Apple introduces iTunes Match

iTunes 10.5.1 is now available, and with it comes iTunes Match, Apple's cloud-based music subscription service, CNN reports.

For $25 a year, Match drops any track consumers purchase from iTunes directly into Apple's iCloud. Songs are saved to the cloud automatically, so there's no need to download the song from iTunes separately on each of their iDevices.

According to The Register, Apple successfully negotiated with music rights holders, who gave it their blessing. Other locker services have either forgotten to do that, or assumed they did not need to - racking up lawyers' fees on both sides.

One serious drawback has been reported: the service erases the music on users' iPods or iPhones so the Apple-server version becomes the canonical library.

In many ways, the service hearkens back to MobileMe, Apple's precursor to iCloud, on which iTunes Match relies, CBS News says. The original pitch for MobileMe was a "(Microsoft) Exchange for the rest of us," offering users a way to keep files, settings and contacts flowing between devices, as long as they were paying the annual fee. Just like Match, it, too, did much of the heavy lifting on Apple's servers in return for staying within Apple's system.

But MobileMe tried to do too much, too fast, and suffered numerous hiccups on its way to stability and utility. This time around, Apple seems to have learned from that lesson, pricing Match at a fourth of what MobileMe cost, and keeping its utility far more specialised. Where MobileMe sought to mix a variety of services together into one, Match is simply a piece of iTunes and iCloud that aims to simplify a particular behaviour.