Apple Music vs iTunes Match: What’s the difference?

If you want to listen to some music and want music streaming form your Mac’s music collection on your iOS device, you would wonder about the subscription in the Music app. But before taking up the subscription, you need to know about what you are getting yourself into. Here is Apple Music vs iTunes Match: Everything you need to know about these services. We have listed everything both these services offer you.

Apple Music: Apple Music vs iTunes Match

In Apple Music, you get full access to its music streaming catalogue. You get this on all of your devices, at $9.99/month (or $14.99/month for a family plan). You can play any song from the Apple Music catalogue, even if they don’t own it. Also, you get two customized playlists delivered each week, a New Music Mix, Favorites Mix, Friends Mix, and Chill Mix. Each of these playlists is based on your taste and the type os songs you mostly play. Moreover, you get different daily playlist suggestions specially put together by Apple’s music curators.

In addition, users can listen to Beats 1, Apple’s 24/7 internet radio station, and play back-catalogue episodes of Beats 1’s various programmed shows. Even if you are not a subscriber, you can match up to 100,000 songs from your iTunes library to the DRM-free iTunes Store catalogue. You can stream or download these on up to 10 of your other devices. Purchased iTunes content doesn’t count toward that 100,000 song limit.

Different kinds of content stored in iCloud Music Library

• Matched Content: When you buy Styx’s Mr Roboto from Amazon and add those MP3s to your music library, they are “matched” to the Mr Roboto iTunes tracks. Then you can stream the iTunes versions of these tracks on any device, or download them to your other devices.
• Purchased content: When you buy music on iTunes, you can instantly stream it or download it to any device. You won’t need extra time to upload time needed. Moreover, it also doesn’t count toward your 100,000 song limit.
• Uploaded content: When you record any song and add it to your music library, it should be uploaded to iCloud Music Library first and then you can play them or download them on other devices.
• Apple Music content: If you add an Apple Music subscription track (or a playlist) to your music library, that song can now be streamed or downloaded to any of your other devices. It also won’t count toward your 100,000 song limit.

You will find all these contents in the iCloud Music Library. From here you can easily stream or download the tracks until your Apple Music subscription remains active. Moreover, the downloaded tracks will either show up as a 256kbps matched DRM-free AAC file or an AAC-converted file of tracks you uploaded.

Although all these tracks will remain on their various devices and fully playable when you cancel Apple Music subscription. But you’ll lose your ability to stream any non-downloaded matched or uploaded tracks and access iCloud Music Library. Remember that you’ll still be able to stream your purchased content from up to 10 devices.

To save a song to iCloud Music Library, you can choose it from Apple Music’s subscription catalogue. There you can stream and download them, as well as add them to playlists. If you cancel Apple Music, the DRM will render those downloaded songs unplayable, and you’ll no longer be able to stream the subscription tracks. Thus, if you want access to Apple’s subscription streaming library and your music library available across all your devices, subscribe to Apple Music.

What iTunes Match offers?

The biggest difference between Apple Music vs iTunes Match is that iTunes Match has no music subscription aspect whereas Apple Music has. The $24.99 a year cost in iTunes Match is solely for activating and maintaining your iCloud Music Library. In this, you can match up to 100,000 songs from their iTunes library to the DRM-free iTunes Store catalogue. Also, you can stream or download these songs on up to 10 of your other devices.

Moreover, if iTunes Match can’t match a track to a song in the iTunes catalogue, it’ll manually upload it. But the news doesn’t end here, all your purchased iTunes content doesn’t count toward that 100,000 song limit. You also don’t need to upload them because Apple has the track on its servers already.

Different kinds of content stored in iCloud Music Library

• Purchased Content: When you buy music on iTunes, you can instantly stream it or download it to any device. It also doesn’t count toward your 100,000 song limit.
• Matched Content: When you buy Styx’s Mr Roboto from Amazon and add those MP3s to your music library, those recordings are “matched” to the Mr Roboto iTunes tracks. Then you can stream the iTunes versions of these tracks on any device, or download them to your other devices.
• Uploaded content: When you record any song and add it to your music library, it should be uploaded to iCloud Music Library first and then you can play them or download them on other devices.

You will find all these contents in the iCloud Music Library. From here you can easily stream or download the tracks until your Apple Music subscription remains active. Moreover, the downloaded tracks will either show up as a 256kbps matched DRM-free AAC file or an AAC-converted file of tracks other than the Mac or PC from which tracks were uploaded. If you uploaded music in WAV, ALAC, or AIFF formats, then they will remain in those formats on the Mac or PC from which they were uploaded.

If you cancel the subscription, all your downloaded tracks will remain on their various devices and fully playable. Although you can’t stream any non-downloaded tracks or access other iCloud Music Library songs. Thus, if you have other subscriptions (like Spotify) and only need your music library available across all your devices, subscribe to iTunes Match.

Do you need both: Apple Music vs iTunes Match

If you subscribe to Apple Music, you can access more than 50 million songs, ad-free and download them on any supported device. Moreover, you will get full support for iTunes Match. Thus, you can upload up to 100,000 songs from your personal CD or digital library. Although your purchased songs don’t count in the 100,000 song limit.

In Apple Music vs iTunes Match, when you use iTunes Match, Apple uses the iTunes Store’s DRM-free catalogue to “match” the tracks you’ve uploaded. With this, you can add these to your iCloud Music library and listen to them on all your devices. Also, if you don’t find a song in Apple’s iTunes catalogue, it will be uploaded manually instead. Thus, if you subscribe to Apple Music, you don’t need to pay for them both. Moreover, when you cancel your iTunes Match subscription, you just pay for your Apple Music plan. Also, you’ll still get the same excellent cloud storage you’ve had all along.

Conclusion- Apple Music vs iTunes Match

Many users either have a different subscription like Spotify or Google Play Music or don’t want to spend on music subscription service. For them, iTunes Match is a better option. iTunes Match is just $24.99/year, whereas an Apple Music subscription runs you $119.88/year. If you don’t like streaming services and only want on-the-go access to your local music library, iTunes Match is a better choice.

If you have other questions you can ask in the comments section below.