(UPDATE 3)  An Apple spokesperson told AllThingsD today that to play music from an iCloud locker it still also needs to be stored on the device. Details are slim, but it appears that Apple (and those who would have to grant licenses) have left out the one feature that users care most about - universal availability of their music.

The beta for iTunes Match, Apple’s cloud music storage service, has opened to developers offering a peak inside the ground-breaking service scheduled to go public in October. For $24.99 per year, iTunes Match scans a users hard drive to find matching copies from iTunes of their songs to store in iCloud, regardless of whether those songs were purchased there or not. If iTunes doesn't have the song, it will be uploaded. And while it wasn't clear during the June announcement, iTunes Match does stream music from the iCloud via iTunes to any Apple iOS device. WATCH ITUNES MATCH VIDEO PREVIEWS:

iTunes Match Preview

iTunes Match On An IOS Device

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