While Apple revealed as part of its notes on the new iTunes 10.5.1 beta 2 released earlier today that iTunes Match is now available for testing on Apple TV, the option is appearing not just for developers but also for regular users. The general public is unable to activate the feature, however, as subscriptions to iTunes Match must be initiated through iTunes 10.5.1, which has yet to see a public release.
The second-generation Apple TV has lacked a "Music" section on its main menu page because Apple has not offered any streaming music services, although users are currently able to stream music content from their computers via Home Sharing in iTunes. That option is accessed through the "Computers" section on the main menu page.
Thursday January 23, 2025 6:41 am PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 18.3 should be released to the public next week, following beta testing since mid-December. While the software update is a relatively minor one, it still includes a handful of new features, changes, and bug fixes for iPhones.
Below, we recap everything new in iOS 18.3.
Notification Summary Changes
Examples of inaccurate Apple Intelligence notification summaries
Apple Intelligence...
Friday January 24, 2025 1:55 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is set to release iOS 18.3 next week, bringing further refinements to Apple Intelligence features, a couple of neat new capabilities to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 devices, and bug fixes.
While not quite as packed with new features as Apple's preceding iOS 18 point releases, iOS 18.3 still introduces capabilities that aim to make your iPhone smarter and more intuitive. Below, we've...
Friday January 24, 2025 8:16 am PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 18.3 is expected to be widely released next week, and that means the first iOS 18.4 beta for iPhones should be just around the corner.
Apple has previously implied that iOS 18.4 will be released in April, as that is when it promised to make Apple Intelligence available in even more languages.
Below, we outline what to expect from iOS 18.4 so far.
Apple Intelligence for Siri
Siri ...
Thursday January 23, 2025 7:32 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Walmart still does not accept Apple Pay or other NFC payments at its more than 4,600 stores across the U.S., and it stood firm on its reasoning for that today.
A spokesperson for Walmart today informed MacRumors that its position on contactless payments has not changed since we last reached out about the matter in 2022. The big-box retailer said it remains focused on its own convenient...
Wednesday January 22, 2025 6:01 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
A new Apple TV is expected to be released later this year. In this article, we recap rumored features and changes for the device.
The next Apple TV will be equipped with Apple's own combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He said the chip supports Wi-Fi 6E, which would be an upgrade over the current Apple TV's standard Wi-Fi 6 support. Wi-Fi 6E extends the...
Tuesday January 21, 2025 4:31 pm PST by Juli Clover
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 18.3 today, and with it comes release notes confirming what's new. While we knew about several of the features that are in the update, there are some lesser known tweaks and bug fixes.
The update adds new Visual Intelligence features for iPhone 16 models, it tweaks Notification summaries on all...
Friday January 24, 2025 9:09 am PST by Juli Clover
The upcoming iPhone 17 models that Apple plans to release this year will not feature a smaller Dynamic Island, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said today.
On social media, he said that he is expecting the size of the Dynamic Island to remain "largely unchanged" across the iPhone 17 lineup. His statement is contrary to prior rumors that we've heard about planned changes for the iPhone 17 models.
...
Saturday January 25, 2025 5:07 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple's retail stores will be rolling out "merchandise/floor marketing updates" next week, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Gurman did not explicitly say if the store updates are related to any upcoming product announcements, but he did mention that next week is around the time that Apple rolls out its annual Black Unity watch band for the Apple Watch.
In each of the past four years, ...
Thursday January 23, 2025 2:48 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
It's also time for Apple's first product announcement of the year.
Last year, Apple said it would be launching Powerbeats Pro 2 in 2025, and the wireless earbuds are expected to launch very soon.
Powerbeats Pro 2 images found in iOS 18 code
In his Power On newsletter last weekend, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the Powerbeats Pro 2 are "due imminently." In addition to Apple filing the...
The best thing about iTunes Match on the AppleTV is it shows that Apple is not afraid to allow the service to stream music without requiring it to also download the music at the same time. While technically it streams to iOS devices just fine, it also downloads the music in the background, preventing you from using it as a stream-only service.
I think it just hints that you may be able to have other things streaming to the ATV (and other devices) "from the cloud" - IE movies and TV shows.
I think it just hints that you may be able to have other things streaming to the ATV (and other devices) "from the cloud" - IE movies and TV shows.
One could only hope.
Apple certainly wants to do it, but it's up to the studios, unfortunately. With any luck Steve Jobs taught Tim Cook a thing or two about strongarming suits into doing Apple's bidding.
It seems from what I am reading that with ATV2 and iTunes Match I can stream music from the cloud. If true thats awesome. My question is, my 2011 MBP has a cruddy 320gb HD, I could then conceivably delete all the music from my MBP and choose music from the cloud to my iPhone 4 right? My HD is full, mostly due to movies (iTunes should send me a thank you card lol) so my thought was when this goes live with movies, like it did with TV shows, I could, essentially, dump all the media from my physical drive and let it all come from the cloud.
Am I understanding correctly?
You could conceivably delete all your content but the danger in that is that there is a clause in iTunes Match that says that Apple will only allow you to re-download your music as long as it is still available in iTunes. If the distributer delists it, you're screwed.
A better decision would be to relocate your iTunes library to an external hard drive, disconnect it and store it in a safe place as insurance. Every now and then, update your physical library on the external as you buy new music.
You wouldn't. But they already have a record of the songs that you purchased through iTunes. You should at least be able to access those from your :apple:TV.
Ah, I get it. But if everything is purchased from iTunes (which I guess would be the case if you had iOS devices but never synced them to a computer) you wouldn't need match. It sounds like they just need to add support for listing purchased songs on the aTV if they don't have it already.
Accessed to music purchased through iTunes store is already available and has no extra charge, Match will only be needed for songs you got elsewhere.