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Review of iTunes Music Store
First, the disclaimer: I'm an Apple supporter, having used them as my desktop system since my parents got a IIe back when they were new. I run several Unix servers, but my desktop of choice has always been Apple. Also, while I like listening to music, I'm no audiophile, and can't usually tell the difference between a 192kbps MP3 and the CD it is encoded from. My best speakers are on my computer, and they are Monsoon flat panel 3-piece set.
Ok, on to the review. iTunes Music Store requires the new version of iTunes of course, for which Apple has updated the brushed metal interface again (Apple, why do you come up with this great Aqua interface and then never use it?). My first stop on any new program is always the preferences, and Apple's added some new options for this version: "Sharing" and "Store." I don't have any other computers worth streaming music too, so that's off, and I turn off the one-click shopping. I like having a shopping cart.
The store itself is presented as a special playlist in iTunes, just click and it connects. It presumes a fairly wide iTunes window, wider than I usually use, but the stuff I wanted was all on the left side so I'm fine. The default store layout is obviously Amazon-inspired: new additions, up and coming, editor's picks, and most popular all being highlighted. Genre is a pull-down menu on the top left: all the picks change and the background color. Click on an album to view it in a two-pane view: info above and songs below. There are easy links back at any point, or up the hierarchy. Double click on a song to hear the preview (not just the first 30 seconds, they seem to actually choose them).
That's the basics. There are two levels of search: the search box in iTunes and a Power Search available from inside the store. The Power Search lets you search by song, artist, album, genre, and composer. Users of Limewire will find it familiar. Clicking Browse puts up three panes across the top: genre, artist, album. Once an album is selected the songs are available below.
On to the interesting stuff: actually buying songs. I select a song I've got a poor p2p copy of and click buy, and it asks me to sign in with my Apple ID, or create one if I don't have one. This is where I have my first problem. I have an Apple ID, but entering it puts up a message saying I've never used it with iTunes Music Store before (well, duh) and asks me to review the terms and conditions. Then it directs me to the account creation screen, with my info already filled in.
Of course, the account creation screen won't let you create a duplicate account, and asks me to log in. Can we say endless loop? How about bug that should be fixed?
I create a new email address, and make a new account. No problem. Log in, select the song and a couple others. Click "Buy Song," enter credit card info (which is then saved into the account, on Apple's server) and the songs download quickly. I had one more blip: one song had trouble downloading (I assume server load) and was told to try again later, with a menu option. It worked several hours later.
The selection is broad, but not yet very deep. Many albums I found are in partial status, with only one or two songs. Several artists I was looking for were not listed at all. Considering this is just roll-out that isn't a major issue (they weren't big artists, at least not in the U.S.). Everyone should be able to find at least some of their picks available.
Also, some albums are listed as "Explicit" or "Clean." Notice I said "albums": if one song in an album has a label they all seem to, though I didn't do an exhaustive search. Since this is structured as song-centric, I feel they should have labeled on a song-by-song basis.
Enough with the marketing stuff, this is /. The files, as was mentioned in the announcement, are in AAC format. Let's see what we can do with that, shall we?
First options: inside iTunes. iTunes can convert one format to another normally, trying it on a 'protected' AAC file returns an error. Also, trying to burn an MP3 CD with one on the playlist just skips burning the AAC files (or returns an error if they are the only files.) Fair enough, we didn't really expect the capability to circumvent all controls to be built in... (Though you can of course burn regular CDs.)
Next, let's see what can be done with the file itself. They are saved, just like any other iTunes music file, in the iTunes music folder. The icon has a little lock on it, to indicate its 'protected' status. A few clicks later and the file is owned by guest:nobody chmod 777 and in a world readable folder. (Assigned to guest.)
So much for one definition of protection. [Ed: I renamed the file to .m4a (not protected) and set the permissions to the same as my other tracks, and iTunes would still not let me convert it to MP3.]
I can also play that file as another user on the same machine. I would try other machines, but I only have the one Mac at the moment.
The only other Mac player I can find that claims to play AAC is only for Mac OS v9, and does not appear to recognize the bought file, so no help there. I do however have an app that hijacks the audio stream before the speakers and allows you to play with equalizers, balance, etc. Oh, and it lets you save the result as an MP3 as well as playing it through the speakers.
