Lesson 6. Using iTunes Match with Your Music

In this lesson, you learn how to use iTunes Match to make your music available from the cloud so you can stream it to your iOS devices and computers.

Understanding iTunes Match

iTunes Match puts all of the music in your iTunes Library on the cloud so you can download and stream that music to your devices over the Internet. This makes your music available to you wherever you are (assuming you have an Internet connection in that location, of course). iTunes Match works for all the music in your Library, not just for music you’ve purchased from the iTunes Store (which, as you learned in Lesson 5, “Using iCloud with Your iTunes Music, Apps, and Books,” you can download directly to any of your devices at any time). For example, if you’ve imported music from a CD into your Library instead of buying that music in the iTunes Store, you can download it to your device just as easily as if you had purchased it in the iTunes Store. This eliminates the need to sync your music on your devices because you always have the music you want to hear at any point in time; you always see all the music in your iTunes Library on all the devices that are configured to use iTunes Match. If music you want to hear isn’t currently stored on your device, you just tap the Download button and when the music starts to download, it also starts to play.