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5 Reasons Not to Buy an iPod
TommyH1000 writes "CNet has posted an article with five reasons not to buy an iPod. " The article really just shows the major shortcomings with the iPod (Battery, Cost, Moving Parts etc) and gives several alternatives. A great summary of the major things going on in the portable MP3 player market.
We want open, free media formats!
Yet, that's the only way to get huge capacities at a somewhat affordable price. If they had gigs of flash media, they'd be too expensive for most people. It's a trade-off, not a defect.
it seems odd that for each point, they suggest different mp3 players- which all have some of the same faults the ipod was critiziced for previously. I also don't think that the lack of support for windows media files means it won't work at all with other services, I think the services need to give you an oportunity to convert the music to mp3 or some other less controled standard.
the end of the article says it all: Of course, if you don't care about low battery life, aren't fond of jogging, have ample disposable income, don't need to record/encode music portably, and want to purchase music downloads only from the iTunes Music Store, then the iPod is the best the way to go. While not ideal for some niche activities, it's still hands down the best-designed MP3 player in the world.
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
... such as the ones about excessive weight for jogging (what kind of wimp can't carry 6 extra ounces?) and hard-drive vulnerability. The author clearly fails to understand how rugged those microdrives actually are. I doubt you could wreck one on purpose with anything short of an attack with a blunt instrument.
However, I'm concerned about the non-replaceable battery point he raises. I've already had to buy a $300 replacement lithium-ion battery for my two-year-old Vaio. Is it actually true that the IPod's battery can't be replaced, even by sending it back to Apple? If so, that's the mother of all deal-breakers for me. Modern technology is great and all that, but batteries still suck hard, and I certainly wouldn't want to give up the ability to replace them as needed.
This article doesn't make sense, because there is no other MP3 player that offers solutions for all 5 reasons either.
is that there is no MP3 player that will fit all uses and users (as if we didn't know that). I still prefer my iPod to any other player I've tried, but longer battery life would have been nice.
Of course, if you don't care about low battery life, aren't fond of jogging, have ample disposable income, don't need to record/encode music portably, and want to purchase music downloads only from the iTunes Music Store, then the iPod is the best the way to go.
Well, I routinely get 5 to 6 hours on my iPod and that is plenty for me. I have never had to have more battery life even on cross country plane flights or drives. I jog routinely with the iPod and have never had a problem and I tried the other music outlets for downloadable music. The iTMS is simply the best there is so.....What is his point?
And then at the bottom of this rant, the author saysWhile not ideal for some niche activities, it's still hands down the best-designed MP3 player in the world.
What gives? Is this guy totally out to lunch?
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What do you call the HDD???
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Did you RTFA? It's stated right at the beginning:
Don't get me wrong; it's still our favorite overall MP3 player. Although everyone can think of reasons why they want an iPod, I've decided to use this column to list a few reasons why not to buy one.
Before you send me rants for putting down the iPod, please read the list, realize that we still love the iPod, and take a deep breath.
If CNET ran an article with the title "5 Reasons Not to Buy a Windows XP PC", would that also be flamebait or would you consider it an alternative view? Follow the advice of the article: take a deep breath.
ich muß mehr Kuhglocke haben
I don't give a damn. Yes, the iPod isn't perfect, but none of the products he mentions is. I am a bit sceptical of the jogging argument as well, seeing as the iPod has 25 minutes of skip protection. But in any case, I think the guy just wants to point out flaws in the iPod. All this is fine, but do you really want the Dell alternative that has the one feature that the iPod doesn't have, and is missing all of the other things that make the iPod great?
Okay, except for maybe the battery life point, the other four points are:
2,3,4,5)Because it doesn't do something it's not designed to do.
Btw: If you won't buy an iPod because it's expensive, you obvious aren't in the target market for the device. It's actually reasonably priced in it's segment.
It's like saying 5 reasons not to buy a house:
1)It's expensive
2)You can't take it to the grocery store... etc.
-Ryan
AUWYHSTOT (Acronyms are Useless When You Have to Spell Them Out Too)
The battery life really is not great, and it continues to suck power even when you don't have it on so you have to recharge the thing constantly. The other issues like weight, and expense are valid too, I also dislike the the touch-sensitive buttons, no manual EQ settings, no line-in.
