Hi all,
I'm a 59 yo kid who lives in Philly. I have had a Mac pro for 4 years, an iPhone for 3 years and an iPod forever. I want to use the iPad predominately as an e reader and music source, at least at first.
I have nearly 60,000 songs in my iTunes library. iTunes match won't work for me. In the future will I be able to
select which 25,000 songs I can upload? If I am unable to use iTunes match a big chunk of my rationale for an iPad goes out the window. Then I may save myself several hundred dollars and get a kindle.
Thanks for any advice you may have.
Welcome to the forum! With respect to your question, as you've found the iTunes Match service is limited to an iTunes library of 25,000 songs or less - that have NOT been purchased through iTunes. iTunes purchases are not included in that total. No one knows if Apple will change the limit of personal songs or add the ability to toggle which songs you want to match, only time will tell. My guess is that for for the $2/mo. iTunes Match fee neither of those will be an option, but you never know.
Folks with large libraries have found a workaround by splitting up their large iTunes libraries into two or more and then associating just the one library with < 25,001 songs to iTunes Match. Personally I've never found the need to have my entire iTunes library available on my iPad or iPhone, but I guess I can see where someone might. So if that's the case and you have to have all 60,000 songs available on an iPad, then I'm afraid you'll be disappointed, at least for now.
Having said that keep in mind that you don't have to use iTunes Match to have a great deal of music on an iPad. On it's own a 64GB iPad can carry between 7,000 and 15,000 songs depending of course on the song's bit rate. I've created a "hybrid" iTunes Match on my iPad and iPhone by syncing Smart Playlists that include all of the music I want permanently and having access to the rest of my iTunes library - which is under 25,000 songs - via iTunes Match. It works quite well for me, but again, if your have to have everything available, it may not for you.
Hope that helps and in the meantime there are a lot of great people here willing to lend a hand anytime. Often using the Advanced Search box (at the top of every page) will lead you to the answers you're looking for. If not, feel free to post a question in the appropriate area.
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BTW, I moved your post to the iTunes Match area where you’re likely to get a better response to your question.
Welcome again and enjoy!