How To: iTunes Match

Learn the ins and outs of iTunes Match. Below is an article I found that helps to explain all of how iTunes Match works.

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2011/11/14/itunes-match-the-complete-walkthrough/

iTunes Match Ultimate Video Walkthrough

The above video highlights most of the major aspects of iTunes Match, along with some of the idiosyncrasies of the service. I highly recommend you watch it to get a good grasp of everything iTunes Match is capable of. It’s quite lengthy, but I didn’t want to spare any of the important details. This video shows you how to check iCloud status, download status, how to use iTunes Match on a separate Mac or PC, how to delete iTunes Match songs from your iOS device, and much, much more.

What is iTunes Match?

iTunes Match can be broken up into 3 separate entities:

Matching
iTunes scans all of the music contained in your iTunes library to see if there is already a version of that song available in the iCloud library. If so, the song is matched, and Apple will let you stream their high quality version on your iPhone, Mac or PC, iPad, iPod touch, or Apple TV. This eliminates the need to upload your music to iCloud, saving bandwidth and precious time. If you listen to a lot of popular music, most of your tunes should be able to be matched.

Uploading
If iTunes can’t find a version of your song on iCloud, it will upload the song to iCloud for you. That way you can play that song on any of your devices that have iTunes Match enabled. The downside of this is that it takes time to upload, and it uses bandwidth. If you listen to a lot of obscure music not found on the iTunes store, then prepare to wait a while to upload. You can compare this portion of iTunes Match to Google Music, which is strictly an upload service at the moment.

Playing
The final aspect of iTunes Match is the ability to play either your matched or uploaded music to any of your iTunes Match enabled devices. That includes Macs, PCs, and iOS devices. This makes it possible to take your entire music library with you on the go.

How Much Does iTunes Match Cost?

iTunes Match costs $24.99 a year. You must install iTunes 10.5.1 or higher to enable iTunes Match. Once iTunes is installed go to Store > Turn On iTunes Match to subscribe. You will be billed against the same account that is used for your Apple ID.

What Are the Requirements for iTunes Match?

You must have an iOS 5 capable device, a Mac or a PC with iTunes 10.5.1, or an Apple TV with the latest firmware. For iPhone’s and iPad 3G’s you can download music while on the go. For iPod Touch, you must have a Wi-Fi connection to download music. You can always download the music you want to hear to your device and listen to it while on the go, you just can’t download it while not connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot.

How Long Does it Take iTunes Match to Match and Upload My Entire Library?

That will depend on how big your library is, and whether or not iTunes can match your content. Matching doesn’t take particularly long, but uploading can be time consuming depending on the amount of songs that need to be uploaded and your upload speed. I have over 5,000 songs and it took at least 8 hours to complete, if not more. Larger libraries will take more time.

How Can I determine Which Songs have been Matched and Which Songs Have Been Uploaded?

Our video walkthrough shows you in-depth how to check your iCloud Status using iTunes. In order to do so, right-click on the sort bar in iTunes, and select “iCloud Status” and “iCloud Download”.

What do the different iCloud Statuses mean, and is There a Limit to the Length or File Size of the uploads?

Here is a screenshot from the official support document from Apple regarding this:

Thanks to The Loop for finding this document.

In addition to that, I’m pretty sure there’s a file length limit imposed as well, though we haven’t pinpointed exactly what that may be just yet.

My Music is Low Quality, How Will iTunes Match Handle That?

Any music that iTunes can match will be matched at 256Kbps AAC DRM-Free quality, even if the bit-rate is of a higher or lower quality.

How Much 3G Data Does iTunes Match Use

This will vary, depending on whether or not your song was uploaded or matched. Generally speaking, if your file meets the 256Kbps bit-rate standard, it will be the exact same size as stored on your local computer. Otherwise, size may vary heavily.

Is There a Limit to How Many Songs I Can Have?

iTunes Match is limited to 25,000 songs. 95% of all users will easily fit within that window.

Does iTunes Match Take Up Space on My iOS Device?

Yes and no. Yes if you decide to download the song by tapping the cloud icon. No if you have not downloaded the song. Just because your Music app shows a song or album doesn’t necessarily mean it’s stored locally on your device. Music isn’t stored locally until you play it and/or download it. See the video walkthrough for more details.

How Do I Delete iTunes Match Music From My iOS Device?

You can delete individual music tracks or delete entire albums by swiping from right to left on an album or individual song.

Why is the Song or Album I Deleted Still Being Displayed on My iOS Device?

By default, iTunes Match displays all of the songs available in your iCloud library, whether they exist on your local device or not. You can make it so it only shows content stored locally on your device by going to the Settings App > Music > and disabling “Show All Music”.

How Do I Play My iCloud Library on Another Mac or PC?

I recommend starting with a completely empty library on the second computer. That’s because iTunes Match will insist on using that computer’s library as a basis for iCloud matching and uploads. To cut down on any confusion, I suggests using an iTunes installation with an empty library. This way you can use your Mac or PC’s iTunes installation as if it were an iOS device.

Ensure iTunes 10.5.1 or higher is installed on the computer and go to Store > Turn On iTunes Match. Enter your Apple ID and Password, and you will receive a dialogue box that say “iTunes Match is matching a library from another computer.” Click “Match this computer”. iTunes Match only allows for one library to be matched at a time, that’s why I suggest starting with an empty library. You will then be able to access all of your iCloud Music library on the secondary computer. I recommend not adding any music to this computer, and using it strictly as a “jukebox” device. Please see the video walkthrough for more details.

How Many Devices Can Use a Particular iTunes Match Account?

Each account is limited to 10 devices.