Apple zealots don't do Apple any favors as they set themselves up so high on the pedestal, that they're bound to get knocked down a peg. The iPod really isn't THAT much better overall nowadays.
Don't get me wrong, I still like the iPod, but it's not so clear-cut nowadays with all the new competitors. Hopefully, Apple will address these issues in the next revision to stay ahead of the pack.
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
apart from the recording and music store ones, but it is still the smallest HD player and still the best looking and it has the best interface (not that I have tried them all). And besides I've got one and there's no way that you're going to persuade me that my 299 was poorly spent.
Lack of radio is a small but important one for me. Considering that it costs less than 50 cents for an integrated radio chip, and that the iPods UI is ideal for radio tuning, it is certainly something I would like to see. Sometimes I want to hear the news and other live events.
Apple could open up a bit more in terms of media formats, but then again, so could the online stores. AAC is far more open that WMA is at the moment. Heck AAC, is even part of the MPEG4 standard.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
1. Apple hasn't partnered with Cnet to sell their device via click-through, resulting in less revenue for CNet from the apparent #1 player.
2. Were Apple to increase in marketshare as a result of 1)the #1 portable music device and 2)the #1 online music store, we'd have to have people cover it more, potentially resulting in less coverage of Microsoft-based products.
3. Anyone can find something wrong with anything, and I have, and since I work at CNet and you don't, you have to listen to me.
4. Microsoft creates standards, not Apple. If Apple creates standards, or supports ones not approved by billg, we'll be back in the chaos of the 80's and early 90's. I can't go back to installing WinSock! I can't!! Buy WMA devices, please!
5. Ha ha, sucker, thanks for the ad impressions. Coming up next: 5 reasons why you shouldn't use Linux, Mac OS X, and/or Mozilla!
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
Don't get me wrong; you are still my favorite overall insightful poster. Although everyone can think of reasons why your posts are good, I've decided to use this comment to list a few reasons why they are not.
1. You are an idiot.
Just because I put the disclaimer up, does not mean that this isn't flamebait. Likewise with the CNet article. They are trying to provoke a reaction, and probably a negative one given how popular the iPod is.
It is one thing to post a review of one of the best products and still point out its flaws. It is another to post an article that is structured in an entirely negative way, despite the fact that they admit it is great. This is simply a case of beating up on the popular guy, just to provoke a reaction (and draw hits to their site so they can sell ads).
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
Rip all my CDs and then burn them back onto CDRs...
Which is discussed more completly in the article that you obviously didn't read.
Some experts say that it's impossible to damage the drive in this way, but I'm not buying that
Yeah, because he knows way more than any expert. He even figured out that you have to wait until the buffer is completely empty before you refill it.
And I'm sure he pored over the specs for the hard drive and saw that the G's he would put on the iPod while jogging would exceed the specs for the drive.
Basically, despite the line at the end calling the iPod the best designed player (added by an editor perhaps?), it's just an anti-iPod rant.
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I was using the same solution at work (I'm a coder) for almost a year.
Disadvantages: no playlists, so you end up swapping CDRs quite often. It's also a major pain to organize your CDRs: if you've ripped 12 CDs in one CDR it's already hard to list them all on the disk, but if you have to burn hundreds of individual songs (from the ol'napster days) on one CDR, you gotta keep some sort of separate catalog to be able to find what you want to listen.
I eventually got an 40gig IPod and I'm saving at least 30 min a day from not having to manipulate CDRs and I now enjoy my library much more (takes only a few seconds to switch album or playlist and therefore keep me in the zone more easily by selecting the right music to match my mood).
> Some experts say that it's impossible to damage the drive in this way, but I'm not buying that
Yeah, because he knows way more than any expert
It has moving parts. Sooner or later, it will fail.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Gee, would you rather buy an iPod, or a device that is comprised of the best features of _SEVEN_ other devices? What, you can't buy such a device? This article is more a collection of reasons another device might suit your needs better than an iPod, not a collection of reasons not to get one. Sure, if you could make an MP3 player that has better battery life, was shock proof, costed less than an iPod, held as much music, could act as a recording studio, and could play any format ever created, I'd buy it. But you can't. That's why this guy has to use seven different devices to beat the iPod hands-down. I wonder how much free stuff this guy gets from Microsoft for spouting this shit.
