WWDC 2011: Apple's Jobs unveils iTunes music locker in the cloud

With necessary licensing agreements from major music publishers in his pocket, Steve Jobs has taken the wraps off of the new feature that lets you re-download music purchases at no cost, via the iTunes Store app on iOS devices. “For the songs you’ve already bought, we’ve added a purchased button”, Jobs explained. This new section of the iTunes app conveniently lists all your music purchases in one place. From there, tap the cloud icon to download the already purchased track for free.

Your other choice is the automatic downloading feature that grabs your purchases, including free ones, made on your other devices. “This is the first time we’ve seen this in the music industry – no charge for multiple downloads to different devices”, Jobs said. But what about music you already own, which didn’t come from iTunes? And what about that rumored scan and match stuff?

“One, you can sync your devices over Wi-Fi or cable, and then you can rely on iCloud. Or, if it’s just a few songs you love, you can buy them on iTunes. But we’re offering a third way, and we call it iTunes Match“, he explained. Unlike similar offerings from Amazon and Google, the scan-and-match feature fingerprints your music and makes matching tracks instantly available in the cloud for streaming to your authorized computers and mobile devices, without the need to upload tracks. This will cost you 25 a year. Also important, iTunes Match will “upgrade the songs to 256k AAC DRM free”. Check out our complete WWDC 2011 coverage and follow us @9to5mac as we update you on the latest news from San Francisco.