As Apple tweaks the iTunes Store backend in preparation for the launch of Apple Music on June 30, many users are reporting serious problems with iTunes Match. Problems downloading or streaming tracks, albums being split, artists appearing multiple times, duplicate playlists, and more.
A number of users have posted in Apple’s support forums, in a thread entitled Has iTunes match gone haywire?, and another, Tunes match – on iPhone iPad split albums and wrong album artists. I’ve also received emails from users seeing the same issues.
Apple is certainly making changes to the way iTunes Match works. They have said that iTunes Match will continue to be available after the launch of Apple Music, and that the two are “independent but complementary.” I’m not sure exactly what this means, but it’s obvious that there are many iTunes Match users who do not want to use Apple Music, and rather continue to stream their own music from the cloud without paying $10 a month.
In the meantime, there’s not much to do. This is certainly one of the problems with iTunes Match; it has issues from time to time, messing up your music library, or even being unavailable. Let’s hope Apple can get it fixed soon.