Apple has opened the doors to its iTunes Match service. For $24.99 per year, users can synchronize their digital music collection with Apple’s iCloud service.

What that means is that you don’t need to upload your entire digital music collection to the cloud. Just download iTunes 10.5.1 on your Windows or Mac computer and it will scan your music and figure out if there’s already a copy of the same song on Apple’s servers.

As an added bonus, iTunes Match gives you 256kbps AAC DRM-free music, even if the file on your computer is a 96kpbs MP3 file. That’s because you’re not actually uploading most songs to iCloud. Instead, Apple just makes a note of which songs you own and matches your cute little music collection against Apple’s enormous collection which covers millions of songs.

If you do have tracks that aren’t already available, then Apple will upload them for you.

Theoretically the new service lets you match songs you’ve ripped from legally purchased CDs without having to buy those tracks again from iTunes. In practice, Apple doesn’t have any real way to distinguish songs you’ve ripped from songs you’ve downloaded from the internet, so those albums you grabbed from Napster 10 years ago are finally about to become legal.

Once you’ve signed up for iTunes Match you can access your songs on any Apple device. Technically you won’t be streaming your music… instead you can sign up for the service with your desktop computer and then be able to download and listen to any of your songs on your iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, MacBook, or other Apple device for no additional fee.

Winamp has rolled out three major updates to its music player for Android. First, the free app has been upgraded to version 1.2. Second, there’s a new Pro version with additional features. And third, there’s now a utility that lets Mac users sync their music Winamp and iTunes on their computers.

Winamp 1.2

In order to use the new Mac synchronization features you’ll need to upgrade to version 1.2. The update also brings more free music, better audio quality, and optimizations for use with headsets.

There’s also an option to purchase and unlock the premium features available in Winamp Pro for $4.99.

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Apple is set to release iOS 5 on October 12th. The update will bring a whole slew of new features to iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users, including an improved notification system, support for the new iCloud synchronization service, and the ability to download future updates over-the-air without connecting to iTunes. But if you want to move from iOS 4 to iOS 5, you’ll need to sync with iTunes at least one more time.

First, you’ll need to grab iTunes 10.5. Fortunately, Apple just released it, so you don’t have to wait until the 12th.

So aside from support for iOS 5, what’s new in iTunes 10.5? Here are a few of the highlights:

• Sync your computer with an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad over your WiFi network.
• iTunes now stores music and movie purchases online so you can re-download to any device.
• You can download any app, movie, song, or eBook that you’ve previously purchased.
• You can automatically download items on your computer after purchasing them on an iOS device.

You can download the latest version of iTunes from apple.com/itunes/download.

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The Windows Phone Marketplace is expanding at a pretty decent clip. While there aren’t nearly as many third party apps available for Windows Phone 7 as for Android or iOS yet, there are more than 25,000 apps in the Marketplace according to windowsphoneapplist. That number may be a little off, since other trackers have different figures. But WinRumors notes that it was just a few months ago that only 15,000 apps were available.

Of course, quality counts at least as much as quantity. After all, do you really need access to 400,000 iOS apps, or just to the few dozen you want the most? But we’ve also seen some movement on that front, with some of the hottest Android and iOS apps finding their way to Windows Phone 7. This week alone we saw the introduction of Angry Birds, Kik Messenger, Gowalla, and Epicurious, among others.

At this rate it’s going to take a long time for Microsoft’s app store to catch up to Google’s or Apple’s. But you can certainly make a case that you don’t need to attract the most developers — just the best ones.

In other news, nobody is even coming close to toppling Apple’s lead in the tablet app space. MacStories notes that as of this week there are more than 100,000 iPad apps available in the App Store. That’s not counting all of the iPhone apps you can also run on the iPad — these are apps designed specifically for the 9.7 inch tablet’s 1024 x 768 pixel display.

HP says there are about 300 tablet apps for webOS this week, and there are only a few hundred apps available for Android 3.x Honeycomb tablets even though the first Honeycomb tablets started shipping in February.

