Apple Match Review

For the past couple of months I have been using the music subscription service Spotify as my primary source for listening to music.  With its ability to wireless sync with my iPhone and its offline playlists, I seriously considered it might replace iTunes completely, which I have never been a fan of.  However Apple recently came out with a service called Match which has me using iTunes again.  Match allows more functionality on your iPhone, replaces the arduous chore of manually syncing  to ITunes, and keeps all your music backed up in the cloud at a low cost.

More Functionality

Once you turn on Match on your iPhone  you get the functionality that you have been waiting for. My new iPhone 4S holds 16GB of data so it is impossible for me to put all my music onto it.  However with iMatch,  my iPhone lists my entire music library.  If I click on a song that I don’t have on my iPhone, Match will download it. 

I have Kermit Ruffins on my  iPhone but do not have The Killers, King Floyd or Kings of Leon.  Therefore there is a picture of a cloud by those artists.  If I were to click on any of them,  I could download the tracks onto my phone.  You can download over 2/3G, it does not have to be WiFi.

When my device starts to fill up, I can delete a song, an album,  or all songs my a particular artist. 

If I want to delete a song from my iPhone,  I just swipe across it and the Delete button shows up.  I can delete a Song, an entire Album, or an entire Artist.

I can also create Playlist from my iPhone and add or delete songs from them.  These playlist will get synced back to iTunes and my other iPods/iPads.  So, I now have access to my entire music library on my phone and can create and edit playlists on the fly.

No Syncing 

Two years ago I was getting ready to run New Orleans Crescent City Classic. I was syncing my iPhone which took a large amount of time and when I got to the race, I found out that my entire music library was wiped out. I djay using iPhones and iPods and almost every time one of the devices is missing music. Manually syncing your iPhone with iTunes is unreliable and time consuming. When you turn on Match, you will never syncing your phone to get music again. Instead Match will leave the music that you have on your phone and when you want to get new music, you will click on the cloud button to download it.

You can download a song at a time,  download an entire album, or an entire playlist.  I have a Playlist called 2011 which is all the music I purchased in 2011.  I simply have to click on Download All to get all of those songs on to my phone.  I don’t have to download each one.

When you create a playlist in ITunes, it will almost instantly show up on your iPhone. If you want the songs on it, just click the cloud icon to download them. You have a 10 device limit you can use with Match, which includes macs and pcs. Match frees you from syncing your phone.

Seamless Backup

When you turn on Match, it scans your entire music library.  If it identifies songs that Apple has in its store,  it does NOT upload them.  Apple only uploads songs that it cannot identify.  This is pretty brilliant because instead of 100,000 people uploading Party Rock Anthem,  Match is smart enough to recognize that it already has it, and therefore you don’t need to upload it.  This is not limited to songs you purchased from iTunes so if you bought Party Rock Anthem on a CD and ripped it,  Apple could still recognize it and prevent you from having to upload it.  Unlike most services, there is no data limit.  You are not buying a locker that holds 10gb of digital music.  You are buying the ability to upload 25,000 songs.  If you purchased a song from iTunes,  it does not count against your 25,000 song limit.  I used about 7,000 songs, however I have purchased a lot of music from ITunes.  If you were to purchase a new laptop with a large hard drive,  you could download and install ITunes,  and it would download your entire music library.  You don’t need to worry about backing up your music anymore.

Conclusion 

Match costs $25 a year which makes it quite affordable.  It has a couple of little glitches but in general is a great service that I would recommend to other apple users.  The only big downside to Match is that it does not allow you to stream anything.  So if you click on a song on your iPhone, it will download it and not stream it.  I have a dell laptop with a solid state hard drive that I use as my main pc which does not have a lot of space.  Every song I click on will download,  it will not stream so I still have to do some management to free up space. 

Notes

Obviously Turning on ITunes Match will start the service on your iPhone.  Show All Music allows you to see all music in your library no matter if it is on your iPhone or in iCloud.  If it is just in iCloud and you click on the song,  it will download to your iPhone.  If you turn off Show All Music, you will only see music on your phone and nothing else. 