I fire it up and a few minutes later I have an MP3 that I can't tell from the AAC. So much for that definition of protection.
Is this service for everyone? Probably not if you are a hard-core audiophile and can tell the difference between a 128kbps ACC and the original, but for most of us: it works. I can do what I want with the file, even get it to MP3 if I need it, though it is hard enough that I have to actually think about doing it (which means I won't do it unless I need to). I'd love it if it were cheaper, but I probably would not buy twice as many songs at half the price. Finding songs is easy, buying them is easy. (For reference: $0.99 per song does not include taxes, taxes will be listed in the invoice you are emailed.)
I'll probably spend too much money there.
are you crazy? How long till someone writes a virus that hijacks iTunes and makes you purchase thousands of songs?
I've spent more money on music in the last two days then I have in the last two months thanks to the Apple Music Store.
Plus they get their 'media tax' if you put these songs to CD...
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
if an album has more than 10 songs it costs 9.99 if it hase 10 songs you pay 9.90 and then less than that it is .99 x songs.
and the fact that you can burn a real audio cd that plays in cd players everywhere makes this so much better than other sevices.
I don't know if you can print up the cover art or the CD art for lable printing but if you can that would kick more ass.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Which, if the artists hurry their asses up, will mean a fortune for the artists. You can't really compare this on a "cost per song" basis. Compare it to the price of CD singles which I've noticed are between $8-$10 now. That's a big savings when most singles are maybe 3 songs.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
While I applaud the concept of finally rolling out digital music on a large scale, the price is obscene. The 99-cents per song comes about to about the same price as a CD (if you buy all the songs).
With the CD, however, you've got the cost of the physical materials (the CD, liner, case), the cost of manufacture, the cost of shipping, and then the profit margin for whomever you're buying it from.
I think the quality of and restrictions placed on the files are acceptable. From all the compaining in the last article on this service (1400 posts!), you'd think Apple had announced a listen-once for $1.00 service.
The selection of music, while not great initially, will be expanded. They don't want me to subscribe. It's $1.00 a song - easy impulse buy. I get to choose what to do with my music - I think the copy restrictions are pretty reasonable - of course they fit my usage pattern.
I get the convenience of buying music relatively easily and painlessly, at an acceptable quality level, and without wasteful and largely unnecessary packaging. In the vast majority of cases, I (the consumer, the one who SHOULD be dictating the rules) get to pick and choose within the selection of music offered.
At least Apple is trying to give people what they want. There are some downsides to this service, but even the most stringent fair-use advocates have to admit that the itunes store is the current high water mark for selling music on the internet without Draconian restrictions.
The iTunes 4 software is quite possibly the best software I have ever seen (15 years in software development). The AAC song files sound great.
iTunes 4 is very intuitive. Menu buttons change icons depending on context, windows navigate where they should with no delay, backwards/forwards works, etc. you don't even think about it. The experience reminded me of the first time I shopped at Amazon.com (logical layout, recommendations, appropriate links to other items, etc.)
I spent three hours playing with it the first night (staying up way past bed time..) which flew by in what seemed to be 15 minutes. I spent $25 and bought some great music. Exclusive iTunes store-only tracks from U2 and Sting are now on my iPod.
When downloads failed, a pull down menu option (to resume interrupted downloads) worked seamlessly. In most instances there were no delays (on 30 sec previews, or downloads).
The only complaint I have is when I bought two tracks for 99 cents each, then decided I wanted the album for 9.99. Apple wouldn't give me a credit for the two tracks bought only a minute earlier "several tracks on this album have already been purchased. Proceed buying the album for $9.99?". I burned the album to CD and gave it to the wife. She said it sounded perfect.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is slightly OT but it has been bugging me for a while now.
/.ers had some input...
The Radio Station playlists loaded into iTunes used to come from Kerbango.com, which went under.
Some of us who work with/for streaming stations and want to get OUR stations into the iTunes list found that Apple moved this station-list in house, as evinced by a little packet sniffing. Its just an an xml push.
The thing is _there's still no way_ to submit a station to get listed. I haven't checked out the new iTunes but was wondering if any
If I'm going be supporting the RIAA with my money, by god, I want CD quality and the ability to manipulate the files however I wish.
Of course with copy-protected CD's and such, this option might be dying slowly.
