iTunes Match & SoundHound Make Beautiful Music Together

We've all seen the problems iTunes has with recognizing CD tracks that you may have turned into a special mix Audio CD you burned. If you've taken a collection of MP3s and burned them for an Audio CD, you are probably familiar with this image - Track 1, Track 2, Track 3, etc. You have no idea what those songs are - or at the very least, what the correct names are.

With an app, iTunes Match subscription, and some CDs you can change your 'unknown' collection into something useful and make them available to all of your iOS devices and Computers.

1. Launch the SoundHound app on your iOS device.

2. Insert a CD with unrecognized tracks into your Mac - you can import now if you wish as well.

3. Click Play on one of those tracks (Track 1, Track 2, etc).

4. Turn up the volume on the song, and then Click  'Tap Here' on the SoundHound app.  Within a few seconds, that song with be recognized. Incredible.

5. Now go into iTunes and CONTROL-CLICK on the track you are playing and choose 'Get Info'.  Now enter the correct data into the track. I'm not sure of how iTunes Match makes a match, but it doesn't hurt to enter the track info as precisely as you can.

6. Now iTunes Match should do it's thing and try and Match, or at least Upload to iCloud. If not, CONTROL-CLICK On it and choose 'Add to iCloud' and this should match or upload it to the iCloud service.

7. Check your other Macs or iOS devices - these newly updated songs will now be in your iCloud. If you had poor quality versions, now you can download the MATCHED songs in the higher quality 256kbps AAC format. Easily worth the $25 a year!

Use iCloud Now - With Auto Download - Mac Tips Daily! #404

With with Apple's latest announcement,  iCloud, we are all pretty excited. Even if you aren't a developer running the beta of IOS 5, we can still use a couple of new features apple has made available to all of us.

If you have an IOS device you can now go in and see what items you have purchased in th e past and re-download them if you want. Also, you can configure your device to automatically download new purchases, even free ones, onto your other IOS devices. To make this happen you need to flip a couple of switches.  I do believe you need to be running at least iOS 4.3.3 to take advantage of them though. 

Let's get to it:
1. From your iOS device - iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, click on Settings. Now find the Store menu. Click on it and then you may need to click on your Apple ID name. Do this and then you should be presented with the automatic download options.  
You can turn on Music, Apps, and Books, and where applicable you can enable downloading over the cellular network or just do it when you have Wi-Fi available. If you have a limited data plan with your cell carrier, you may want to make this wi-fi only.

Do this on all of your devices.

Then, the next time you buy a song on iTunes, it will download automatically to all of your devices. The same thing for Apps and Books from the App Store.

If you buy an app on the iPhone, and it's not a universal version, meaning the same app works on iPad natively, then it won't auto download to iPad. However, if you want it, you can go onto your iPad under the App store and click on previous purchases and then install it that way as well.

2. Run Software Update and update to  the latest iTunes 10.3.1.

Once you do that, you will have that functionality on all of your devices now available via iTunes as well. You just need to go into the iTunes Preferences and click on Store, and then enable Automatic Downloads. If you purchase it in itunes, it will be sent to your iOS devices wirelessly over the air.

Apple MyInfo - Mac Tip Daily! #398

I recently was having trouble with my Apple ID and couldn't purchase anything in the iTunes Store. I tried Apple Care, but they couldn't help and had me fill out a form online.  After speaking with them, I found Apple's MY INFO page, that allows you to update the information that is associate with your Apple ID.

Even if you aren't having trouble with your ID, it's a good idea to login and check it out and make sure everything is up to date.

How to do it:

1. Open you browser and go to myinfo.apple.com

2. Enter your location, language, and apple ID credentials.

3. Once you login you can then update several pieces of information. The Email address associated with your Apple ID, your primary address and Shipping address, phone numbers - in case Apple needs to call you regarding a support call, newsletter and email subscriptions, and the different types of ways you allow apple to contact you, such as Email, snail mail, or phone.