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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.
Microsoft preaching about giving users a choice. That's the funniest thing I've heard all day.
>>if you use Apple's music store along with iTunes, you
>> don't have the ability of using the over 40 different
>>Windows Media-compatible portable music devices.
Oh, shoot. I mean, that's really a big problem for me. I like to use my Rio on Monday, and Samsung mp3 player on alternate Wednesdays, and the Nomad for Friday afternoon... What am I going to do if I can only use my iPod? Horrors!
Choice to Microsoft is letting you pick from any of THEIR products. They do not use that word as we do.
Um, yeah, this coming from the company that's offering exactly *how* many music downloads?
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
..MS's path to more "choice" will include more baseline restrictions and DRM.
If Apple can keep things a little simpler, and a little more limited, and offer the flexibility that they do (burning audio copies to CD, etc), as much as we geeks might complain, it's probably easier for the average consumer to grasp.
Sure, I'd love to see a mainstream offering with a huge library selling DRM-less MP3s, but that doesn't seem likely to happen, and it's certainly not going to come from Microsoft.
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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Windows users like choice? Then why do most of them use Internet Explorer, Outlook Express and, well, Windows? They generally take what they are fed, right? Microsoft doesn't yet have a solution of their own for legal music downloading as far as I know. So they need some aggressive rhetoric. I was under the impression that the iTunes music store had one of the largest catalogues out there. Does the general user want to use a plethora of services to locate the right song? I don't think so, but I don't work for Microsoft's media division.
Hank! White!
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
I downloaded iTunes yesterday. Within 5 minutes I had imported my music library, set up all the options I wanted, and I was listening to music. It has a very pleasant interface and includes all the features I want -- nothing more, nothing less.
Who wants crazy flexibility when you don't even use half of the extra options and they just clutter up the user experience? I'm ditching the other jukeboxes I've been suffering with all year and sticking with iTunes. It may even influence me to buy an iPod -- if it works as seamlessly and easily as iTunes, sign me up.
I'm tired of frittering away so much time trying to overcome the learning curves of PC software and trying to get programs to work and play together. I'm not into computers because I'm in love with jerking around in advanced options settings all day long, I'm into computers because of what they can do for me. My job already pays me to spend 10 hrs a day getting computers to work, I don't want to spend the rest of my free time doing the same thing.
Mac stuff works, first time, every time, it does what you expect it to do. I think that just might be worth paying for. I think I'm going to start saving my pennies for a nice little PowerBook.
Funny how they still sell so many CD-burners and blank media though, isn't it?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
be sure to check out your QT settings in the control panel. If the audio out is set to DirectSound, you will probably experience muddy audio clarity. Change it to waveOut and the clarity should be just as good as it is in Winamp.
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
After watching the presentation Apple gave on the release of the new iTunes features I have to say that everything else doesn't even seem to be coming close to Apple's position of sheer domination.
iTunes is a nice start, but to have it for both platforms AND the best mp3 player on earth AND have every AOL user on the planet instantly be abel to use the ITMS (it uses the credit card from the AOl account) AND have Pepsi do a huge push during the Superbowl to give away 100 million songs (and at the same time having literally millions of people install iTunes in short order) AND having a means for parents scared of lawsuits to provide music for kids (allowance) AND to have thousands of audiobooks and other great content like NPR shows...
Apple has set a goal of 100 million songs downloaded in the first year of iTunes (starting in April). But frankly I think they have set their sights way too low. I think 200 million by next April is not out of the question, and probably really low.
One other benefit that Apple has, is that the musicians themselves are generally rooting for the store. I don't know how much of an effect that will have, if any... but a groundswell of artists demanding to be on ITMS cannot hurt.
I have to say, if I were trying to start up another music store right now I would be quivering - even if I were Microsoft, and none of them are! I have to wonder how long it will be before Microsoft sees the whole industry slipping from them and offers a music store directly screwing over all the partners based on WMP.
I don't understand why Dell is trying to do it's own server and doesn't just cut a deal to install iTunes on all Dell desktops. There's a plan for Gateway - are you listening?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Lets see, Airport [wireless + modem] iPod, apple cinema displays...all work with PCs too...but work even better with a mac. When apple REALLY figures this out [and they're starting to!] MS will finally have to pay the piper for abusing their market!
Judging by the audio you listen to, couldn't you just hook up a randomnumber generator directly to your speakers and listen to that? It would always be random and I do not think you could tell the difference.
Exactly what limitations are you referring to, mr. vague? The only limitation I can possibly think of is the use of AAC for the music store files, but those can be easily transcoded into just about any format you want (wav, mp3, even wma by using an intermediary step). I'd hardly consider that a limitation. Yeah, you may lose *a bit* of quality by recompressing, but if you use a high enough recompression quality setting, you can really minimize that to the point it is a non-factor. Care to elaborate on the limitations now? I mean it rips into a multitude of formats (with very high levels of control over compression), it burns to DVD, CD in many different formats (MP3 CD, Audio CD, and Data CD), and has some of the best streaming support I've found in any music player, not to mention the ability to easily share your tunes over a network with no configuration outside of clicking a check box. I think it is a fantastic product, mac or windows, and I give kudos to Apple on a job well done.
today is spelling optional day.
When will I finally have a good user interface to play music under linux?
When the linux developers start caring about interface design as much as they care about kernels.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
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.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
iTunes for Windows requires Quicktime 6.4 to be installed for it to work (or 6.3 for the Mac version).
Why?
Because all the decoding of the AAC files - both DRM'd and non-DRM'd - is completed through the QuickTime libraries (NOTE: this is also a way to get iTunes to play ogg/vorbis encoded tracks). ANY application that makes the appropriate calls to the QuickTime API can decode and play tracks ripped by iTunes into AAC and tracks downloaded from the iTMS (assuming the computer is authorized to play them).
So, in theory, it's possible to get WinAMP to play files downloaded from the store if you don't want to use iTunes as your player software. Toast for Mac already can burn tracks ripped by iTunes and/or downloaded from the iTMS onto an audio CD.
The only problem is audio device support, but Apple likes it's iPod sales and Hell already froze over, so we probably won't be seeing WMA support on the iPod or iTMS compatibility on 3rd party devices ever - or at least not until iPod sales start slipping in a major way.
Surprise, surprise.
Oh, and where exactly are you finding all this Dolby 5.1 music? Or do you just spin movie soundtracks at parties?