I am loving the idea of a feature of iTunes in the Cloud… iCloud stores your purchase history. With this feature you can re-download any previously purchased song. My sons have downloaded countless songs over the years… and they did this all on my account.
So… I can download all the “cool” songs my sons have bought. Will this make me cool, listening to all this hip, new music? Probably not… after all, who uses the word hip anymore.
I am a little stoked about the iTunes Match feature. This will allow you to have iTunes look at all your songs… and it will add any songs it finds to your iCloud library, even if the source of the song was of questionable origins. This is a paid service, so you will have to cough up $24.99 per year. When you use this service iTunes will replace your music with 256-Kbps AAC DRM-free version from its own catalog.
For people who have acquired music in an unethical manner, this could be looked upon as an amnesty program. Pay the $25 for one year… and after you have downloaded all the songs form iTunes just delete the old copies. You are instantly legal. Then drop the service.
I am sure that I am not the first to think of this, and I am sure that not many people will do it either. Think about it… you would be replacing open MP3 files with proprietary AAC files. Although they are DRM-free, they are still AAC files. Essentially you would be locking yourself into Apple’s eco-system. This would not be worthwhile as I am still using my Zune HD. However, if/when I get an iPhone this is looking like a way for me to get my entire library in a consistent format.
Since I am in the market for a new phone… I have a couple of hard decisions to make.
I’ll keep you posted.