`which fortune`
iPod is a great product. Period. My friend had one, and he just loved it. I couldn't figure out what was about it, and, having my own MP3 plays, I used to think 'it's about the same, i guess'. Then, I borrow my friends iPod for a few hours. I was convinced, sold my mp3 player, and bought an iPod. Then, a second friend saw me with the iPod, and asked me about it. He borrowed it for 3 hours, and that weekend, he was buying one. Have you ever heard of anything like this with any other consumer electronics? It is a quality product, I haven't been so satisfied with a consumer electronic products in a looong time.
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
Let me get my 'opinion' outta the way... This guy is off his rocker.. :D
On to the facts:
"Six-plus hours of battery life is not always enough."
"go with the Dell Digital Jukebox DJ (15GB), which lasted almost 20 hours in our battery test--and it's less expensive than the iPod."
The iPod gets 8 hours (with the backlight off) of battery time. The Dell DJ gets 15 hours (according to TechTV & Dell) I agree with his point, but his facts are skewed to try to make his point stronger..
"Jogging with a hard drive-based player is not cool."
"Some experts say that it's impossible to damage the drive in this way, but I'm not buying that--hard drives spin thousands of times per minute, and they have tiny, fragile parts."
So.. this guy, a columnist, has more techincal say-so than 'some experts'.. If there was a 10gb/20gb/40gb flash mp3 player, he might have a point here, but flash hasn't reached that capacity yet..
"3. The iPod is expensive."
Yea.. he's kinda right here.. it is kinda pricey.. (Dell's DJ being about $100 less for the same capacity [on the 20gb]), however I feel that's a small premium to pay for 1394, weight, and style..
"4. You want to make high-quality digital recordings."
"DJs who want to record their sets, people who want to encode their vinyl or cassette collections to MP3, or musicians who are looking for a replacement for their DAT recorder need this feature."
DJ's who want to record their sets will record out to a digital, lossless format, not to MP3.. *rolleyes*
"5. You want a choice in online music stores."
"Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy the Apple iTunes Music Store; its AAC-encoded files sound great, the selection is decent, and it's easy to use. But I don't like feeling hemmed in. "
So.. In other words, he want's to use other music services where you 'rent' the music instead of 'own' the music.. Music that is encoded in WMA (a microsoft standard) instead of AAC (an open standard).. He says the selection in iTMS is 'decent', when it kills Napster, BuyMusic, and MusicMatch in their selection..
Sorry.. but this guy's rogerian argument is not going to work on me..
Just when you make it idiotproof, some idiot builds a better idiot.
Microsoft has everyone talking about the wide selection of players that support WMA as being better for you. What a load of crap.
WMA is a proprietary, closed format that can only be implemented via deals directly with Microsoft. Sure a lot of players support it now, but what about five years from now? Or in 18 months when Microsoft comes out with "WMA-Enhanced" or "WMA-Palladium"?
You can argue that AAC isn't an open standard, but it's at least a standard promoted by the MPEG LA. You can hate it for not being free, but it's an industry standard instead of a single company's product format.
Free is best, but industry standard trumps single-company product in this case.
The reason other manufacturers of HD based players don't get it is because they think they can compete and win on price and features. Which is true, they can do pretty well - but in their desire to push the price down lower than an iPod they end up using cheaper materials which means that what they end up with:
- Looks cheap and nasty
- Feels cheap and nasty
When a HD based MP3 player hits the market which looks and feels good (and i'm sorry to say it but this is butt ugly and this looks only marginally better but still feels cheap and nasty) then they'll be onto a winner. Even if it has the same or less features.For many people, if you're going to pony up several hunded quid for a HD based MP3 player - it better not look like something made by Fischer Price.
However, there is light at the end of the tunnel, Toshiba might come up with the goods (and also Panasonic, but I can't find the product I was thinking of) ...
