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Microsoft's Take on iTunes for Windows
Skruffy writes "The Register has an amusing article about Microsoft's reaction to the launch of Apple's iTunes software on Windows. It seems that Microsoft is very keen to warn its users of the dangers of using a service that would restrict them from accessing music from other sources... Oh the irony."
"from the doesn't-play-well-with-others dept."
or
"from the I'm-taking-my-toys-and-going-home dept."
What a bunch of babies.
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
But how does iTunes restrict you from obtaining music from other sources? I can go to a concert. I can listen to the radio. I can play my own music. I can go to the record store. I can even use Kazaa. How is iTunes restricting me?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Hrmm... I guess, according to Microsoft's logic, I should switch to WindowsXP so that I won't be restricted to viewing music, movies, etc. in non-Microsoft^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hstandard formats.
Yeah, right. If Microsoft understood open formats, they would have launched their own music download service months ago.
Now I remember why my cluebat has a permanant imprint of Mr. Gates' forehead on one side.
-- Stu
/. ID under 2,000. I feel old now.
If Apple hits the 10 million mark by Christmas I will be impressed, MS will be scared, and the RIAA might start to be quiet.. maybe.
I am going to hell and I am going to take all of you with me.
Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, Windows ME, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. What's your problem?
IAALS.
It *is* extremely hypocritical, but also typical, of Microsoft to make thiese kinds of statements. They're really upset that
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Oh the irony.
Irony:
1. The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning.
2. An expression or utterance marked by a deliberate contrast between apparent and intended meaning.
Dishonest, but not ironic.
Unless they pull an Internet Explorer and give the software away with Windows (even then, the next version of Windows is years away), I don't see how they could steal users away from Apple's service without actually making their service better than Apple's - which would actually be a great thing. Two huge corporations battling to make music services better and cheaper - nice.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Federal and state regulators have voiced concern that a feature in Windows XP that involves online music purchasing may violate terms of Microsoft's antitrust settlement.
The issue surfaced in a court-mandated briefing filed jointly by Microsoft and federal and state regulators. The compliance update says there are ongoing discussions over the "Shop for Music Online" feature in the operating system.
"Plaintiffs are concerned that the feature invokes Microsoft's Internet Explorer, rather than the user's chosen default browser, in a manner that may be inconsistent" with the settlement, according to the filing.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Actually the "cluebat" would be useful for many corporate CEO's... Apple included.
If companies could be forced compete on the merits of their products alone (instead of trying to trap customers and lock them in), this world would be taking a step in the right direction.
Well, according to the Napster web site Napster 2 is currently still in beta testing anyway. That bug should have been fixed before the software went to Beta, but hopefully it'll get caught (or have already been caught), before the release of the "finished product" on the 29th.
Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed and eats you in your sleep.
my girlfriend is probably buying music right now
You read
Trolling is a art,
Huh? iTunes is not limited to Apple Music downloads, it also plays mp3s, audio CDs, and pretty much anything other un-DRMed audio you have. The iPod has always played mp3s. What's Apple supposed to do, preemptively invent DRM solutions that profit other companies and put those into iTunes? And iTunes does allow you to burn to an audio CD. MS WMP would do no different than Apple here.
Granted, Apple Music downloads are useless to anyone without iTunes (on Windows or Mac) or an iPod. Until I can play them in linux, they're useless to me. And don't tell me to burn everything to a CD and then rip it. Apple Music is also useless if you want to listen on a non-apple portable. Once again, Apple has chosen to support "everyone" by offering a choice of proprietary systems, rather than a single open system. "Windows or Mac" is just as bad as "Mac only" or "Windows only".
-3Suns
~~~~
The Revolution will be Slashdotted
I can't believe no one looked this up yet. Anyway, this link goes to the Microsoft "Q&A about iTunes" that the Register article refers to.
Why do I h8 apple?
Easy Cd creator 4.x
that have directcd installed
as far as I can tell.
All you have to do as far as I can
tell is uninstall directcd before installing
itunes which most people dont use anyway
would be to have Clippy play air-guitar while listening to music. and include even more purple color in their default skin.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
I tried to buy, er, tunes on buytunes.com once, but all I got was:
Thank you for visiting BuyMusic.com.
In order to take full advantage of BuyMusic.com's offerings you must be on a Windows Operating System using Internet Explorer version 5.0 or higher.
All for using Firebird. News flash: Microsoft browser monopoly too restrictive. Asses.