Apple iOS 5 offers a number of killer new features including wireless synchronization, improved notifications, and web browser and camera improvements. Unfortunately the software isn’t really ready for public consumption just yet. But plenty of folks are trying out the beta, either by having signed up for developer accounts or by getting access to developer tools through some slightly shadier methods. Long story short, while you can test out iOS 5 by downloading the beta, there’s a catch: Apple doesn’t officially offer a way to downgrade to an earlier version of iOS.

That’s because if you’re running a beta version of iOS you’re supposed to be testing it for development purposes — presumably on a development device, not your primary phone. You also can’t downgrade from say, iOS 4.3 to iOS 4.2, because by the time new OS builds are released to the public Apple is convinced their stable enough that there’s no reason you’d want to downgrade. You’d also probably lose all the security fixes included in the latest build.

OK, that’s all well and good. But what happens when you do upgrade your primary phone or tablet to iOS 5 than then decide you want to downgrade until a more stable version is available? According to Apple you’re out of luck. But according to Funky Space Monkey, there’s a way to do it.

You’ll need to grab an IPSW file, TinyUmbrella, iTunes 10.5 beta, and a bit of patience. You’ll also probably wipe most of your data, so you’ll want to have a backup handy. But the upshot is that you’ll be back to the latest stable version of iOS that you’re comfortable using.

You can find step-by-step instructions at FSM.

Apple has rolled out two major changes to its iBooks digital book platform this week. First the company added an iBooks section to iTunes, allowing you to purchase and download books from your computer the same way you would for apps, music, and movies. Second, the company has rolled out iBooks 1.3 for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. It’s available as a free download from the App Store.

The big changes in iBooks 1.3 include a read-aloud feature in selected children’s books and the ability to automatically play audio or video included with enhanced eBooks. I’m not sure that last one is a feature rather than a bug.

iBooks 1.3 also fixes a bug that caused some books to show the same page twice and Apple says the app is now more responsive when opening long books.

Apple won’t fully roll out its new iCloud service until this fall, but the company is already allowing users to upload their music collections to iCloud. And this afternoon the company rolled out another piece of the puzzle. If you’re using multiple iOS devices you can now go into the “Store” section in the Settings menu to enable Automatic Downloads.

This allows you to automatically download music, apps, or books purchased from iTunes, the App Store, or iBooks on some or all of your devices. In other words, if you buy a book on your iPhone and enable Automatic Downloads, then the title will be downloaded to your iPad as well with no user intervention required.

A little bit of info about Automatic Downloads leaked this weekend… but at the time all we really had to go on was the name, which implied a feature that would let you download updated versions of apps you’d already purchased with no user intervention. That’s something Google Android users can already enable. But it looks like we’ll have ot keep waiting for that kind of automatic download on iOS, because all we’ve got for now is the ability to sync purchases across devices.

via TUAW

Update: Automatic Downloads are live… and they’re not quite what we expected. Instead of allowing you to update software automatically, the service lets you synchronize music, book, and app purchases across multiple iOS devices. Buy a song on your iPod touch and it will automatically be downloaded on your iPad as well.

Apple may have beat Google to providing an “update all” button in the App Store, allowing you to download and install all available free updates for apps on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad with just one tap. But Google eventually added that feature to the Android Market and then took a step further, providing an option that lets users automatically download updates as they become available without tapping any buttons. Now it looks like Apple is preparing to even the score with its own automatic download feature.

Mac Rumors captured a screen in iTunes which is no longer visible, but which mentioned a new “Automatic Download” feature. If enabled, “your updates will download to your device without having to sync” with your desktop version of iTunes.

It’s not clear if Apple will take a Google-like approach and let you select which apps will be updated automatically while requiring other apps to be updated manually (so you can review any new features or other changes before downloading the update).

It’s also possible that Apple could eventually offer the ability to download iOS operating system updates over the air. Right now you need to sync with iTunes to backup your device and install system updates. Google Android, on the other hand, allows users to download and install updates directly on their phone or tablet without connecting to a computer.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs is expected to introduce iOS 5.0 at the company’s developer conference tomorrow. It’s possible that automatic downloads will be just one of many new features in the next version of the iPhone and iPad operating system.