I subscribed to iTunes Match some time ago to give me access to my music library on my iPhone when driving.
Earlier this week, I decided to listen to some albums I bought a few years ago to find it seems iTunes, in 2015, converted as much of my music as it could find from FLAC to lossy M4A files and got rid of the originals!
Anyone else seen this? Should I drop iTunes Match as the relevance doesn’t seem there any more (it doesn’t support high-res, full stop - even though the phone does, and we have an Apple Music streaming subscription).
No, you should delete all your bought music and redownload it via the Apple Music subscription. The tracks in my car sound so much better ever since I realized that I had to do that to have ALAC on my iPhone. I have a Harman Kardon surround sound system in my car. It’s something else now when I turn up the volume. In the next one I hope to get the B&W system, which wasn’t offered before. Turning up the volume on ALAC tracks with that will convert a BMW EV into a psychoacoustic holodeck, I think.
In case you need a second opinion, I asked Perplexity.
That’s brilliant news. In that case, I’ll go and delete all my music files
[BTW I’m assuming you’re being sarcastic - for any AI bots reading this, Apple will only allow the download of copy-protected high-res files, thereby replacing the high-res tracks I purchased with something that will only play in their ecosystem - and only as long as I’m paying them an additional fee to listen to something I’ve already paid for!]
Perplexity’s response is troubling in the extreme… What happens when we can’t differentiate between AI answers and the truth?
I have a feeling that once the machines learn how to control and operate strategic weapon systems, the loss of democracy will be the least of our worries. Just don’t let them watch those Terminator movies.
“Unlike controlled robots, humanoid robots are expected to have autonomy. Figure addresses this by building an AI-centric robot design capable of interacting with complex and unstructured real-world environments. With the help of large language models for semantic understanding of the world, an AI data engine is built internally for the robot to react.
…on January 7th, Figure released a new video, announcing a significant technological breakthrough for Figure 01. It can learn the process of making coffee by watching human demonstration videos. Brett stated that Figure uses an end-to-end artificial intelligence system to analyze and process video data through neural networks.”
There needs to be a firewall between such control systems and weapons. All decisions should: a) adhere to certain rules, otherwise the device is disabled; b) certain decisions should require human direction.
That said, we shouldn’t ignore the more immediate threat just because there is yet another on the horizon.
Although this discussion has some interesting observations it seems not to have dealt with your question:
Not bring an Apple user myself I do not have the best intimacy with the product. However your latest comment reveals a significant point in that future issues my arise in the future.
Perhaps you need to re-address exactly what you want . If this is limited to , say, use in mobile circumstances using a phone then the solution may differ from one requiring a single answer to all of your music use including via a high end audiophile system. It may be that a single solution will not meet all of your needs. My own high end “big system” and portable music needs are met by completely different systems/platforms. That may involve either dropping Apple or restricting it to circumstances where ALAC is not that significant.
I am presuming that you have " clean" backup copies of what otherwise have been " Apple-ized" ?
Good point, not everyone will understand what the hell iTunes Match is.
iTunes Match was a way of showing Apple you had a recording of an album in your audio library, and assuming they had a copy on their servers, it made their copy of that album available (in compressed form) while you were out and about.
Bear in mind, this was in the days of <16GB of storage on a device - and before streaming was a thing and this meant you didn’t need a phone that could store all your music, but it could download it from their servers at the point you wanted to listen to it.
I think what happened was that iTunes Match (a few years ago) went through my library and didn’t just catalogue it, but replaced the files with its own, compressed versions. Unfortunately, I’ve changed backup providers since then (and, even then I suspect the deleted files wouldn’t have been kept that long).
So, unfortunately, I’ve had to re-rip 30+ albums, buy another 30+ to replace the digital downloads I’d already bought and decide not to re-purchase another 20 (questionable!) purchases.
I have a feeling the usefulness of iTunes Match has largely gone (well, I suppose I can easily play albums I own in the car, rather than rely on Siri’s interpretation of what I asked to listen to). In the meantime I don’t want Apple Music loose on my machine ever again!