Analysts noted that Slashdot, despite obtaining over 1 million page views in its first week, will have a hard time with the Windows market. "We believe that an open system like Microsoft's is the way to go," claimed the Garter Belt Group.
Is that Microsoft is already being checked up on for their upcoming music service:
f t/index.html.
http://www.salon.com/tech/wire/2003/10/20/microso
Microsoft's idea of "choice" is a button on the side that reads "Buy Music Online". Even if you tell the system "I prefer another browser to yours", or "I prefer another media player to yours", you get sent to the "Microsoft Music Store".
No way to override that unless you manually start up a separate program to begin with. Looks like you can't just delete that little button from the OS.
Imagine the phone call when some irate customer calls Apple and says "I clicked this Buy Music Button on my computer and I can't play it with this iTunes thing! What kind of scam are you pulling!"
Ah, yes - Microsoft, that bastion of choice and freedom! (Well, as long as you choose a Microsoft solution, of course.)
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Yeah, but how many home users actually install service packs or upgrade media player? I'd say at least a good 85% of home Windows users don't even know how to get to Windows update.
Unless it comes in one of the auto-updates (which I really doubt they'd do), I don't think they'd be able to actually get it to a significant amount of people through an update.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
To the iTunes Music Store? There is no subscription fee. The only risk you run is that you need to keep iTunes installed on your computer in order to play pruchased music. Or, you could buy an iPod. Or, you could burn and then re-rip the music, which of course carries a quality penalty unless you rip to a lossless format.
Apple needs to fight this with some powerful prime-time adverisements. (Like they did for the "Switch" campaign, except without the annoying chick). They need to remind users that iTunes can play any MP3s (and WAV files), and their iPods can be used to take their entire CD collection on the road with them - not just purchased music from the iTunes Music store. (Heck, that was one of the major reasons why I bought one - you can easily press "Next track" on the iPod while driving, but it's hard to change CDs, and CD changers are expensive and only hold 6-10 CDs).
Apple also needs to do more plugging on the fact that users can burn any number of plain vanilla audio CDs containing their purchased tracks. (You can only burn the same _playlist_ 10 times if it contains purchased tracks, but you can burn the tracks themselves any number of times. The playlist restriction is to prevent you from downloading an album, making a playlist of that album, and burning 50 copies and selling/giving them to your friends. And really, that's not unreasonable - would you do that with CDs you purchased?)
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
Microsoft's #1 complaint, although unspoken, is that while iTunes can play downloaded MP3s, it can't play the DRM'ed WMA files that Microsoft promotes. In that sense, it's at odds with Microsoft's designs. Songs downloaded from iTMS only play on iTunes and iPod players, while WMA songs downloaded from other legal services can't and probably never will.
In that sense, it's iTMS vs. every other MS-sponsored service, and iPods vs. every other MS-sponsored player. However, Apple hasn't closed the format. It's just as possible for other download services and MP3 player manufacturers to support AAC just like iTMS and the iPod do. They simply don't at this time.
When the evil empire immediately reacts to something like iTunes you know that they are scared of it. M$ starting a FUD campaign the day after the service is released totally legitimizes it in the market place. I'd be willing to bet that this helped spur the sale of 1 million tunes in the first 3 days. I know it inspired me to buy some.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Isn't this article incredibly redundant? The last article linked to Microsoft's comments on iTunes. People already discussed it.
What more is there to say? Should everyone just repost their comments from yesterday? Or was this just another Microsoft-flamebait-for-page-hits article?
"Sufferin' succotash."
Absolutely. I've downloaded AAC files, burned them to CD to play in my car, and ripped the CDs to mp3s to play on winamp at work. Works like a charm. All told, iTunes is a lot more flexible than the microsoft software.
Accuse me of trolling and mod me down if you must, but you've always got to look into the future.
Well, lez see, I'd bet Microsoft will use their OS monopoly to get a monopoly on selling music online...then I can also see since media formats have always been proprietary cept' for ogg of course, I can see the windows DRM being used with media player to restirct which formats windows can utilize. So in the distant future, we'll see that microsoft's WMA format becoming the de-facto standard amongst windows users. Stupid people will have to buy their media and probably can't rip their CD's, while smart people will use something else like linux or mac.
Combine microsoft deciding they don't like competition from p2p apps or other formats with their autoupdating patch system and you've got them eliminating windows machines from the p2p scene altogether. Heck, they might even be brazen enough to do something like brilliant did awhile ago and use users machines as nodes in the network so they don't have to pay for bandwidth to host their website, patches, or anything else for that matter. Mmmm..viral microsoft patches....
