mangosquash

This post really could be called “All Apple Cloud Services: Work Better”, but I don’t have time to write that right now.

So iTunes 11 is allegedly coming out soon and before I upgraded, I wanted to get my iTunes library under iTunes Match’s 25,000 song limit so that everything would be working properly again. This is something that I have to do about every month. It sucks and it seems completely unnecessary. It also is never as easy as just deleting songs and pressing “Update iTunes Match”. I have to come up with wacky workarounds every time to make it work. Workarounds such as:

1) Delete the songs from the magical iTunes Match cloud on your MacBook Air because your main computer can’t connect to iTunes Match.
2) Turn off iTunes Match, Update Genius Results, and turn iTunes Match back on

3) Just wait a couple weeks and hope it works then.

These solutions suck. This system sucks. Here’s what should happen: iTunes should say “You’ve exceeded your 25,000 song limit. Would you like to purchase an additional 25,000 songs of space for an additional $20/year?” I’d click yes, and I’d pay $40/year instead of $20/year and I’d never have to worry about the problem again.

Instead, I end up with these stupid problems and spend hours finding songs to delete and Googling how to fix my problems.

Of course there are alternatives: Google Music, Amazon Music, Dropbox. I use all of these things. But they don’t make sense for me. Here’s why iTunes Match is the best solution for my problems, and why I need it to work better:

1) My Macbook Air: It only has 120 GB of storage. My iTunes Library currently runs me at around 138GB. iTunes Match (theoretically) allows me access to all of my music and all of my playlists for none of the space within the iTunes client. While iTunes isn’t the best software, even on a Mac, it is still better than any browser-based solution I’ve used

2) My iPad and my iPhone: Kind of like the Macbook Air scenario, but replace 120 GB with 16 GB. And the browser/app alternatives are even worse in this scenario. Also my car stereo has built in USB integration which allows me to navigate my iPhone/iPad music libraries from the dashboard. I can’t do that if I’m using an alternative software.

So anyway, to end this serious “I feel entitled to services I can’t comprehend or understand” rant, I just want to say: I’ve considered the alternatives. They don’t work for me. I want iTunes Match to work better.

This entry was posted on November 29, 2012 at 10:44 am and is filed under Technology.