I can't believe it. I wait months for Apple's much-anticipated put-all-your-music-in-the-cloud iTunes Match service... I even go out of my way to a manual download and install when neither my Mac's "Software Update" nor iTunes' "Check for Updates" can find iTunes 10.5.1 (not a real hassle but it shows that I was motivated)... I'm ready to subscribe... and what do I get? The following promise:
and then THIS:
AAAAARRRGGHHHHH!!! So I have 58,580 songs that were not purchased in the iTunes store — over twice the legal limit. I think Apple should be proud of me for still using iTunes instead of sending some little box out to brush me off. Argh!
Ah, well, as long as I can wait another six weeks, I can still upload EVERY SINGLE SONG to Amazon's Cloud Drive, which will work nicely with the shiny new Kindle Fire that will show up on Thursday (and which I ordered six weeks ago on the day that it was announced).
Update 1: MacWorld has already published a kludgy but tolerable solution to the 25,000 song limit in iTunes Match. It involves creating a sort of shell second library and syncing that (without affecting the complete, main library). It might be worth a try. Here's a link to the article with full instructions.
Update 2: I waxed eloquent about my soon-to-arrive Kindle Fire just two paragraphs ago. Then I read actual, hands-on reviews of the device and, well, it doesn't look so good. (Here's Wired's scathing review and a compilation of several others.) Well, zut, alors, as I learned to say in France. The estimated probability-of-return is high enough at this moment that I just ordered one of the other new Kindles, the wifi Kindle Touch, which will arrive next week. Wired was much kinder to this one. I have a little experience with another version of the Kindle and, just like they say, it weighs almost nothing, the battery lasts forever, and the e-ink is very easy on the eyes (especially in bright sunlight). Well, that may be the way I end up going. We'll see.
So I just got my brand-spanking-new Kindle Fire in the mail today and you know what? That thing is the heaviest 14.6 ounces you’ll ever hold. It feels like it’s made of solid lead. What’s odd is that it objectively weighs less than my wife’s iPad 2 (which is about 30 ounces with its cover) but, subjectively, it feels twice as heavy. As a portable e-reader, it’s a complete fail. I’ve already ordered a regular Kindle Touch, which should be here next week. It weighs 7.5 ounces. That I can handle. Then the Fire’s going back. I didn’t even really get around to trying all the other stuff the Fire does — ‘cause, you know, my fingers broke holding it.