iTunes Music vs. Apple Music Streaming

Part 1: Features of iTunes Music
Part 2: Features of Apple Music Streaming
Part 3: What is the Relation of iTunes Music and Apple Music Streaming
Part 4: What is the Difference Between iTunes Music and Music Streaming

Part 1: Features of iTunes Music

iTunes Music is one of the best service for all the music lovers across the globe as it enables them to enjoy their favourite music of different genres, artists and styles. The service comes loaded with list of features and the details below:

itunes music vs apple music-iTunes Music

Complete control over your own music

Be it your workplace or a relaxed home front, you can create your own playlist or with some help from the Apple Music experts revamp the on-demand radio. With iTunes you have the flexibility to change the tracks anytime to fit into your mood and get a complete makeover of the application done without any extra effort.

All your favourite tracks on your fingertips

The iTunes player helps you to organize all your downloads and keeps them together for you to get hold of any particular number at any point of time without rummaging digital files or CD stacks. The library can be organized as per your wish by importing them into your iTunes and also get help from Genius to make playlists that are unique and can be synced to your iPad, iPhone or iPod or even to your Apple TV.

Radio

The on-demand radio stations have been completely refurbished wherein you can create your own station with your kind of music that you normally listen or download. Beats 1 is a 24/7 station that allows you to enjoy the latest music, culture broadcasting and interviews, live from LA and London.

itunes music vs apple music-iTunes Genius

Genius

Genius helps you to create a collection of music as per your mood by searching your library on the computer or the iOS device. They are segregated according to the genres as well as your favourite. To change the mood of songs you just have to tap the Genius Shuffle. You also get to choose from the In the Store recommendations.

itunes music vs apple music-iTunes Genius

iTunes Match

With a paid service called iCloud, your music collection that is imported from CDs is also stored with iTunes Match. This enables easy accessibility to your music from wherever you are, either on your Mac, PC or your phone. The on-demand music stations can also be accessed.

itunes music vs apple music-iTunes Match

iTunes Store

It the best place to get all kinds of music that you know or even do not know about, with just a click. Before buying, you can even listen to a preview of the song and with Complete My Album you can buy a few songs initially and the rest of them later and the price is adjusted accordingly.

Discover

You also get a lot of recommendation and help from ITunes to find the music that you will love, varying from Top Charts to Free Singles and advices based on your past purchases. The latest album, genre or artist is also available with the help of Trending Searches.

Part 2: Features of Apple Music Streaming

Apple Music is the latest service launched by the company that is aimed to compete with Spotify, Tidal and Rdio. There are various features associated with the service and below given is the list of the major ones.

itunes music vs apple music-Apple Music Streaming

What is Apple Music?

Apple Music is a subscription based music streaming and a global radio-like programming which will have a social feature connecting fans to the artists as well. The service is compatible with iOS and OS X devices and allows you to stream the music instead of purchasing it. So it is a new home for all your favourite personal music collection on iOS devices.

Offline Apple Music

The Apple music streaming services allows you to save your favourite song so that it can be enjoyed later when you are offline. One thing that needs to be remembered here is when you cancel the subscription, you lose access over them.

Large collection of songs

The library of Apple Music has 30 million songs which is definitely a large collection to enjoy your favourite music. Apple Music also has three exclusive additional features: Beats 1, Connect and curated playlists.

Individual and family plan

Apple Music is available for individual subscription at $9.99/ month and $14.99 for the entire family up to six people. The first 90 days after the subscription is the free trial period where you do not have to pay anything to enjoy the services.

Support multiple devices

iPhone, ipads and ipods are compatible with Apple Music, and the tracks can also be played on the MAC and PC with itunes 12.2 or later version. The Apple watch can also be paired with the service it will also be available for the Android users very soon.

Part 3: What is the Relation of iTunes Music and Apple Music Streaming

iTunes lets you download your music files that can be played anywhere, but Apple Music adds DRM to the files. Here are some similarities and points of correlation between Apple music and itunes music.

itunes music vs apple music-

Independent at the same time complementary

Apple no longer uses the phrase “iTunes match” and is now a part of the iCloud music library that includes purchased tracks, tracks that match with iTunes match or with Apple Music or the streaming tracks that have been added to My Music. The iCloud music library has cloud stored tracks in iTunes so you need to click on iCloud Music Library under Music. Subscription can be made to either of the two from the Account menu of iTunes.

iTunes Match

When you subscribe to an iTune Match, you can upload unmatched tracks and access them on multiple devices via the iCloud Music Library. If you have low quality tracks they automatically get upgraded so that you can download 256 kbps without DRM. There is a limit of 25,000 tracks in iTunes Match and not inclusive of the iTunes Store purchases.

Apple Music

The prime feature here is streaming from the in-house massive collection of music and even uploading tracks that are not available in the library. At the moment there is a limit of 25,000 which will be increased to 100,000 with the release of iOS 9. But the major difference between the two is that while the former lets you download the files that can be accessed from any other device, Apple Music adds DRM to these files.
When you have both iTunes Match subscription and Apple Music membership, then you will get the files without the DRM.

Which one is better?

You can maintain iTunes Match subscription and can safely continue to use it, since it is now a part of the iCloud Music Library, which also includes Apple Music. You can very well use both but remember that only Apple Music will have DRM added to the original files when you plan to re-download them. So a reliable backup of the library is recommended.

Part 4: What is the Difference Between iTunes Music and Music Streaming

If you are current owners of iTunes Match accounts you might be confused with the advent of Apple Music in the market making claims that the songs in your library will now be streamable. Below given are the main differences between Music streaming and itunes music.

Service/Features	Apple Music	iTunes Match
Subscription Amount	With a subscription amount of $9.99/month for individual or $14.99/month for a family of 6, you get access to the streaming catalogue with additional cool music features. Now you can download 25,000 songs from Mac’s iTunes library and if these songs match up with the Apple Music Catalogue, you can re-download the same with 256 kbps Apple Music AAC file with a DRM on it.	With a subscription offer of $25/year, you can stream up to 25,000 songs from the itunes music library to any of the devices that are connected with the same Apple ID. Any purchase from the Apple’s iTune Store will not get added to the 25,000 limit and they are also not required to be downloaded as the track is maintained on the servers of Apple.
Streaming Compatibility	These tunes can be added in the iCloud Music Library and can be streamed or downloaded in the offline mode too in any of your devices. They are one up on iTunes here, where these offering s from Apple Music’s catalogue tally with your library that are getting streamed and no local cache issues are located. The non –matched music needs to be downloaded locally before streaming.	The streaming that Match does is entirely based on downloading. So when you stream any song from iTunes Match, a cache is downloaded to your device.
Downloading source	The tracks that are downloaded from Apple Music’s catalogue including those that match up with Mac’s iTunes Library are DRM-encrypted.	The iTunes Match tracks are DRM-free when they are downloaded on any of the I-devices. When the match subscription is cancelled, these downloads would stay, but cannot be streamed further.