Apple released iTunes Match this week, and along with it a new version of iTunes which includes a lot of new features to support music in the cloud. We’ll look at these features in the Mac OS X tip for today.
Two weeks late, Apple’s match-and-mirror music in the cloud service iTunes Match has finally launched while retaining its beta status. In the meantime, iTunes 10.5.1 for both Windows and Mac has been released, so get downloading if you intend on using iTunes Match.
On Mac, the iTunes 10.5.1 update is 102MB, and is available now on the official iTunes homepage or through Software Update.
iTunes Match is Apple’s much anticipated cloud music service. For $24.99 a year, users can match any of the songs on their hard drive into the cloud to be redownloadable on any iOS or Mac device in 256Kbps AAC CD quality, even if their original track was of much lower quality.
iTunes Match is launching as a beta service. However, for subscribing to iTunes Match Beta, we hear you get 15 months of service instead of just 12. Not a bad deal, but be warned that Apple will delete your iTunes Match library at the end of the beta, meaning you’ll have to go through the matching process all over again.
Over the last few weeks, we’ve found that Apple has been having problems getting iTunes Match’s mirroring service to work reliably. We’ll report back and let you know if they’ve worked out the kinks.
For the past hour or so it appears that iCloud has been undergoing widespread outages, with many users unable to log into their email accounts and iCloud.com.
Apple has acknowledged the problem, and is working to restore iCloud to its full glory once again.
So iCloud is finally here, and MobileMe is going away. This is generally a good thing, but vestiges of the old remain with the new. One reader is wondering how he can make a clean break:
I’ve successfully upgraded to Lion, to iOS 5 on my iPhone 4, and migrated from MobileMe to iCloud. BUT, I still see the MobileMe icon in my system preferences, how do I remove it?
Mark
Apple has added a feature to iOS 5 that will allow you to check the storage apps use on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. It’s an important feature to know if you are using any of these devices without a computer and syncing straight to iCloud.
A folder in OS X Lion has been discovered by Mac OS X Hints that uses iCloud to automatically sync stored documents between Macs. While iCloud stores your saved documents from Mac and iOS devices on iCloud.com, Apple has yet to implement a polished, Dropbox-like way to let users sync iCloud data between desktop machines.
Tucked in the “Library” directory in Lion, the “Mobile Documents” folder syncs iCloud documents and app data between your devices. A nifty workaround lets you use this folder as a wirelessly-updated document hub for your Macs.
A third-party app allowing iOS devices to stream music via Amazon’s Cloud Drive has been yanked from the App Store amid reported legal concerns, and that’s not all: the developer says Apple is delaying approving an update for another music app that streams music from Google’s similar cloud music service.
Over the weekend, Apple launched three new iPhone 4S ads: one for the iPhone 4S’s incredible new 8MP camera and iOS 5’s Photo Editing abilities, one for iCloud and one for Siri. They all really speak for themselves, but even so, this is Apple advertising at its finest.
You can find the other two ads embedded below.
Apple’s massive new solar farm and their next-gen spaceship campus will boost the tech giant’s 2012 expense to $8 billion — a 73% hike over this year, one analyst told investors Monday.
A few weeks ago, we posted the video below to show how Apple saw Siri and the iPad coming back in 1987. We didn’t tell the story behind the video though, which is equally fascinating.
iCloud is Apple’s biggest new service to roll out in a long time, and with it comes a huge feature set. There’s quite a few settings and toggles, and it can be rather easy to get lost in. In this video, I’ll show you how to sort out backing up to iCloud, as well as iOS 5’s Wi-Fi sync feature.
The cloud is getting crowded. Although just one week old, Apple’s iCloud has 20 million users, the Cupertino, Calif. tech giant announced Monday. iCloud, allowing users to sync all of their Apple devices, becomes the latest example of the company’s vaunted ‘halo effect’ keeping consumers close to the brand.