I don't trust apple either, they've done their share of stupid monopolistic stuff too, so it'll be interesting to see MS and apple fight.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
The purchased iTMS files can be burned to CD as a standard CD audio file. They cannot be automatically converted to MP3, you can however rip the CD you burned to mp3 format if you wish. Some quality will be lost of course, however (I'm not an audiophile mind you) I've found the music to be quite acceptable even after it has been ripped from CD.
I would like to see the selection before downloading the app, but when I have briefly gone to the site, I could see no way to browse without installing i-tunes.
-mojo
I don't think I've ever seen someone actually call Apple a monopoly, and seriously mean it, before reading this article. Is he serious? Apple a monopoly?
I think that's the first time I've seen a monopoly with something relatively insignificant like 10% of their given market. Didn't I recently read that even linux has a higher market share than Apple?
The fact that apple has good products, and has a very exclusive set of products that interact with each other well, has nothing to do with being a monopoly, directly.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
They seem to equate iTunes for Windows with the iTunes Music Service. One is a "digital jukebox," while the other is a download/rights management service. Use of the former does not require use of the latter. Only the latter entails any sort of "lack of choice," although it's the only REAL choice we've been offered. Here's what I sent to the author:
"Why is it that you and just about every "rumor" site insists on confusing iTunes for Windows and the iTunes Music Service? Everyone claims that by installing "iTunes," you are effectively supporting an "Apple monopoly," simply because the DRM-enabled files purchased from the iTunes Music Store can only be played on iPods (or other copies of iTunes). This completely ignores the fact that iTunes is a "plain 'ol MP3 player" (and a rather nice one, at that). The ONLY time DRM comes into play is when you purchase DRM-enabled AAC files from the iTunes Music Service. That makes sense, given how music publishers are paranoid about "rights-free" music downloads. Installing iTunes for Windows (as I have done on my Dell laptop at work, and a Compaq Evo tablet) in no way locks one into Apple's DRM-enabled AAC "world." I can still encode CDs as MP3s, burn these tracks to CDs (although this Evo is so slow, that would be rather painful!), and transfer them to a cheesy MP3 flash player (so far, I've avoided them as mostly useless- I'm waiting to buy an iPod, once the new baby's expenses are met).
So, please get it right. iTunes for Windowsb is benign. Buying tracks on iTunes Music Service may "lock you in," but what's the alternative? Choice? What choice? Buy DRM-enabled tracks from WMA-supporting sites? No thanks. Can't even play them on one of those junky WMA-enabled flash players. Talk about no choice. Apple negotiated good DRM policy on my behalf, and that's why I've spent good money on a few dozen tracks already. Getting to play them on the best "digital jukebox" out there is just a plus..."
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
iTunes plays, rips and burns MP3s as well as AAC. AAC is employed for the DRM, making possible distribution deals with the major labels. The iPod plays both MP3s and AACs.
Microsoft is disconcerted because Apple is not using WMA.
I'd say that Apple has done an excellent job of mixing ease of use and purchase with reasonable restrictions to satisfy the music companies. So, if you can't SHOW us a truly open choice that is better, keep your FUD to yourselves!
Thank you Apple, I think iTMS is great!
The Matrix is real... but I'm only visiting!
I can see your point, and I agree to some degree.
The difference is that you don't have to use AAC if you don't plan on buying from the iTMS.
You can use iTunes with mp3/aiff/wav with no problems and it works with just about any portable music player out there. My friend uses his Rio with iTunes on the Mac for example.
If you want to buy music from the store then you're limited to iTunes (or Quicktime) and the iPod but how is this different from buying DRM-ed music in WMA format? You're limited to Windows Media Player and a portable machine that supports it (ok, so there are more of those available).
I couldn't play WMA music with DRM on my Mac becase I don't have a version of Windows Media Player that supports it (Microsoft delightfully decided not to update the Mac version of WMP so we can't play any videos or music encoded in version 9 format - how's that for choice?!).
Any competing service is going to contian some limitations as to what you can and can't use and can and can't do. It's the nature of things. Remember, both Apple and Microsoft are out to make money. The iTunes Music Store and iTunes exists primarily to sell iPods - Apple are a hardware company first and foremost.