Apple needs to get in tight with independent music labels and let bands choose what they want to charge for each song, minus some standard fee. For example, Apple can charge $.45 per song transaction fee, and if the band wants to each song to cost $.50, then the band would only get a $.05 return on each song.
They should really try to establish a legitimate community around this service. I'm thinking of something like AudioGalaxy, but with artists being fairly compensated.
according to this document. "Other AAC files that you find on the Internet or elsewhere will not play in iTunes." There is also some question is other things that will play AAC will play these files also
On to the interesting stuff: actually buying songs. I select a song I've got a poor p2p copy of and click buy, and it asks me to sign in with my Apple ID, or create one if I don't have one. This is where I have my first problem. I have an Apple ID, but entering it puts up a message saying I've never used it with iTunes Music Store before (well, duh) and asks me to review the terms and conditions. Then it directs me to the account creation screen, with my info already filled in.
Of course, the account creation screen won't let you create a duplicate account, and asks me to log in. Can we say endless loop? How about bug that should be fixed?
I've signed up two accounts since the store opened and both went from the terms and conditions screen into the store once I had succesfully logged in with an existing apple id. I would say this is probably an isolated incidant. Or at least one of low occurance as it's the first place I've seen the error reported.
The selection is broad, but not yet very deep. Many albums I found are in partial status, with only one or two songs. Several artists I was looking for were not listed at all.
It's a new service and Apple admits freely that they are adding music as quickly as possible and are only adding what the music labels have agreed to provide.
Also, some albums are listed as "Explicit" or "Clean." Notice I said "albums": if one song in an album has a label they all seem to, though I didn't do an exhaustive search. Since this is structured as song-centric, I feel they should have labeled on a song-by-song basis.
This is most likely due to how the songs/albums are provided to Apple by the labels. When you go to a store and there are two copies of an album one is clean and the other is explicit it is because one or more songs on the album are considered to be that way. This very well may have to do with the voluntary labeling the record labels have been doing. This is hardly an issue, and for many parents letting their kids get music using iTunes is probably a good thing. So I don't see how this could possibly be an issue, nor do I see a reason for it to be changed.
First options: inside iTunes. iTunes can convert one format to another normally, trying it on a 'protected' AAC file returns an error. Also, trying to burn an MP3 CD with one on the playlist just skips burning the AAC files (or returns an error if they are the only files.) Fair enough, we didn't really expect the capability to circumvent all controls to be built in... (Though you can of course burn regular CDs.)
Of course you can't burn MP3 cds, of course you can't convert the song directly to mp3 in iTunes. That would blatently break the copy limitations and the record companies wouldn't have allowed Apple to go through with it. However, the easiest way to beat the copy protection is either convert the AAC file with another app that ignores the protection or burn a regular cd from iTunes and then rerip the song into the format of your choice. Of course you are burning and ripping a reduced quality song and then encoding it into yet another lossy format (probably) which is only going to reduce the quality more so there isn't really a great reason to do so.
This service isn't for everyone. It's for people that primarily listen to thier songs on thier computer, ipod, or maybe the car. Anyone with a nice stereo isn't going to want to go this route due to the reduced quality of the songs. My experience with the system has been good so far. I don't see myself buying a lot of music because of a couple of reasons. First, the price per song is not low enough to justify the low quality of the reproduction. If I go to the store and buy a cd I'm getting several songs for around $1.00 - $1.50 each depending on the artist, label, and number of tracks on the cd. These are in high quality format on the cd and I can rip the entire cd to whatever quality format I want. I also get a jewel case and liner notes etc. When I get a song from the
Got a chance to play with the store and the new iTunes on a friend's Mac yesterday.
:-) when compared with brick-and-mortar retailing or even traditional on-line sales. The ability to browse and listen to *all* the available tracks is just wonderful.
.mac account and that gets installed on the system when you "register" that system to be able to play your music. It will be interesting to see what the proccedure is if you have three "registered" systems and one of them is stolen or goes up in smoke. Do you permanently lose one of your three system registrations?
In general I think this is absolutely a Killer App, and there's a lot of money to be made by Apple, especially if they can get into the Windows marketplace. Clearly Microsoft has dropped the ball on this one as even a cursory look at the Apple set up has one wondering if there will even be any music stores in five years, or even any commercially pressed CDs.