Does iTunes Match Stream?

That’s still up for debate, but evidence suggests that Apple is streaming in some fashion, especially on a desktop computer. See our video walkthrough for more details.

How Does Shuffle Work With iTunes Match

Pretty awesomely. It will shuffle all music contained in your iTunes library, including music that hasn’t downloaded. iTunes Match gives you the ability to shuffle songs from your entire iTunes library while on the go as long as you have an Internet connection.

How do I Resync iTunes Match When I Add More Music to My Library?

Go to: Store > Update iTunes Match.

Keyboard Shortcuts on the iPad or iPhone

The current breed of iDevices (iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad) share an almost similar on-screen virtual keyboard and therefore, you just have to master a common set of keyboard shortcuts to type a little faster on any these devices.

Let’s quickly recap the 10 most useful typing shortcuts for your iDevice:.

Tip #1: If you want to type special characters with accent marks (like the letter à or è), simply tap and hold the corresponding alphabet key for a while and it will pop-up a list of related accented characters for you to choose from. Don’t release the key before making a selection else the choice will disappear.

Tip #2: If you are typing a line of text in, say, an email message, simple tap the space bar on the keyboard twice and it will automatically insert a dot (or period) followed by a space. The next alphabet that you type will be written in uppercase without you having to press the Shift key.

Tip #3:  The iPhone keyboard is pretty smart at adding apostrophes. For instance, if you need to type “doesn’t”, just forget the apostrophe and quickly type “doesnt” – the keyboard will automatically insert the apostrophe at the appropriate place.

Tip #4: The numeric keyboard shows the dollar ($) symbol by default. However, if you need to type the Pound or the Euro currency symbol, just hold the $ key and you’ll see a list of alternative symbols in a pop-up.

Tip #5: There are two ways in which you can insert the degree symbol in your text. Either switch to the numeric keyboard and hold the ‘0’ key or, if you using the regular ABC keyboard, hold the ‘O’ key (that’s the alphabet O).

Tip #6: If you want to change the style of quotation marks or if you need to use a longer dash punctuation mark instead of the default hyphen, hold the corresponding key as show in the above screenshot.

Tip #7: Typing everything in all caps is often considered rude but there can be instances where you may have to type two or more consecutive characters in uppercase (e.g., UNESCO or QWERTY).

In the default setting, you’ll to have to tap the Shift key after typing every single character or you can “Enable Caps Lock” under Settings –> General –> Keyboard and then double-tap the shift key to turn it into a Caps lock key. They will stay blue until you press one of them again.

Tip #8: When you are typing a website URL in the address bar of the Safari browser, there’s a special “.com” key in the keyboard that you can tap to quickly complete the web address.

However, if the website that you are trying to reach doesn’t end with a .com, you can still use that key. Just hold it for a while and it will give you an option to choose other popular TLDs including .edu, .org and .net.

Tip #9: Just like the .com key in Safari lets you type domain URLs quickly, there’s something similar in the Mail program of the iPhone /iPad that will help you complete email addresses quickly.

When typing an email address in the To: or CC /BCC field of the Mail program, press and hold the dot (.) key and you’ll get a list of domain shortcuts in a pop-up to auto-complete the email address (you’ll essentially save 3 key strokes).

Tip #10: This is another useful but undocumented keyboard trick that will help you quickly switch between numerical and alphabetical keyboards (video demo).

Let’s say you are typing a document and need to insert an email address in your text. Now the “@” symbol is not available on the default “ABC” keyboard so you’ll first have to switch to the numeric keyboard (?123), tap “@” and then again switch to ABC mode.

That’s like making three keystrokes for typing one key. To simplify, just press the ?123 key, slide the finger to reach the “@” key and then lift the finger up to release the key.

You can use the trick to type numbers, punctuations marks, currency symbols and all other characters that're found only on the numerical keypad of your iPhone or iPad.

iOS Feature Alert - Create Keyword Shortcuts

"Keyboard shortcuts" is one of the more notable of the over 200 new features in iOS 5, the latest mobile operating system from Apple that is available for download now. These keyboard shortcuts work kind of like an intentional auto-correct: You can designate certain abbreviations and acronyms for "text expansion"; when you type these abbreviations into an email, text message or note, they automatically lengthen into the longer, designated phrase.

So, for example, one keyboard shortcut that comes preloaded with iOS 5 is "omw" for "On my way!" If you type "omw" into any field that accepts text on the iPhone, iPad or iPad Touch, it automatically "corrects" to "On my way!" after you press the space bar:

Very easy and intuitive.

USING KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

Keyboard shortcuts can be incredibly useful: I've set up "gml" as a shortcut for my long Gmail address, "huffml" as a shortcut for my even longer HuffPost email address, "bti10" for "Be there in 10 minutes" and, of course, "hpt" for "http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tech" for use in my web browser. Lifehacker has also compiled a good list of suggested keyboard shortcuts that can help you save time and some pain in your fingers, and keyboard shortcuts are totally customizable to expand into whatever phrases you want them to.

To enable these keyboard shortcuts and get to time-saving:

1. Click on your "Settings" icon.
2. Click on "General." 
3. Click "Keyboard." 
4. At the bottom of the "Keyboard" section, click "Add New Shortcut..." 
5. Type the shortcut abbreviation in the "Shortcut" field, and what you want the shortcut to expand to in the "Phrase" field. 
6. Click "Save."

Here's the setup and utility of keyboard shortcuts in one screen. The "Add New Shortcut..." setup screen on the left, and what a created keyboard shortcut looks like in action is on the right:

Pretty nifty, huh?

Source:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/14/ios-5-keyboard-shortcuts_n_1011400.html