You only use Apple software if you want to use their hardware, that's the way it's always been. iTunes for Windows is there as a resource for owners of iPods who use Windows and not Mac OS. If you don't have an iPod you have three choices:
1. Use iTunes but don't buy any music from the iTMS, ensure you rip in mp3 format and use any portable player on the market.
2. Use iTunes with an iPod - buy music from the iTMS and rip in either mp3 or AAC format.
3. Don't use iTunes. No one is forcing you, and it's not the law to do so (although the way things are going it might soon be illegal to use anything but WMP... just kidding)
FWIW, you can rip to formats other than AAC and you can certainly download and play pretty much any other format. I assume that they meant you can only "legally purchase music" from Apple's store as opposed to the much broader "you can only use itunes with music from AMS." Clearly this was a minor oversight on their part... /rr
WMA is supported on more devices and players than Apple's AAC (w/DRM) and the iPod.
BUT
WMA support is IRRELEVANT if the Digital Restrictions Management that infests Microsoft products doesn't allow me to play it anywhere else anyway. I once had a free offer to download WMA files from some music service and found that once the files were copied to any other computer, they were useless anyway. Copying to a player which did play WMAs was fruitless as well.
So the DRM (remember it's Digital RESTRICTIONS Management) is the overriding limiting factor, and not whether WMA is supported or not.
All the other online music services are music RENTAL right? If so, I won't participate regardless of the format.
Microsoft's argument is irrelevant until the WMA-supporting music services offer more lenient restrictions. I don't want my music to stop after I stop paying $19/month, I don't wanna have to worry if I bought the correct license to burn to CD for every single track I buy!
Plus, Windoze users seem to have taken to iTunes like a duck to water.
I know I have. I've been spending the past few days sorting and cataloguing my music. Normally I didn't give a shit about ID3 tags but iTunes has changed all of that.
Its just so insanely powerful and simple. I think most of the Apple bitchers at the moment are having trouble switching from a "Now Playing" style playlist to the library style of iTunes. It eventually grew on me and now I can't live without my Library and my Browse button.
It's as stupid as calling BMW a monopoly because only BMW makes BMWs.
Or perhaps Orlowski is thinking that Apple is in a monopoly position as regards the suppliers of software. Actually, because their market share is small, the opposite is the case. They have to provide reasons for suppliers to support them. The fact that some applications may be subsumed by Apple is a fact of life: every manufacturer has to make make or buy decisions all the time. Currently conventional wisdom is that everything is better subcontracted out, but eventually if you go far enough the subcontractors own you.
Personally, I suspect that the ITMS may be too small to survive: if revenue is around $30 million and none of that is profit, there is no real budget to promote it. But at least it's a try, and Apple should be given full credit for trying.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
...DOS which you can pick up on ebay.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Apple has just put out a help document for musicians looking to sell songs through the iTMS: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=931 91
iTunes needs to see a "CDROM loaded in a CDROM drive," meaning you can't just open up an ISO file in iTunes. If Alcohol 120% lets you create a virtual CDROM drive that iTunes will recognize as just another hardware drive, then you should be good to go.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Yep competition is a good thing. The problem is that when you have a company that is a monopoly in a market and it uses that monopoly position to create a barrier to entry into that market then any other company will find it too difficult to enter into competition.
Take cars for example. Suppose Ford has a super engine that runs only on fuel made by Ford. Now Fords sell like crazy and take over the market. Years down the road the gas stations only sell Ford fuel because there are so many Ford cars. What are the chances of a new car being made that runs on Ford fuel? None, because Ford engines are the only ones that can. What are the chances that new cars come out that don't run on Ford fuel? None, because there are hardly any service stations that sell non-Ford fuel. The net result? Only Ford cars and Ford fuel are produced.
Yes, this is a simplistic example and might not be 100% real-world but it does highlight the basics behind monopolies. Right now Microsoft has a monopoly because it is the predominant operating system. If it uses that monopoly to drive out competitors in related markets, say web browsers, then it is abusing its monopolistic position.
The same thing goes if Microsoft decided to release a security update that breaks Apple's iTunes without telling anyone. Boom, iTunes starts working crappy and people blame Apple when the fault is all Microsoft. Don't think this can't happen, it has happened before with Quicktime. It was shown in internal memos that Quicktime was broken on Windows for a while because Microsoft deliberately changed a few libraries without warning.
As long as there is fair and open competition the consumer, and the companies, will benefit. If any company is allowed to squash its competition entirely then the consumer will suffer.
Sapere aude!
