iMatch and iCloud

Has anyone heard of this new iTunes digital internet music backup service ?

You sign up for a �21-ish per year subscription, iTunes scans your library and matches anything it can with the iTunes store, uploads anything else it can�t match (artwork, metadata and all). You can download all your uploads and the iTunes store versions of the matches, even if they are a higher bitrate. (This obviously takes a few hours if your library is massive, I myself at the time of writing am still in the process of uploading)

Then it synch it to all the apple products you own. This seems like a pretty handy back up option for someone with a massive iTunes library.

It also puts a little cloud logo beside the music column on the sidebar of the iTunes programme, adds a check box for cloud status in the music section (in the same way you already have a check box for whether you want that track to be included in synchs and shuffles) If you downloaded anything off of iTunes store before it puts a little cloud beside that albums title in the arrange albums with artwork grid. Oh, and it causes iTunes Genius to activate if you hadn�t already� I hadn�t bothered synching for Genius since getting a new computer, but it happened automatically when I sent the info for this service .

I have written at length before about how I format my iTunes in a very specific way, eg. albums named with a prefix of �01,� �02,� �03′ etc so that they are still chronologically arranged even when the iTunes programme or iPod tries to arrange them alphabetically.

This may or may not throw a spanner in the works of the value of the service to me.

The service also seems to re-download all your old iTunes purchases, (before the uploading stage is even complete.) Eg, I had renamed a Serj Tankian B-side �Fears*� and put it in the �02 Imperfect Harmonies� album as track 15� this kept that and also downloaded �Fears� as track one of the �Fears-Single� album

Although with Anvil�s �01 Monument Of Metal� it just outright swapped it to �Monument of Metal� and changed all the track�s titles so songs with capitalized things like �OF THE� went back to un-caitalized �of the� status etc�. perhaps because I hadn�t remember to use the �create mp3 version� that I usually do to ensure that files stay fitting in with my scheme of changes.

(If anyone is similarly picky, I�d �create mp3 version� everything again before signing up, just to be safe)

My Library after signing up, note the cloud logos, and unformatted re-downloads.

There was a size limit, I forget how much, but my library is about 80gigs and that fit fine so it must be gigantic.

When the process is finished I am going to use the �sort artist� function to move all the re-downloads that don�t conform to my specific finnicky formatting rules, move them to the very bottom of the library and out of my sight by changing their sort artist tag to �zzzzzzz iCloud downloads� or something similar.