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
4. What percentage of the owners of portable MP3 players are DJs that want to record their sets? DAT is lossless and is an industry standard, which makes it considerably better for recording your live sets.
You're ignoring his other points. There's probably a large percentage of users who have vinyl and cassets who would want to make backups of their media. Also, as consumer become more empowered with technology, they generally start do do more things with them. Go beyond the average consumer and you have audio engineers, producers, and DJ's as well. There's multiple markets to target with such a feature - why do you think even low end portable cassette players have audio inputs?
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
The main problem with the article is that it's the iPod versus the world, and not one particular other device.
Note that each of the 5 has a separate list of alternative players that the iPod beats head to head.
For example, in one point he crows that one alternative has no moving parts and weighs less than the iPod, but in another point, he presents a solution involving an MP3 CD player (moving parts) that is also saddled with a case of CDs (total is far heavier and more unweildy than the iPod).
So it seems if I follow the advice of this article, I need to buy about 3 to 5 different players to beat the functionality of my iPod.
Obligatory car analogy: It's like saying, if you want a sports car, you should not buy Corvette because it's more expensive than a Mustang, might break more easily than a Lexus GS300, hauls less than a Chevy full size pickup, has a smaller fuel tank than a Hummer and is not as "cool" as an Aston Martin.
--- Ban humanity.
Instead one has to throw away the ipod and buy a new one...
Holy crap, I thought this was Slashdot! You're afraid that you might someday need to open an old out-of-warranty MP3 player to replace a battery!? What the hell kind of hacker are you, anyway?
Slashdot's stated purpose is "news for nerds." Go read CNN.com or Drudge Report or something if that doesn't apply to you.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
*None* of the MP3 players he's hawking resolves all 5 points
This is what I was looking for someone to point out. After each point, a player was shown that was better at that point. I didn't see two pictures of the same player. Does this suggest that no player is even good at two of them?
-- The world is watching America, and America is watching TV.
Of course, in those films, all the protagonist has to do is step outside of that area of expertise and he easily kicks their asses. Which I think is exactly what the iPod does overall, kicks ass.
Aw, brave iPod. How easily you have destroyed the warriors of the C-net. The spirit of the Wu-tang Clan flows within you -- in fact, the complete DISCOGRAPHY of the Wu-tang Clan flows within you.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
The reason why WMA would be more useful is because more people use WMA.
/are/, however, selling DRM-wrapped WMA files. Appealing to more customers again.
/is/ a reason not to support it on an iPod: they already are paying for support of AAC and MP3s and can only fit a limited number of formats in its memory.
It doesn't matter if, on some ideological (or even technical) level Ogg is "better" (why do I get the image of that guy from SG1? Kom-chy-a!) most people do not use it. Full stop, end of story.
If I produce a word processor and I had a limited number of file formats I could support it would behoove me to select Word over OpenOffice. Why? Because more people use Word than OpenOffice and if I want to appeal to more people that is the way to go.
There is also the point that no one is selling DRM-wrapped Ogg files (not that this is not possible). They
>Because ogg is patent and royalty free, there's no reason
>for it not to be adopted by everyone and be everywhere.
There
AAC is a given, the Apple Music Store distributes in it and its what's used in mpeg4 files.
MP3 is a given.
AIFF/WAV are givens.
I want to see support for (smaller) lossless formats before I see Ogg support.
For me as an end user, I never (directly) see the license fees paid by Apple for mp3 or AAC support (if they even have to pay the latter). iTunes is distributed to me for free and it does not support ripping to ogg and my iPod won't play ogg, why should I bother with it?
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
emusic.com
If it was buy one song at a time, I might go for it, but I pay enough monthly subscriptions between dish, cell, dsl and netflix.
Their webpage hawks the free trial at you like crazy and hides the real price but it starts at $9.99/month for 40 downloads per month.
I'm trying to be satisfied with stuff I found through Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads and avoid supporting the dinosaurs completely. GarageBand looks promising- I can listen to RealAudio songs & "radio" at work, add the ones I like to my playlist & download 'em to my iPod at home.
I just got my iRiver iHP-120 last week, and I'm extremely impressed.
