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"Also, the SDK should allow people to play AAC files (including those purchased from iTMS) through WinAMP"

As intuitive as iTunes' interface may or may not be, that helps little for the many people who've found the application to be too slow or CPU intensive on their PCs. I'm sure there are some who can provide their own anectodal evidence pointing to the contrary, but iTunes is still a memory hog for many others.

Similar programs like Foobar or Winamp 5 barely slow down people's systems, and can even be configured to run MUCH faster. Their file sizes are also noticeably smaller. You could argue that iTunes does much more with it's iPod support, but Winamp's connectivity with the iPod is just as seamless and even has features iTunes lacks. Foobar also sports a formidable iPod plug-in.

• Speed. Though I'm sure many can provide their own anecdotal evidence on how iTunes works fine on their machines, that doesn't invalidate the many, MANY claims of iTunes being a bloated, resource hog (at least on Windows.). Foobar and Winamp with a little tweaking open almost instantaenously, while iTunes lags behind on starting up. Even when minimized, iTunes is taking up far more CPU than a media player should (even more than WMP!).
• MPC/FLAC/SHN/APE/etc. support. If applications like Foobar, Winamp, and QCD can pull it off, why can't iTunes, with it's beefy 19.5 MB download, play simple file formats like these that've been around for years? Wouldn't it work in their favor to allow their users more choice, to let their users listen to their music in whatever format they've chosen to encode them in?
• Queueing. Once again, something included with XMMS, Winamp, and even MMJB. If your listening to a huge random playlist of songs in Winamp, but want to hear a particular song after the one your listening to, just select the song in the playlist and hit 'Q'. Winamp will finish the currently playing song, then play the song you selected, then return to randomly shuffling the tracks automatically. You can do this with multiple tracks, picking an order you want to hear those songs, and then shuffling the rest. Or you can hit 'J' to search the list of the songs in the playlist, and select the song(s) you want to enqueue.
• Downloading Songs Off iPod Through The Media Player. Instead of assuming your user is doing something criminal and (flimsily) preventing them from easy access to the songs on their iPod, why not give them the freedom to move songs back and forth onto their hard drives. ml_ipod, a plug-in that lets you manage your iPod through Winamp's media library, not only allows you to transfer songs from your iPod, but lets you even "reverse-sync" them.
• Support for competing MP3 portables. I think I read somewhere that iTunes may support another mp3 player besides the iPod, but that really isn't enough. Once again, I think it'd be beneficial the popularity of the program if they supported other players. Have they released an SDK for their community to toy with? The Foobar and Nullsoft teams did this, and they got great results.
• Gapless playback on iPod. This is a big deal to audiophiles, and I'm really surprised by the iPod's lack of support on this. The Rio Karma does this. Why not iPod?

Though I'll admit that the join-tracks feature was much-welcomed, what else did iTunes users get? Instead of downloading songs with propietary DRM, now we can encode our songs with a new proprietary DRM--songs that won't play on anything else? I think I'll stick with FLAC. The ability to publish my important music playlists for the whole world to see? I think I'll stick with Audioscrobbler. A free song from another bland RIAA-sponsored band? Epitonic has always provided a good sampling of independent artists and their music for you to try out. A wishlist to download those Top 40 songs later? Well, why don't I just download the songs now off allofmp3 now with their ridiculously low prices, in whatever format I want, without DRM? Import unprotected WMA files? Winamp

One of the cooler new ways of sharing music with my friends that I've been playing around with is the ml_www plug-in for Winamp (It was one of Justin Frankel's farewell gifts). The application lets you or anyone else access your media collection from anywhere, and stream or download your audio/video through a browser interface. Of course you can set up passwords and access privelidges. You can pick a song to listen to on your home computer while in the office; stuff like that.

All you need is a Winamp running with the plug-in, and someone--probably someone you trust--drops in your IP in a browser and one of these two windows pops up, depending on which template you're using. You can download the newest versions here.

There's a sourceforge project going on for the plug-in, but they haven't really brought that site up to speed yet. Most of the progress is in this Winamp Forums thread, with some occasional updates on Winamp Unlimited.

Playing the music requires Apple Quicktime for the ~600kb downloadable MP4 snippets to be heard.

You did catch the details that indicate you're doing a bad thing, right?

Perhaps they discovered a license violation and took it down to prevent a lawsuit.

Actually, with Winamp (all versions, including free), you can even listen to iTMS' DRM'ed AAC tracks with a simple plug-in.

Hell, you can even listen to Real's audio tracks without even having to install anything, if you want.

If they don't want to open up their propietary DRM'ed formats, open them up for them.

Winamp Unlimited covered the complete story yesterday, for those of you who are interested. There are some links/information on there that haven't been mentioned with this discussion.

The mainstreaming of my beloved geek subculture depresses me.

"When did it become cool to be a dork? You know that shifty-acting guy or libertine-looking gal who's always all, "I'm captain punk-rock-opolis," crying "culture-stealer" whenever the opportunity makes itself available? That's me, except with geeks."

"Am I not justified though? Am I to idly watch the tyrants streamline my identity for mass consumption; our folklore exploited and assimilated by wannabe societies? Eccentricaly-dressed girls using their cuteness to conceal their embarassing ignorance, actually thinking that Wolverine's mutant powers are those metal claw thingies? People who haven't paid their dues; who couldn't tell you the difference between a D6 and DOS? Guys who've never carried out torrid--though imaginary--love affairs with Ensign McKnight, trading knowing smirks and grins across the Ten Forward lounge?"

The standards for geek initiation have been lowered too far. Too many times have I seen my dork friends embrace a cute girl as their own, just because she has a mild familiarity with Magic: The Gathering cards.

Just so you all know, Winamp, being the awesomely versatile player it is, CAN play AAC songs with Fairplay DRM attached, with this convenient plug-in. Of course, there are many limitations still, but that's proprietary DRM for you.

You can chart and discuss the plug-in's progress here. The older, "officially released" version of the plug-in with brief descriptions and reviews is here.

BTW, Winamp 5.03 is already out, in case you weren't informed.

Just so you all know, Winamp, being the awesomely versatile player it is, CAN play AAC songs with Fairplay DRM attached, with this convenient plug-in. Of course, there are many limitations still, but that's proprietary DRM for you.

You can chart and discuss the plug-in's progress here. The older, "officially released" version of the plug-in with brief descriptions and reviews is here.

BTW, Winamp 5.03 is already out, in case you weren't informed.