It took me one night to get match setup which is a lot shorter then the experiences I heard with Amazon’s Cloud Locker.  Match only needs to upload songs that it does not have have.

I had some issues with Album art displaying on my phone.  This kind of resolved itself over a couple of days.

Match is really separate from iCloud which confused me.  I thought when I started using iCloud match was include, but it is really a separate service.   

Match works on your Apple TV, so it does not need to see a computer to play music. 

Christmas Cards

As we get ready for our 2011 Christmas Card, thought it would be fun to look at the past years cards.

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

Boomerang

I listened to the Audio version of this book.

Michael Lewis is the author of the Liar’s Poker,  The Blindside, Money Ball, and The Big Short.  In his newest book, Boomerang,  he writes about the financial collapse of Iceland, Ireland, and Greece, and the debate in Germany on why the citizens of that country should literally pay for the mistakes of others.  At the end of the book he comes back to America to look at the insolvency of various cities and municipalities and tries to answer the question on what is it about the American Character that allows this to happen.

It’s a great book.

Most of the book comes from articles Michael wrote for Vanity Fair.  You can read most of them here: http://www.vanityfair.com/contributors/michael-lewis

Standup Desk Revisited

I have been using the Standup Desk for 3 months now.  I added a Dual Monitor Stand and screwed the base into the the 2 laptop stands supporting the desk.  The first month was hard, I am pretty used to standing up all day.  It no longer effects my workouts at night.  However, by the time it hits 5pm,  I go home.  In a regular desk,  I would always work later.  At 5pm my legs start to hurt.  Therefore with the standing desk you can only put it about a 9 hour day standing up. 

I like it better then sitting and am more productive.  I will not go back to a sitting desk. 

Previous Post: The Commando 450 Stand Up Desk

Questions and Answers about Spotify

Do I need and Invite?

No if you want to fork over $4.99 you can join right now.  Spotify has been available in Europe, it just became available in the US. 

How much does it cost?

Premium is $9.99,  Unlimited is $4.99.  I got the Premium because it allows offline syncing to the iPhone and PC and has better bit rates. 

What sort of Music is available on Spotify?

Almost everything I could want.  They have Trombone Shorty but no Kermit Ruffins.  I just downloaded the new Foo Fighters,  Mumford and Sons and Muse.

Does Spotify Suck as much as ITunes?

No,  it uses less memory and plays songs faster.  It did crash a couple of times when I first starting using it, but I was importing a large amount of data into ITunes and on my Iphone.  I also made sure to exclude it from Virus Scanning.

Will Spotify Replace Pandora?

I don’t think so.  I will still use Pandora to find new music. 

Can Spotify play Music that has DRM?

No, You will need to un-drm it.  You can either burn to a CD and reimport or use ITunes Plus to un-drm it.  In the Itunes Store, it is under Quick Links.  It cost $0.30 a song to un-drm it and gives you a better bit quality.  This would only come up if you had bought music that is not is Spotify’s catalogue.

Will Spotify Wirelessly Sync music that you have that it does not have?

Yes, it will, unless the music has DRM.  If it does see the question above.  This has got to be one of the best features.  No more wired Sync and no need to open up Itunes to Sync

Will Spotify work in iPhone Apps like Nike Plus, Alarm Clock, ect?

No, Spotify does not use the internal Iphone Music, therefore you can not use spotify tracks with apps  Hopefully Spotify becomes really popular and this changes.

Will Spotify work with an FM modulator for your car, or a dock to a stereo system?

Yes

Are the Beatles on Spotify?

No, but the Beatles are the most money grubbing, corporate, greedy, establishment, fascist band in the entire world.  Imagine a world that when ever you mention the Beatles in conversation, you would have to pay them Royalties.  It is easy if you try.  

How does Spotify make any money?

No clue, it does seem to good to be true. 

Can I completely Replace Itunes?

Almost.  I wont use Itunes anymore to listen to music on my computer, instead I will use Spotify.  I will still need to sync some songs, like my DJay Playlists and Running Playlists to use with Apps on my Iphone. 

Can I stream it to my Apple TV or Roku?

Not yet, but I jail broke my apple tv and there seems to be some convoluted way of getting it to work.  I am hoping that Roku adds something official.