Following Apple’s release of iOS 5 and iCloud last week, it appears that Apple is currently preparing to launch its $25 per year iTunes Match service. Apple announced that the service would become available at the end of October at their “Let’s Talk iPhone” event on October 4th.
A new report from MacRumors points out that the Music section of Setting.app in iOS 5 has now gained a toggle (pictured above) for turning the iTunes Match service on and off. This toggle has previously been present for developers testing the service, but is now visible to the general public as well. This suggests that Apple is preparing to formally launch the service in the near future.
Those that aren’t registered for the developer beta of iTunes Match will not yet be able to sign up for the service, and attempting to turn on iTunes Match results in an alert telling users to sign up through iTunes. iTunes 10.5.1, which will enable iTunes Match, has not yet been released.
iTunes Match will likely initially be released only in the United States, although Apple is actively arranging licensing to launch the service in other countries as well.
iTunes Match has been in testing with developers using beta releases of iTunes 10.5 since late August. Apple removed the service from iTunes 10.5 when it was released earlier this month, issuing an iTunes 10.5.1 beta to developers to continue testing the service.