Music is the perfect on-line purchase (even better than books
But it looks like there are still some obstacles to be overcome. Why is there so little music (relatively speaking) available at launch? Why are many popular artists (the Beatles for example) completely missing? Why are so many albums only half there??
Ok, maybe a lot of music is controlled by companies that haven't signed on with Apple yet, but I got the feeling that the record companies really don't trust this system yet and are still afraid that this is going to somehow increase the illegal distribution of their music (like people would buy music from Apple rather than rip it off an original CD).
Is it paranoid to think that perhaps the reason that there are so many albums with only half of their tracks available represents an attempt to see whether these tracks show up more often in song-sharing p2p netowrks than the tracks that haven't been offered?
So I wasn't as impressed as I was holping, only because probably 75-80% of the music I would want to buy isn't yet available on the service.
Assuming that the record companies eventually realize that they can make a hell of a lot of money this way with no distribution costs, and that it doesn't lead to any more theft than unprotectable CD sales already do, and if Apple can win the Windows market as well, then they might eventually make more money off this than computer sales.
One really obvious thing that's missing: the ability to search by song lyrics.
I'm guessing that the actual AAC files downloaded to the Mac are encrypted using a key that's tied to your
I assume that the CDs burned from iTunes are ordinary CDs and there would be nothing stopping someone from turning around and ripping them to mp3.
G.
I would guess the music selections are different, but on balance, I think I would prefer something like eMusic to Apple's $1/song.
How many people pay for an entire CD only to discover the like 1 song? Even if you like half the songs on a CD, that still raises the price per song above $0.99. If I like one song, I can now buy just that one song.
If you don't want to pay as much, and don't want mainstream music. Try BeSonic.com, I've been getting music from them for years, all the songs you can listen to for free, some you can download for free, others require a small monthly fee.
It's the 21st Century Do you know what your government is doing
I checked on The Beatles, and they are not available from the store. I was bummed, but not overly suprised.
--Mike
Not really; the 128kb bit rate of these files doesn't approach the original in terms of quality.
If we were talking MP3, you'd be correct, but you really should try listening to AIFF versus 128Kbit AAC in a blind test.
My hearing tops out at about 25Khz (last time I tested it with a tone generator, around three years back), and I can't hear the difference between the CD and the AAC file on any of the tracks I've ripped so far.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Also: gsfprez tells me he can import the protected AAC files into iMovive, and it is converted to an unprotected (obviously) AIFF. Loses all the meta-information (artist, album, etc.) but better than using Audio Hijack, IMO.
Eh? Every third post is "Apple's compressed music sounds like crap, it's 128Kbps, that's garbage. No way would I pay for such terrible quality." It seems like you guys are paying more attention to the bitrate than the sound and have made your mind up that any music encoded at 128Kbps couldn't possibly be near CD quality. I've not heard any music encoded in AAC but I wouldn't find it impossible to believe that music at 128Kbps could sound good.
I've heard a lot of claims (right here on Slashdot, no less) that DivX encoded video looks just as good as MPEG2 encoded DVD video (which is encoded at a significantly higher bitrate), so why do you guys find it so hard to believe that relatively low bitrate AAC audio could sound as good as MP3 audio of a higher bitrate?
For those who dread the ACC format, here is a bit of news for you (in case you have not heard of this product). Audio Hijack allows you to put a software wedge between any application playing and will record the output to your standard AIFF. This, of course, can be played and converted to an MP3 with iTunes. Recording options include; Flash, Realplayer, DVD player, Windows Media player. Basically anything you can launch in a GUI.
I have found this invaluable when making personal movies and wanting to capture little sound clips or songs of the web. I run the iMovie FAQ if you interested in other cool things to do with your iLife.
I think this service is great. The .99 impulse buy price sounds like a "magic number" to me.
If I was Steve-o Jobbs, I'd allow and motivate people to use the Apple stores (or other stores, Best Buy, Circuit City, Ratty Shack, etc.) to access this service. Wouldn't it be great for the non-tech-savvy does-not-have-a-broadband-connection is-afraid-to-install-new-software customer to go into a store (with a nice fat broadband connection), pick the songs they want and walk out with a custom CD hot off the burner?
Of course, there might be snags (they wouldn't want the file you bought to be accessible by another anonymous walk in customer), but it's probably easy to work around.
Kudos to Apple anyway.
