Apple today introduced iCloud. Alongside the other features of the free service, Apple announced iTunes in the Cloud, which is free for songs purchased from iTunes. An optional feature of iTunes in the Cloud, called iTunes Match, is a $24.99/year service that extends the same cloud-based services to music that you rip from CDs.
So, to dial back the scope and take a look at the broader image, iCloud is a new cloud-based initiative from Apple, that will backup and sync a myriad (backups, documents, music, photos, etc) of information from all of your devices including Macs, iPod touch, iPhones and iPads. iTunes in the Cloud, a feature of iCloud, will store, and sync all of your music purchased via iTunes to all of your devices.
If you have a lot of music that you had purchased from, say, CDs, Apple with iTunes Match, will scan your hard drive and match the song to content they have stored on the cloud, and replace it with a 256Kbps AAC file, and sync that file to all of your devices.
That flat rate of $24.99, will cover any number of songs. However, it’s still unclear as to whether a user will have to continue to pay for the service to keep their ripped music on the cloud, or if they quit paying, the content disappears- like a subscription service. iTunes Match will launch this fall, presumably alongside iOS 5, with the rest of the iCloud service. We’ll let you know as soon as we find out.
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