I'm very happy with Ogg Vorbis, and I wanted to buy the first good quality player that supported it. Well, iRiver, I must say you have outdone yourself. The iHP-120 is simply amazing:
I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture. Sorry, but the iPod doesn't even come close...
>Your analogy is stupid. People share (legally) Word files a
>lot more often than they legally share music files. Unless
>you are somehow actively advocating the illegal sharing of
>music files, I don't see why popularity base has anything
>to do with your choice of music format.
The analogy is good, your understanding is flawed. People don't share music legally very often, but that's not particularly relevant.
Popularity has everything to do with why Apple would select mp3 over Ogg and AAC over Ogg (they are making it popular). It also has everything to do with why they should take WMA over Ogg, should they be forced to make that decision.
Without Ogg support in the iPod, I have no reason (whatsoever) to rip my files in Ogg format. I can rip them in 192 kbps AAC and get excellent quality and it will play on my iPod with no difficult and even work with the visualizer (which I never use, but hey, its there) in iTunes.
[quote]
Moore's law has just about caught up to portable players to the point where they can reasonably be expected to support additional file formats for almost no marginal cost. Any modern player should support all of the formats.
[/quote]
The problem isn't computation (which is what Moore's Law deals with--transistor counts) but with memory and hardware encodings. Upping the speed of the processor only helps so much with this kind of thing.
I do not consider lacking ogg to be a deficit--at all. Virtually my entire library is 192 kbps AAC (what I rip myself), 128 kbps AAC (what I buy from iTMS), or 256 kbps MP3 (VBR) (older rips I haven't gotten around to reripping yet). Therefore, when I look at portable players, I rank lacking ogg with lacking MPC, Blade, or WMA.
I think most consumers are in the exact same boat.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
Perhaps the iHP-120 from iRiver IS ugly...
But it plays Ogg and I'd buy it for that over an iPod any day.
Polymorphism -- It's what you make of it.
I mean, this is PATHETIC. Try to keep up with me here.
I love the iPod. It's nice. But god, it's not the be-all and end-all. The article says 'if you're really concerned about battery life, then don't get the iPod.' IF this is the major factor for you, THEN this is a reason not to get the iPod! Get it?
I mean, it's like we've got this really nice four-door car, plenty of trunk space, really reliable, really pretty, good gas milage, good power, etc. And they wrote an article called 'Five reasons not to buy this vehicle'.
1) You need a car that gets 50 miles to the gallon
2) You haul furnature for a living
3) You need to drive through the outback 40 miles each way every day
4) You can't afford it
5) You were actually looking for a boat
Get OVER it, it's a perfectly valid article! There are people for whom that car ISN'T the best vehicle; there are people for whom the iPod isn't the best portable media device! And THEY SHOULDN'T BUY ONE. Maybe that's only 10% of customers, but believe it or not, THEY NEED REVIEWS TOO!
Goddamn. Makes me embarrassed to be an Apple enthusiast, with people around who can't understand stuff like this. I mean, MacUser ran an article 10 years or so ago called 'Top Ten Reasons Not To Buy A Mac'. You guys would have flayed and roasted them, instead of taking it as constructive criticism, and useful information.
Sad.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Well, this is how so much content for consumer media is generated. ZDnet or whoever trawl through their advertisers to see who has new products. Five big spending companies say 'yeah, we've got new MP3 players', and they say 'OK, we'll do a review piece. Wanna buy some advertising?'
Now you *know* that they aren't going to say anything critical about any of those machines, so they say 'yeah, look, it has these new cool features.'
That's how it works. That's how it always worked. But in this case, either they know they can't get away with all of the usual hyperbole, or alternatively they used a writer with some small modicum of integrity, and so what's his conclusion?
"There are a couple of new machines with new features, some of which improve on the iPod, but the truth is, as a general all around useful MP3 player, the iPod continues to kick the shit out of everything else."
Intellectual honesty is a real rarity in consumer product reviews where editors will tell you to eat shit, and then criticize you because you complained that the odour was pungent when it should have been fragrant, and you didn't wear the appropriate shit-eating grin while dining.
I suspect that this guy wrote an intellectually honest review, but then some asshole editor or subeditor decides to present the story as 'five reasons not to buy an iPod' -- but the writer refuses to concede that anything else out there comes close as an all-around general mp3 playing type thingie.
