feature or a problem?

July 21, 2012 12:41 PM

I purchased iTunes match so that'll my songs are both on my hard drive and in the cloud. When syncing my iPhone with computer using a cable, playlists will copy but only the information. Not the actual tracks. I have to download them with wifi. My questions is 2 part 1) is this normal that the media does not actually transfer? 2) if it isn't how do I fix this so that songs transfer from computer to iPhone? I'm up to date on all software.
posted by captainscared to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

This is how iTunes Match is supposed to work. The first time you play a track on your iPhone it downloads it over wifi (or your mobile network, if you enable that option in Settings). You can't manually "pre-copy" files over a physical connection with your computer. So there is no "fix". If you just want to get a large number of tracks onto your iPhone as quickly as possible, you can start an entire playlist/album/artist downloading by scrolling to the bottom of the playlist/album/artist on the iPhone and choosing download all.

Here's a good introduction to iTunes Match.
posted by caek at 12:48 PM on July 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

Well, no, that's not quite right. If you turn off iTunes Match on your phone and then perform a traditional sync, iTunes will sync your media over to your phone over the wire. Then when you turn iTunes Match back on on your phone (and this is the good part), it doesn't delete the media that was already on the phone, despite the warning suggesting that it will.

That's how I manage the space that iTunes Match uses up - when my phone starts getting ridiculously full, I turn off Match, all the matched media disappears, and iTunes re-sync whatever new ended up on my sync playlists since the last time I did it. I still have Match available for when some perverse thread hits me and I really have to listen to that one John Tesh album I have, but I don't have to depend on AT&T's lousy service at my office for media.
posted by Kyol at 12:52 PM on July 21, 2012 [2 favorites]

You have to download the songs on the playlist for them to be playable.
posted by Ironmouth at 1:09 PM on July 21, 2012