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Apple Temporarily Halts New iTunes Match Subscriptions in New International Markets

Friday December 16, 2011 9:33 am PST by Eric Slivka
With Apple launching a broad international roll-out of iTunes Match yesterday to well over a dozen new countries, it appears that the expansion has come with some growing pains for the cloud-based music service. The service had started to prematurely go live for some users the day before, and several hours after the international expansion users around the world reported temporary problems accessing iTunes Store and iCloud services due to usernames and passwords being rejected.


While those technical issues appear to have been resolved, demand appears to still remain high for new iTunes Match subscriptions, and we've been hearing word that Apple has temporarily shut down new subscription signups in some of the new countries. Customers attempting to subscribe to the service are reportedly being met with the following message:
New subscriptions are currently unavailable.

iTunes Match is temporarily not accepting new subscribers. Check back later.
So far we have heard of new subscriptions being halted in Canada and the UK, two of the countries that saw the service debut yesterday. Apple instituted a similar temporary pause in new subscription signups following the U.S. launch last month.

As noted in an extensive chart from setteB.IT, iTunes Match rolled out in a total of sixteen new countries yesterday: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, New Zealand, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK. The new countries join the United States and Brazil in offering the service.
[ 163 comments ]


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rmwebs
89 months ago
Ahh the Apple (fake) Cloud continues to fail.

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This is the opposite of a screw-up. Apple is taking charge in ensuring that quality of use is not degraded for people who have already purchased the service. Demand is greater than what Apple expected so they'll be opening the gates slowly to allow them to meet demand without crashing the whole thing.


Explain how its not a screw up?

- 2 days ago they prematurely open Match across the world, charge people and are then forced to refund them because they forgot to update the TOS.

- Yesterday they launch, resulting in the iTunes servers being very slow for most of the day.

- Last night the authentication system completely died and was down for the pest part of the night, intermittently coming back online.

- Then they finally release Match, and have to close it within a day as their tiny server farm (NOT A CLOUD) cant handle the load.
Rating: 7 Votes
Avatar
ipedro
89 months ago

What a screw up.


This is the opposite of a screw-up. Apple is taking charge in ensuring that quality of use is not degraded for people who have already purchased the service. Demand is greater than what Apple expected so they'll be opening the gates slowly to allow them to meet demand without crashing the whole thing.
Rating: 6 Votes
Avatar
joelovesapple
89 months ago
This is just so damn stupid. What sounds like a great product cannot be used by me because according to Apple, I shouldn't be so interested in music. I have so many songs because I absolutely love music. I don't see why I should be punished like this.

I've spent about £8500 on iTunes over the past 6 years (call me stupid if you want) and then this in return?
Rating: 3 Votes
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Confuzzzed
89 months ago
I'm in! And that's all that matters!!!
Rating: 2 Votes
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hortod1
89 months ago
How about PLEASE check back later. They could at least be polite about it.
Rating: 2 Votes
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dmblue
89 months ago
signed up last night in canada.. other than it taking some time to upload and a handful duplicate tracks.. it is working GREAT.

this just made my iTunes experience 20x better.
Rating: 2 Votes
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miniroll32
89 months ago
My guess is that, in at least 18-months time, iTunes Match will become a free feature and an integral catalyst for Apple reducing onboard memory on their iOS devices.

It's ridiculously obvious. Make a tidy profit while some initial press/hype exists, then make it a "killer feature" by the time OS 10.8 comes out.
Rating: 2 Votes
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daneoni
89 months ago

Quick question, what happens if I rip another CD after "Match" has finished it's original scan on signing up? Is what is matched on first run what you get for 12 months, or can you add to your Library as normal and those tracks are matched also?


You can update the existing Match DB. Store> Update iTunes Match...or just right click on the songs and select Add to iCloud
Rating: 2 Votes
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AidenShaw
89 months ago

For the avoidance of doubt, I haven't sold any of mine.


Neither have I - 1500+ CDs are boxed and in a storage cabinet in the garage. (It didn't seem to make much sense to waste space in the den after they were ripped to lossless on the Windows Home Server.)

It was WeegieMac who said that he sold his collection after ripping it, and then went rather hysterical about "high horses" when it was discussed.
Rating: 1 Votes
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GenesisST
89 months ago

Apple hasn't said and this service just started, so we'll have to wait until next year to find out. But my guess is no because that tab in iTunes is for the ability to re-download Purchased songs.


+1 for your signature

"Let's just say it: If someone else's choice of computing platform makes you angry and agitated, there's something wrong with you."
Rating: 1 Votes

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