Apple has missed iTunes Match launch date
Did you notice this morning that it was November 1st? Did you also notice that iTunes Match isn't working yet? Yep, Apple missed a deadline date, having "promised" that the new iTunes service would be available "by the end of October." That date was set at the October 4, 2011 "Let's Talk iPhone" event by Apple's Senior VP of Internet Software and Services, Eddy Cue.
iTunes Match is a US$24.99 annual feature that scans your iTunes library for titles, matches them with copies in the cloud, and then offers you the best possible recording to replace whatever copy you may currently have in iTunes. It acts as kind of an "online music locker" to store high-quality renditions of any music you may currently own.
The feature has been in wide use by developers, who were asked last week to make sure that they turned off iTunes Match on their various devices before October 27th as the cloud data was going to be wiped. In addition, the beta version of iTunes 10.5.1 that contained iTunes Match expired yesterday, which was a bit of a shock to some developers who weren't happy about having to revert to an earlier version of iTunes.
The service appears to be close to launch, as retail staff have been instructed in how to use iTunes Match, but they definitely missed the month of October as a deadline. As one commenter at The Loop noted, "Did they say what year?" Let's hope we don't have to wait that long for iTunes Match to finally make it to our devices.
