iTunes Match turned back on for developers, heralds imminent release

Apple’s iCloud-based music syncing service iTunes Match is the largest component of its announcements at WWDC that is as of yet unreleased. The service allows users to compare their personal iTunes library to iCloud and enables Apple to match any songs that it already has, minimizing the amount needed to upload.

The service was enabled for developers, which were allowed to subscribe at the standard $24.99 per-year rate during the testing of iOS 5. Once iOs 5 was released, the feature disappeared from iOS setting screens.

Now it has returned, notes Macrumors, and any developers that had previously purchased access to the program can visit the Settings>Music section of their device to re-enable it.

What makes it more likely that this is getting close to release is that even users who are not developers are beginning to see the toggle pop up in the Settings menu, although they are unable to turn it on.

Apple has stated that iTunes Match will be launching some time this month in the U.S. but has been relatively coy about when it would come to other countries. Most notably, Apple’s head of iTunes, Eddy Cue, stated “We’re working on adding Canada and hope to do so shortly after the US launch.”

To support the fact that iTunes Match should be launching in other countries soon, many users are also reporting that the iTunes Match section is showing up in the app and that it has a ‘coming soon’ label attached.

As the month is over half over I would expect to see iTunes Match going live very soon. We’ll let you know when it does and be sure to give you a full rundown of its features as it goes live. We’ve been using it for several weeks now and are enjoying it, so you should be pleased as well if you’re a heavy iTunes user.