/* TAANSTAFL */
What will be the chance that any music I buy today will still work? Apple might be gone, or might have dropped the music service and then who would authorize my machines to play the music?
What if I want to move from an apple to windows/linux/some other os?
I have collected tens of thousands of dollars in music over the last 20 years, and I can still play it all on any device I choose. No way I am spending a large chunk of money for something that a company can take away at any time they choose.
According to Apple, you can put the music on an unlimited number of iPods. I tried this. I dumped the music on my friend's iPod. It played just fine.
Now, I can only draw one conclusion from this: The iPod decrypts the AAC file without using your Apple ID. So, if somebody hacks the new iPod firmware update & gets the key out of it, anybody can play AAC files. How do I know this? Well, we tried to play the AAC file off of my friend's iBook in iTunes. Didn't work. The file was *still* encrypted, yet only iTunes cared about it.
To me, this has to be some ridiculous fast one Apple pulled on the RIAA Labels. I mean, you can still share music. You just have to use an iPod to do it.
* Twenty of your friends come over
* You copy all your purchased music from your computer to their iPod
* They leave and enjoy your music on the iPod without your presence
If Apple would act as your music backup archive, letting you redownload the music in the future if your hard drive goes or they ship a new and improved codec and AAC becomes obsolete - now that would be worth having. That would give you something you don't have with CDs.
I've had my CD collection stolen twice now...
I think the Apple service looks pretty good too. I just wish I could get my label's music on it. I mean, I didn't expect Jobs to fly his jet to my house and ask for copies of our cds or anything, but it would be nice if there was an avenue to get music not made by one of the five majors on the service. Everyone want to do me a favor and request music from "Stop, Pop, and Roll" in the requests section? I'd be a big help!
All this talk about iTunes and so-called "legitimate" music downloading got me thinking - How are the copyright holders going to know if that "Without Me.mp3" on your system is legitimate? Now, I realize that there are technologies for digitally signing/watermarking content. But what is required in order to examine and verify those signatures/watermarks? I have some ideas, but I'd be interested in hearing what others think. (I'd post this to "Ask Slashdot" but for whatever reason I've been rejected every time but once.)
here's hoping bowie will embrace and extend...
it would be awesome if he would actively go out and push all of his old and new stuff, and even pull some of the ancient stuff out of his attic and offer it up for fans of his. it would be a very bowie like thing to do.
"Backwater" does not begin to describe eMusic's library. I was able to satisfy my more eclectic and obscure tastes in music for a few months while it was a novelty, but that's about it. I'm not going to subscribe to an effectively static content base like eMusic when Apple's is around. Check out the top downloaded albums on each service. 'Nuff said. If you want to make money with music (remember, these are businesses, not public services) then you'd better get the largest number of the most popular songs out there. To each his own, there's a place for both, the market will decide in the long run.
And in general, now that the dust has settled, Apple did a great thing in the way of free markets. They have one solution that is legal, cheap, easy, and sensory-satisfying. You can still go to the record store. You can still use p2p (in between the big brother IMs being sent to the users the last few days... what direction do you think THAT's going in...) You can still rip/mix/burn. The constitution is not in tatters and definitely Hilary Rosen and probably the EFF and I'd wager even the gang at 2600 are sleeping soundly this week. Not a bad accomplishment for a guy and his shop who's been presumed dead and buried so many times there's a revolving door on their gravesite.
I'll spend money here. Likely more than CDNOW^H^H^H^H^H Amazon, because I don't have to wait for or pay for shipping. BTW - I got my invoice for 15 songs - $14.85 and 0.00 tax - anyone else see that?
And as one of the promos mentioned, this forces better music - no more 1 hit track and 11 fillers - you'd better make every track count or you'll be selling 1/12 of your previous sales in short time. Are you listening, Mr. Mathers? Miss Spears? Damn. Sure glad I bought TMBG's Apollo 18 as a CD...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
The individual "songs" themselves are also odd. Look at the Beethoven 9th Symphony. They've broken the 4th movement (the choral "Ode to Joy") into multiple "tracks" asking $0.99 for each! Then there are instances where not all of the tracks of an album are available for download. If you'd like to listen to the 1st, 2nd, and 5th movements of some work, then download them individually. If you want the whole work, you've got to download the entire album.
This may work for popular music, but it leaves a lot to be desired for classical music.