Apple Archive

Apple, Music, and the iTunes Music Store

- 2003.05.02

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After the demise of Napster for Mac and Aimster, the only real choice in terms of applications to download music with for the Macintosh was Limewire or another Gnutella client. Now you can add iTunes to the list.

iTunes 4, that is. Since access to the service is built into the application, you cannot use an earlier version of iTunes to access the iTunes Music Store.

This severely limits the number of people who can use this service. Unlike web-based services, you can only access the iTunes Music Store on a Mac running OS X 10.1 or later. This poses a problem to those using other operating systems - the majority of Mac users are still running OS 9, and what about all of the Windows users and Linux users?

Apple will eventually come out with a Windows version of iTunes 4, but it is doubtful that they will offer a version for Linux or Mac OS 9. This leaves many users with nowhere to turn but to Limewire, Kazaa (in Virtual PC), or one of the other services like EMusic.

I understand that Apple wants people to use OS X, but it would have a much wider user base if it supported other operating systems as well.

The other issue is that the iTunes Music Store won't sell you an MP3 file. You have purchase an encoded AAC file that somewhat limits its own use. For those that don't have an iPod and use an MP3 player not compatible with AAC files, this could be an issue. You can burn your music to CD and then rip it to MP3 format, but that's inconvenient. It would be nice if Apple were to offer MP3 as an option, since it's the industry standard.

If Apple were to integrate the iTunes Music Store in with the QuickTime portion of their website (and maybe call it iMusic?), then anyone with any operating system to have access to the music through their browser. Of course, something would have to be done to give the user some sort of benefit if they decided to use iTunes to search for and download the music instead of the Web interface.

At the price that Apple is charging per song, it ends up getting expensive if you want to buy a lot of songs. I have heard that other services offer subscription rates, which might be a good idea for Apple. Apple does offer a bit of a discount if you plan to buy an entire album online, usually selling it for $9.99.

In terms of music selection, I must admit that with the absence of a Mac running OS X, I haven't been able to try it out yet. I have heard, however, that the selection is limited when it comes to more obscure music, unfortunately leaving only artists such as Avril Lavigne, Eminem, and 3 Doors Down (if anyone wants to confirm that, try a search for Discipline, Riot/Clone, and Pistol Grip, I'd be curious to see if any results come up at all).

In general, though, I think that Apple is going in the right direction by offering music over the Internet. It seems like an area Apple would have eventually ended up in, after first offering iTunes and later the iPod.

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