Apple is issuing another reset of iTunes Match for tomorrow, October 27th. The wipe applies to developers that have been beta testing the service for the last couple of months.
Beta testers are asked to disable iTunes Match on their iOS devices and computers for the reset tomorrow. All saved libraries will be erased. Apple is expected to launch iTunes Match to the public very soon.
Apple promised an iTunes Match public launch “by the end of October” at its last media event, and we’re approaching the last weekend of October.
A toggle for iTunes Match also appeared publicly in iOS 5 recently, but regular users are still unable to sign up for the service. Apple currently has a page for iTunes Match in iTunes that says “Coming Soon.”
iTunes Match is a $25 per year subscription service that scans a user’s library and offers those tracks in the iCloud for streaming and multiple downloads on any authenticated device.
This isn’t the first time that Apple has reset iTunes Match, and this activity suggests that a public release is drawing near. Expect iTunes Match to go live this weekend or by Monday at the latest.
Alex Heath is a journalist who works for Tech Insider. He’s the former co-host of The CultCast. He has been quoted by the likes of the BBC, KRON 4 News, and books like “ICONIC: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation.” He lives in Lexington, Kentucky. If you want to pitch a story, share a tip, or just get in touch, additional contact information is available on his personal site. Follow him on Twitter.
2 responses to “Another iTunes Match Reset Scheduled for Tomorrow, Public Launch Draws Near”
Great!Maybe iTunes Match won’t be so schizophrenic about which songs on an album it matches and which songs it won’t. I have several albums where only a few songs were matched at the 256k rate and the rest were still at 128k. I noticed if the album was “Remastered”, the length of the songs are slightly different, and that might be why they didn’t match up.
Case in point: Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon album. I have the original CD when it first came out on CD, but iTunes has the Remastered version. Some of the songs converted, some didn’t. Also because Dark Side is a gapless album, you can hear when the bit rate changes between songs. If the consecutive songs are of the same bit rate, you don’t notice anything and it plays as it should. Rather annoying.