Apple Working to Bring iTunes Match Overseas Before Year's End

Our music libraries will hopefully meet their match before the year is out.

Though Apple's event yesterday was titled "Let's Talk iPhone," the company talked about a lot of other things, too. In fact, the first hour was all about Apple stores, Macs, OS X, iPods and iTunes. That last topic involved details on iTunes Match.

For an annual fee of $25, users can scan and match tracks in their iTunes library, including songs from CDs or elsewhere, with tracks in the iTunes Store. iTunes Match will automatically add any music with a match to your iCloud library. Those without matches will be uploaded from your computer. Once that's done, you'll have instant access to your music library from up to ten devices. What's more, all of the music iTunes matches plays back at 256-Kbps AAC DRM-free quality -- especially handy if your copy of the song or album was of a lower quality.

So, when is it coming to the UK? Unfortunately, Apple doesn't have a solid answer for us on that one. According to Crave, when asked about a UK launch, Senior VP of Internet Software and Services at Apple, Eddy Cue, said the company is working very hard to bring the iTunes Match service to additional countries before the end of the year. Hopefully, the UK is included in the company's first international efforts.

Considering $25 per month translates to just over £16 (at current rates), we're going to go out on a limb and guess that Apple will charge UK users around £20 per month for this service. Would you pay £20/month for access to 25,000 songs from 10 devices, whether they were purchased from iTunes or came from 'other places'? Let us know in the comments below!