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Microsoft Opens MSN Music Store
pbranes writes "Microsoft has opened their online music store today with 1 million songs and it will be officially opened tomorrow when Windows Media Player 10 is released. Music costs $0.99 and $9.90 for albums ($0.09 less than iTunes). Also, music is at a higher quality - 160kbps VBR. You can browse the site with Mozilla, however, ActiveX is required for full functionality so IE is required to use the store. Also, Microsoft takes a hit at Apple for not licensing iPod functionality to third parties (kind of ironic when ActiveX is required to use the site).... If you are an iPod owner already and unhappy about this policy, you are welcome to send feedback to Apple requesting that they change their interoperability policy."
These are the minimum requirements to play radio or purchase music from MSN.
HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
Windows 98 SE, Windows 2000, or Windows XP
Internet Explorer5.01 (or later), which supports 128-bit encryption
Windows Media Player7.1 (or later), we recommend the latest version
A 233 megahertz (MHz) processor (such as an Intel Pentium II or Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) processor) or faster
64 megabytes (MB) of RAM or more
Speakers and sound capability
Payment with a valid credit card with a U.S. billing address
To enjoy high-quality audio as a Radio Plus subscriber, you will need Windows Media Player 9 Series (or later)
The url for the ActiveX Plugin
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Er, the iPod plays normal mp3's as well as AACs.
If you can legally download an mp3 song then you can play it on your ipod.
If iTunes / iPods accounted for 90% of the music player market and if Apple were trying to leverage this market share to take over other markets, I might agree with you.
Disclaimer: I don't really fit your "Apple fan" description since the last time I owned Apple hardware was in the 1980s.
My username does not make me Apathetic. It's irony, get it?
Not to further fuel the flames, but it's not quite that straightforward.
I think part of the problem is that folks are looking at AAC as 'Apple's format.' It's not. AAC -- Advanced Audio Coding -- is an open standard; there's an ISO number for it, and it was come up with by the MPEG standards group. AAC is to MPEG4 what MP3 (MPEG1 Audio Layer 3) was to the original MPEG. AAC itself is quite widely played by software players -- more than just iTunes -- and is more or less the intended successor to MP3. (NOTE: Intended. I make no predictions about whether or not it will actually happen.)
Where you can point the finger at Apple is on their DRM implementation on top of AAC; that's not part of the AAC specification, and so means that while an un-protected AAC file can play on iTunes, WinAmp, etc., a protected iTunes Music Store one cannot. THIS is a little unfortunate; I'd love to be able to load protected AAC onto my NetMD minidisc player without having to burn it to CD first.
WMA makes me more nervous as a format, because as far as I know it's controlled by a single entity (Microsoft) instead of an open group (MPEG standards group). However, it can't be discounted that WMA's integration of DRM has made it the more attractive commercial option for folks, since it's possible to make differing players handle the same DRM-protected files.
Whether or not AAC with some form of DRM will catch on remains to be seen, I guess.
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From Mossberg's review at the WSJ:
-only about 500K songs
-no audio books, gift certificates, spending limits for kids
-Microsoft runs ads on its search pages
-click the "Buy" button, it changes to read "Purchased," but that doesn't mean you have the song
- several thousand of Microsoft's songs will cost more -- some nearly $4 each
-WMP choked when tried to synchronize songs purchased in Microsoft's own format from the Musicmatch, Wal-Mart and Napster online stores, saying it was "unable to obtain license
-Overall, MSN Music is no match for iTunes -- yet.
Mossberg thinks eventually MS will catch up.
http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20040902.html
The next pasture is always greener