ITunes' dessert bar

Can you summarize/clarify all the iTunes and iCloud relationships? I have thousands of songs on my Mac and as well own both an iPhone and iPad. What are my choices?

Very complex item like a computer seem simple to use

One aspect of Apple's success has been its ability to make a very complex item like a computer seem simple to use and easy to understand for both consumer and professional clients. Nevertheless, with the iTunes application, Apple has created more of the famous Winchester house of additional wings of extreme complexity and many ways to view it. Prior Mac 411 articles in a few words introduced the options that were to become available this fall. Let's update and expand.

For years, Apple's iTunes Store sold song tracks and albums that were subject to DRM restrictions and only 128 Kbps in quality. DRM restricts the ability to copy and share. In 2007 Apple announced iTunes Plus that offered DRM free tracks. DRM restricted tracks are after all offered.

If you purchase a new song from the iTunes Store via your Mac or iDevice this new service automatically pushes a copy of the song to all devices using the same Apple ID. You do/did have to select the song from a listing of songs to initiate the download. Buy a song on your iPhone and it would show in iTunes in your MacBook Pro afterwards confirming the download.

On Nov. 14, Apple moved iTunes Match from beta to released status together iTunes version 10.5.1 became available. Neither iTunes in the Cloud nor iTunes Match require the Lion-only iCloud subscription. They work in Leopard, Snow Leopard or Lion. There is an annual $24.99 fee for iTunes Match services in other words billed to the Apple ID account you use at the iTunes Store.

The iTunes Store has more than 20 million song tracks in its library. Even if you didn't purchase all your song tracks from the iTunes Store it is likely that most of the songs in your library are as well in Apple's library. That track of "Blue Moon" that you digitized from a Stan Kenton CD "23 degrees North, 82 degrees West" is probably at Apple as well. And like as not in better recording quality than you used. The recording of your daughter's piano playing isn't. iTunes Match examines your iTunes library; it at that time uploads to the Match server only those songs that aren't in the Apple library.

Your entire iTunes song library is now in your Match account either as 'matched' to existing Apple songs or as uploaded songs unparalleled to you. As late as this you can activate the iPhone, iPad or Touch that uses the same Apple ID as your computer.

Any and all of the songs in the Match server can be downloaded to the iDevice. The download takes place over your Wi-Fi service. You need to watch that you don't try to download more than your iDevice can store. Playlists can be shared among your devices. You can work with up to 10 devices.

The iTunes Plus service

You can as well skip the iTunes Plus service. Any song track that matches to an Apple song can be replaced, at no cost, by deleting the DRM restricted copy on your computer and down loading a fresh, DRM free 256 Kbps version. Similarly you can upgrade any songs that you digitized with DRM free, 256 Kbps versions from Apple. Good news, any custom information that has been added to songs in your library is retained afterwards the download.