While Apple launched iOS 5 and iCloud last week, the company pushed back the debut of its paid iTunes Match service in the United States until the "end of October". While iTunes Match had been in beta testing with iTunes 10.5 developer releases, the feature was removed from the public release and instead folded into an iTunes 10.5.1 beta that will presumably debut alongside the service.
Apple appears to be moving closer to a launch of iTunes Match in the United States, as the Music section of the Settings app in iOS 5 has now gained a toggle for turning iTunes Match on and off. That toggle had been present for developers testing the service, but had disappeared in recent days for many developers. The toggle now appears to have returned for developers and is visible to the general public as well.
iOS 5 Music settings before (left) and after (right) addition of iTunes Match toggle
Non-developers turning on iTunes Match on their devices will not yet be able to sign up for the $24.99/year service, as iOS 5 pops up an alert instructing users to sign up through iTunes.
With iTunes 10.5.1 not yet available to the general public, signups for iTunes Match are similarly not yet functional. Apple is, however, advertising the service as "coming soon" on the front page of the iTunes Store. Interestingly, iTunes Match is reportedly only launching in the United States by the end of the month with other countries set to come later, but Apple is optimistic enough about the service's international timeline that the "coming soon" flag is showing for users in a number of other countries. So far today we have received reports of the "coming soon" flag from users in Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.
iTunes Match will allow users to have their music libraries matched to Apple's database of over 20 million tracks in the iTunes Store, making those songs available for use on any iCloud-enabled device associated with the user's accounts. Songs not available in the iTunes Store can be uploaded to Apple's servers and also made available across devices.
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices.
Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025:
Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
Wednesday March 26, 2025 4:53 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple regularly refreshes the MacBook Pro models, and a new version that uses M5 series chips is in the works. Apple just finished refreshing most of the Mac lineup with M4 chips, and now it's time for the M5. Rumors suggest that we could see the first M5 MacBook Pro models this fall.
Design
There have been no rumors of a design update for the M5 MacBook Pro models that are coming this...
Wednesday March 26, 2025 12:19 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple is going all out with promotions for the popular Severance Apple TV+ show today, and as of right now, you'll find a new "Lumon Terminal Pro" listed on Apple's Mac site.
The Lumon Terminal Pro is designed to look similar to the machines that Severance employees like Mark S. and Helly R. use for macrodata refinement. The Terminal features a blue keyboard, a small display with wide...
Thursday March 27, 2025 1:59 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
In the mid-to-late 2000s, Facebook was all about staying connected with friends and family. However, as the social media platform added new features and grew over time, that core experience began to get drowned out.
That changes starting now, according to Meta, which today introduced a new feature that will "bring back the joy" of classic Facebook.
Specifically, Meta has redesigned the...
Apple is expected to release iOS 18.4 to the general public as soon as next week, following more than a month of beta testing.
Apple's website says some iOS 18.4 features will be released in "early April," so the update should be out as early as Tuesday, April 1.
Apple this week seeded the iOS 18.4 Release Candidate, which is typically the final beta version, barring the discovery of any...
Wednesday March 26, 2025 4:06 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Update 7:25 pm: Based on comments from our forums, it appears the original Weibo post may have been mistranslated and "8K" actually refers to the high price of the device rather than 8K video recording capabilities. The iPhone 16 Pro currently starts at 7,999 yuan in China.
Our original article follows below.
Apple's forthcoming iPhone 17 Pro models are capable of shooting 8K video, up...
With the second release candidate of iOS 18.4 that Apple seeded out today, the company finally provided us with release notes that give a full rundown on what to expect.
There's an Apple Vision Pro app, new Apple Intelligence features for notifications and additional language support, plus an Apple News Food feature for Apple News+ subscribers, and several updates that should improve the...
Thursday March 27, 2025 7:45 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
The upcoming iOS 18.4 update for the iPhone adds an Ambient Music feature to Control Center. Below, we take a closer look at how it works.
iOS 18.4 is currently in beta, so the Ambient Music feature is not widely available yet. The update will likely be released to the general public next week.
To use the feature on iOS 18.4, open Control Center and tap on the plus sign in the top-left...
Thursday March 27, 2025 4:21 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Last week, we covered a report claiming that Apple's book-style foldable iPhone (or "iPhone Fold," as we are provisionally calling it here) will use liquid metal hinges to improve durability and help minimize screen creasing. Today, a Chinese leaker provided more details on the properties of this hinge material that help to clarify why Apple chose it for its first foldable device.
According...
Hopefully it goes without saying, but please backup your music before enabling Match. That way if something goes south, you'll always have your original files.
This message was brought to you by common sense in conjunction with foresight. :)
Still hoping for a way to "test my library" first before signing up. Why pay if only 1/3 of my music can be matched?
Taken from Apple's website.
Here’s how it works: iTunes determines which songs in your collection are available in the iTunes Store. Any music with a match is automatically added to your iCloud library for you to listen to anytime, on any device. Since there are more than 19 million songs in the iTunes Store, chances are, your music is already in iCloud. 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.
I apologize if this has already been answered, but I have yet to see a definitive answer:
What if I only pay once? Will all of the matched songs still be available once the year is over? Once a song is matched is it always matched? To download to a new computer, for example?
$25 per year to keep my entire music library safe and upgrade all (or most) of the tracks to higher quality is a no-brainer.
Remember when you had to pay an additional $0.30 per song (at least, I think that's what it was) to upgrade the quality, and that only covered songs you purchased through iTunes? If you have thousands of songs to be upgraded, the cost comparison is pretty silly.
