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Microsoft Dismisses Apple's iTunes for Windows
fewnorms writes "Microsoft's general manager for the Windows Digital Media division, Dave Fester, yesterday dismissed the new iTunes for Windows version, saying it was too limited for the average Windows users. Choice quote: "[Apple's music store] ... is a drawback for Windows users, who expect choice in music services, choice in devices, and choice in music from a wide-variety of music services to burn to a CD or put on a portable device." Of course Apple doesn't feel to worried about this, simply stating their products will (and have) lived up to the hype." The points made are all valid- but contradictory to standard Apple product design where simplicity always takes priority over flexibility. Besides, iPod is growing market share, and iTunes will be the best choice for windows users who own it.
that music blips and skips A LOT when running on iTunes whenever you do ANYTHING else, even if it's just like opening Explorer or moving windows? When I tried it on my machine, it was very noticable, especially compared to Winamp 3, which hardly blips at all for me. My machine's no slouch, either - it's a P3 1.1 GHz with 512 MB RAM running XP Pro. I had like 3-4 programs open along with iTunes: a FTP client, Visual Studio .NET, and Mozilla, I think.
I was just wondering if anybody else had similar problems. I mean, the interface is great, but if I can't code in VS while listening to music, then it's not very worth it to me.
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ROFL! Talk about naked FUD. Choice, choice, choice. Yeah, that's the Microsoft Way, isn't it? NOT. What hypocrisy!
It's not even accurate. You CAN burn iTunes Store music to a CD. Rip it again to MP3, put it on any device you want. Oh wait, iPods are just about the best device you can use, so I'm just guessing that if you have an iPod you don't have too many other devices you care to have. For that matter, no matter what device you have, you probably don't have too many others. Why would you? Use what works and done with it.
Choice in music? Well, the biggest choice is probably Kazaa, but that's beside the point. We're talking about the pay sites, and iTMS has 400,00 and growing. Not much of a problem, and becoming less so as time goes on.
Apple just signed with Pepsi and AOL to do cross-marketing. That's some big partners to get the word out. But the word is out already. I see so many iPods in use it's amazing. In short, Apple did something right and Microsoft is running scared about it. With only the Mac market so far, Apple captured, what, 30% of paid downloads. Now the other 90% can use their service, so watch out Microsoft.
Windows media == closed format supported completely over windows and partially on the Mac and *nix. AAC == open format (Mp4) supported completely over all major platforms. DRM rules -- unlimited CD burning over the iTunes music store, three separate computers able to play downloaded tracks, unlimited iPod transfers. I truly don't understand the criticism coming from MS over the iTMS and iTunes music software. Apple has never claimed it's the end-all software jukebox -- but, as others have pointed out, it's very simple and straighforward. Much like iMovie compared to FCP or CakeWalk to ProTools, iTunes is a simple way to manage a library of music and transfer it to a number of different formats. You can easily convert CD's burnt from Mp4 (AAC) tracks over to mp3 by merely ripping the burnt CD. That allows folks to still use Mp3-CD's with their entire collection and to share them with whomever they'd like. All that I feel coming out of Redmond right now is Hot Air....especially after hearing Longhorn ain't arrivin' until '06. Long time to wait, so I'm sure there will be lots of potshots directed at Apple in the meantime.
I'm not popular enough to be different.
Homer Simpson, The Simpsons
Brief correction.
IIRC, AAC is actually an ISO standard and is used in MPEG4 and is significantly better than mp3s which are at much higher bitrates. WMA is wholly owned by Microsoft and doesn't seem to offer appreciable sound benefits over mp3s.
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