With iTunes Match, I tend to pull songs down to either my phone or my Mac whenever I feel like listening to them, and delete them from the device afterwards at will. What's the story, then, with play counts and – more importantly – ratings?
If I rate a song on the phone, will the rating propagate to the Mac (or vice-versa) through iCloud, or is the only way to sync that data between the devices a wired/wi-fi sync through iTunes?
And if an iTunes sync is required, what sync settings are necessary such that my ratings and playcounts will be copied across devices without having to sync the songs themselves, as we had to in the pre-iCloud days?
Best Answer
I'll check my computer when I get home, but everytime I update the ratings on my iPhone there is definitely network activity (The network spinner is displayed everytime I change the rating). So it is definitely updating the iTunes Match library. Whether it updates the PC at home I'll have to see.
I'm still waiting for it to upload about 600 songs.
Edit: I confirmed that ratings and play count definitely are updated right away. PC to device changes take a little longer. I had one song disappear from my phone on my way to work because I accidentally removed it from match the night before and it took some time to propagate.