Those things have been in Winamp since forever. I'm sitting here right now staring at the library manager, it has a three-pane view of artist-album-track, and a search field. I use it all of the time, in fact I don't have a single playlist file anywhere. I used iTunes a lot when my Mac was working, and I still think Winamp is a lot handier, it can be collapsed to take up very little screen space yet still expanded and/or controlled with just a few keystrokes.
...wearing a skin-tight topless leather jumpsuit, with cutaway buttocks and transparent crotch panel.
They've been in Winamp 3 but not in Winamp 2. Winamp 3 just felt like a three toed sloth on Valium while iTunes runs at a fair clip sorting through my 3,000 or so songs quite quickly. Hopefully those issues will be sorted in WA5 (currently in beta) but I don't think I'll be trying it anytime soon.
I won't argue with you on the very little screen space. Minimode takes up more space than WA's windowshade mode but at 1280x1024 it doesn't really bother me that much.
Winamp 3 was a good rough and ready solution for those people that needed it now but iTunes is far more elegant (and pretty, IMHO) solution.
Apple uses open standards which can be implemented by all, including Free software projects. Their entire desktop, aside from having BSD Unix underneath, is heavily reliant on PDF. They make it easy to interoperate with others.
Microsoft makes up their own "standards", and the market uses them because Microsoft has a monopoly. When they do release specs, the specs are wrong (ask the Samba team). When they do implement real standards, they change them in incompatible ways and make life hard for those who need interoperability with pretty much every other system.
You might argue that Apple only does this because they have to, having such a small market share. That may be true, but we don't have access to an alternate reality to find out, so we have to look at the current real-life situation.
Additionally, the Apple integration of hardware and software is the reason their computers work so well. You don't have to like it, but it seems to be catching on. And Microsoft does sell keyboards, mice, and Xboxes.
FWIW, I run Linux and can't use iTMS, but that is OK. Most CDs I buy are for $5-$10 at a show immediatly after seeing the band play for the first time (and the shows often cost less than $10 too). None of the bands I see would be arrogant enough to cripple their CDs, because they actually want people to hear their music. And if my friend, who uses iTMS, wants to put some songs from it on a CD for me, he can hand me a standard CD with no problems.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
we the geeks are in full support of Microsoft's demand to open up media players for all competitors and hope you will give in.
A possible loss of revenue could be compensated by a new program with the tentative title "Apple Office for Windows" and we're all looking forward to Microsoft's complaint that office suites should be open and support all competing document formats.
etc...
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
OK what I'm about to say sounds very strange coming out of my mouth... but here goes.
... iTunes. I can send those same DRM tunes to ... iPod.
....
.WMA song I bought from BuyMusic.com, and a .M4P song I bought from iTunes. I can't play them both in a single player. To me, that's both Microsoft's and Apple's problem to solve. Apple can probably "solve" it by allowing third party hackers to write a Quicktime plugin for WMA. I wonder how Microsoft plans to solve the fact that their Media Player can't play the most popular DRM format (in terms of number of downloads) for music?
I think Fester has a point.
Using Windows Media Player, I can play DRM tunes from BuyMusic.com, Napster, and other stores which use WMA DRM (of which he purported there are several others). I can send those same DRM tunes to various supporting hardware.
Using iTunes, I can play DRM tunes from
All that said
I have a
MORTAR COMBAT!
Anyone is free to sell AAC files. In fact, MusicMatch has publicly stated it will if the format proves popular. How is that lock-in by iTunes?
iTunes Music Store sells AAC, but does not lock you in to buying ONLY AAC. It doesn't even lock you into using iTunes (to play your music), as the DRM lives in QuickTime, so pretty much any software which supports QuickTime 6 can play iTMS AAC files.
iTunes plays practically everything BUT WMA... so iTunes will happily work with any source of MP3, AAC, WAV, AIFF, etc. files. Drawing on QuickTime and publicly available plug-ins, iTunes can play from these files:
(yes, I'm lazy and just pasting stuff from Apple's website)
AIFF, AU, Audio CD, AVI, DV, MIDI, MPEG-1, MP3, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MOV, WAV, Ogg Vorbis (with plug-in), etc.
in these encodings:
24-bit integer
32-bit floating point
32-bit integer
64-bit floating point
AAC (MPEG-4 Audio)
ALaw 2:1
AMR Narrowband
IMA 4:1
MACE 3:1
MACE 6:1
MS ADPCM (decode only)
QDesign Music 2
Qualcomm PureVoice (QCELP)
ULaw 2:1