Apple unveils iTunes Match for $25 per year

Apple introduced its iTunes in the Cloud solution, which lets users access their iTunes music purchases in the cloud and share them among devices. That's all well and great, but what happens when you have a song that you ripped and did not buy from iTunes?

Thanks to the new iTunes Match service, you can scan and match the songs on your computer. If a match in iTunes is found, the cloud service will automatically add it to your library. It does not upload the song, it just pulls it from the online library of iTunes music. If iTunes cannot find a match, you can upload the song manually. All songs are upgraded to 256kbps AAC DRM-free as part of this process.

The service will cost $24.99 per year and will require iOS 5 on the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod Touch (3rd and 4th generation), iPad, iPad 2, a Mac with OS X Lion or a PC with Windows Vista or 7. Uploads are limited to 25,000 songs, but iTunes purchases do not count against this limit.