subscribers

Over the past twelve months or so, customers have been complaining that Apple Music, the music streaming subscription service from Apple, was not properly matching music tracks that subscribers had in their current iTunes libraries. Well, Apple has worked out a solution, and it comes in the form of iTunes Match.

It turns out that the tech giant has been deploying its iTunes Match audio fingerprint under the radar to all subscribers of its Apple Music service. Before the arrival of iTunes Match, Apple made full use of a metadata version of the same functionality but with far accurate results. Listeners were saying that it would not always match the correct version of a particular track. For instance, live versions of song would be replaced by their corresponding studio versions.

But now that iTunes Match is beginning to be rolled out, it should get rid of those unmatched tracks once for all. Users who had tracks matched inaccurately by the metadata version can now turn to the latest version, which will rematch the correct track for them. But it will not delete any downloaded copies of songs that users have in their library. This is quite handy because nobody ever wants to delete a song from their collection without them knowing it.

iTunes Match was actually already made available when Apple started offering iTunes several years back, but users can only avail of it by getting a separate subscription. But now, all subscribers of Apple Music will get the new version of iTunes Match at zero additional cost. Plus, all songs that are matched will also download DRM free. 

What about those existing subscribers of iTunes Match who also are current subscribers of Apple Music? Well, they are free to allow their iTunes Match subscription to lapse when it comes up for renewal and still continue to get the same benefits as before. As for those who do not subscribe to Apple Music and still want to enjoy the perks of having iTunes Match, they are free to hold on to their subscription. As for those who only subscribe to Apple Music, they will automatically receive iTunes Match. On a daily basis, Apple is switching over between 1 to 2 percent of its users to iTunes Match. Still, considering the impressive volume of Apple Music subscribers, iTunes Match could take some time before it arrives in every user’s device. The trick is to just be patient, and watch out for the text “Matched” appearing in the iCloud Status column.