Apple Inc. has finally released the iTunes Match cloud music service, after missing its deadline two weeks ago.
The iTunes Match was release alongside the launch of iTunes 10.5.1, an update that fixed a critical security issue that could let hackers push fake updates to Mac and Windows users.
Apple’s Tunes Match cloud music service costs $24.88 a year. The application scans all the contents of a user’s music library and matches it to the available music on the iTunes Store. Files that do not match are automatically uploaded, so users can play their files on any iOS device.
“Since there are more than 20 million songs in the iTunes Store, chances are, your music is already in iCloud,” according to a statement released by Apple. “And for the few songs that aren’t, iTunes has to upload only what it can’t match. Which is much faster than starting from scratch. Once your music is in iCloud, you can stream and store it to any of your devices. Even better, all the music iTunes matches plays back from iCloud at 256 Kbps AAC DRM-free quality — even if your original copy was of lower quality.”
On Friday, Apple said to developers that the company would delete their libraries in the beta version of iTunes Match, hinting that a launch was imminent.
The latest version of iTunes is now available from the Apple Web site, but it is not yet available through the automatic software update in OS X.
via: Beta News