So, that device that nobody wanted, which looks just like the iPhone 4 with a couple of internal improvements, actually did pretty well for itself during its launch weekend. Apple has just announced that it sold a whopping 4 million iPhone 4S handsets this weekend, which is considerably more than the 1.7 million iPhone 4 units sold during its debut weekend last year.
Photo Stream is a feature in iCloud that allows Apple users to wirelessly sync photos and video between multiple devices. The service lets you take a picture on your iPhone or iPad 2 running iOS 5 and have it uploaded automatically in the background to your Photo Stream folder. That folder is then made available on all of your devices that are logged into iCloud, including iPhoto on your Mac.
There currently isn’t a way to individually delete photos from Photo Stream, but there is a way to completely reset Photo Stream and start over.
Apple has been on a software rollout spree lately. iCloud and iOS 5 were both released to the public this past Wednesday alongside a slew of other app releases and updates.
Some of this week’s releases have also caused significant problems for many consumers. Certain iCloud customers have been experiencing faulty connectivity since the product’s launch two days ago. Luckily, Apple offers a way to check iCloud’s status from the web.
Cloud computing appears to be the future. But can every company afford their own version of Apple’s iCloud? Although Apple paid $1 billion in 2009 to acquire land for its North Carolina datacenter, that figure is only the ‘downpayment’ required for the tech giant to bring the cloud to millions of customers, according to a Friday report.
Apple is said to be finalizing deals with major movie studios that will allow the Cupertino company to introduce movie streaming to iCloud for Macs and iOS devices.
Alongside the unveiling of its iPhone 4S at an event in Cupertino on October 4, Apple announced a brand new service called Find My Friends. Similar to Find My iPhone, Find My Friends allows you to see where you friends are based on the GPS location of their iOS device. Ahead of the launch of iOS 5 later today, Apple has made the Find My Friends application available, but you won’t find it in the App Store.
Existing MobileMe customers will be happy to find out that Apple is giving them access to the 20GB iCloud storage plan until June 30, 2012. The total allotted storage comes to 25GB, but the plethora of storage plans I expected to appear didn’t. Instead Apple is only offering three storage plans.
While we’re still clicking that ‘Check for Update’ button in iTunes in anticipation of iOS 5, the Apple’s iCloud website has already lost its ‘beta’ tag and been given a new login page design.
Movie studios, faced with dwindling DVD sales as consumers turn to streaming, want to create their own cloud-based storage option to compete with Apple. Aptly named UltraViolet, the service apparently hinges on invisible interest by audiences that have abandoned physical sales.
Want to know what Apple retail employees can tell you about iOS 5 and iCloud? These images are of leaked internal Apple documents which are provided to retail store employees to help them sell iOS 5 and iCloud.
Apple has seeded iWork beta 4 to developers with added support for iCloud services in iOS 5. Developers can test the iCloud “Documents and Data” service to sync content wirelessly between iWork apps.
iOS 5 and iCloud should be unveiled to the public this Tuesday alongside the next iPhone. When iWork is officially updated with iCloud support, users will be able to create a document on one device and have it synced wirelessly across other devices and iCloud.com.
iBooks has also received a minor update to version 1.3.1 in the App Store. The update includes “important stability and performance improvements” that are most likely related to iOS 5.
Apple is working to secure iCloud music rights for international customers, according to CNET. The iTunes legal team is trying to get international cloud-music rights for October 4th’s iPhone event, due to the fact that Apple is expected to launch iCloud to the public at that time.
Procuring these rights would assumedly give international iCloud customers the ability to re-download music and stream tracks through iTunes Match.
Apple has seeded OS X Lion 10.7.2 Build 11C71 to developers. The update addresses no major issues and instead focuses on some finishing touches for what will most likely be the public launch of OS X 10.7.2 next week.
This beta build of OS X makes a few slight improvements to the Lion Recovery tool and fixes a firmware password issue with Find My Mac. Earlier today, Apple also released iTunes beta 9 for developers currently testing iTunes Match.
The previous beta build of Lion addressed several issues with iCloud, and Apple will push out an official Lion update to customers with iCloud integration when the service is made available to the public after Apple’s next media event.