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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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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."
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 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)
I, for one, agree with you that it would be nice to know what you're getting into before downloading. I'm not sure why everyone is so up-in-arms about letting you see what the selection is, but it seems like a legitimate complaint. If you have a very specific taste in music, for example, it could just be a waste of time downloading and installing iTunes just to uninstall it a few minutes later.
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
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!
Nope, they don't have any web version of their catalog available. I suppose iTunesMS is a bit of a download, but the entire store really is contained within the application.
:P
Haha, not quite. The iTunes music store is actually just regular web pages. If you use a tool like netstat (or better yet, TCPView from www.sysinternals.com) you can watch iTunes make a bunch of HTTP requests to Apple's servers when you browse each page in the store. If you use something like Process Explorer (this is turning into a Sysinternals commercial!) you can see that iTunes references the standard Internet Explorer HTML rendering engine to render the pages.
Apple presumably has something in place on the pages to ensure that only iTunes can access them. iTunes probably just sends some encrypted header doo-dad along with the normal HTTP request headers so that their webservers know that it's iTunes who's requesting the pages and not another web browser. If I wasn't lazy I'd fire up Etherreal and see exactly what's going on.
I'm sure with a little effort and header spoofing you could fairly easily access those pages with the web browser of your choice, although I can't think of any possible benefit to doing so.
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
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.
This bit of demogoguery is over the top. To say that a company who goes to the trouble to create the first practical, usable on-line music store for digital content, and does so completely in the context of the current laws and business climate we find ourselves stuck with, is "in league with RIAA" is like saying devlopers of WINE are in league with Microsoft or developers of a x86 Linux kernel are in league with Intel. Apple took all the tools they had to work with and made a solution that seems to work for all parties involved. Unless you can propose a more appropriate, successful, and LEGAL alternative, you should go peddle your conspiracies and new world orders elsewhere.
Shut up and eat your vegetables!!!
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