Disclaimer. I don't and never have worked for Ziff Davis, nor have I ever owned an iPod. However, I do have friends who own them and they wouldn't use anything else.
Basically, the article is saying that the iPod is a Jack of all trades, and master of none. It might be the best all-around player, but on any specific feature, there's probably something better.
The point is, don't assume that the iPod is the best player FOR YOU just because it is the best all-around player. If one specific feature happens to be supremely important to you, the iPod might fall short, and leave you disappointed.
I've an iPod. I define a 'few files' when I sync something on the order of magnitude of one to four CDs, which is about 60mb to 300mb. So I plug in my iPod, and 5 to 30 seconds later everything is done!
On a USB 1.1 interface that would become... 75 to 450 seconds later... or something like 1 to 7 minutes later...
Then lets say I want to back up my home directory once a week. All 300mb! Only a minute on the iPod (plus synching music, all at 16mb/s) vs 15 to 20 minutes on your Neuros...
So in the end, the question is 'What do you pay for usability?'
Neuros is huge, 3/4 of a pound, the size of a paperback novel, and slow.
The iPod is small, 1/3 of a pound, the size of a pack of cigs, and fast.
Plus if you leave them both in for 10 minutes (say you go to the bathroom or get a drink), the iPod will have charged by 10%, while the Neuros will have charged 2%... Effectively giving the iPod an additional hour of play!
GPL Deconstructed
Unlike Windows, booting a Mac from the iPod or any Firewire device doesn't mean a Mac was crashed. A typical PC user's point of view, I can tell.
It is because I *can* have my whole environment carrying on the portable device and booting from it means I do not have to ask the client for the necessary applications, settings, and all that hazzles only to find out that an important component is not loaded that the whole demo has to be postponed or the deal blew.
$249 expensive? This is priceless, man!
wah wah? looks who doing all the wah wah
Scott
I understand you need to troll, sir, but I strongly disagree that it's not a good thing. The same cultural change happened to the automobile freaks about 80 years ago. In 1910's or 1920's a fan of the automobile was usually someohe who spends entire day in his garage, endlessly tweaking and troubleshooting his self-made machine. Since about 1930's an automobile fan is just a person who likes to drive, who frequently buys a new machine, who is usually knows what new models are to be announced next quarter etc. But it is no longer a person who enjoys spartan interiors and thinks that automatic A/C or heated seats are "feminine". On the contrary, he enjoys everything modern techonogy can offer to make his voyage even more comfortable.
;-)). She appreciates the same things I do appreciate - ease-of-use, well-thought interface, robustness. The only difference is that I can always tell the build of the OS we both use and probably she does not even know the version or the proper name, because she just doesn't care.
The same thing happened to the computers. My wife is not a computer geek, but she uses the same equipment that I do (after all, I do the shopping
To say that it's not a good thing is like to say that it's not a good thing that we don't have to start our cars using a manual handle because of the feminine invention of a key-activated electric starter.
1. Battery life: I used to take 12-14 hour flights and the iPod battery was enough. Why? Because I didn't listen to music for 12 hours straight, dummy! I ate, watched movies, talked to the fellow next to me, slept, etc.
2. Jogging with hard drive based player is not cool: Erm, jogging with ANY music device isn't cool, it's STUPID. Excellent way to get run down. And if you're using a treadmill, I would suggest that the impact from the ground is less severe than asphalt. In any event, I have an original iPod and jogging on a treadmill has never hurt it. Now the darn thing is outdated, I want a NEW iPod, so maybe I wish the hard drive WOULD die to force me to buy a new one.
3. Yes, it is expensive. 4. It plays music. It's not a high quality recorder. Did anyone ever want to use their cassette for high quality recording of band sets? I, for one, don't need devices that do 6 things in a mediocre way. I like the iPod cause it does one thing VERY WELL. I didn't buy it for breakout, either, by the way.
5. Obviously, as a Mac user iTunes store is enough for me. It is lacking in selection but the other stores won't have the titles I want, either. For the time being, those eclectic bands and hard to find releases will still be CD purchases for me.