[blessingx]

http://www.msnbc.com/news/966392.asp

And Apple, NEWSWEEK learned, quietly informed some music insiders that it’s moved up the date for expanding its current Mac-only iTunes for the vast universe of Windows-based PCs to mid-October.

 

[Dweebgal]

oooh, lovely.

i shall think of this as apple's birthday present to me. well my birthday is the 1st, but it's close enough.

 

[lan]

That's awesome but I probably wont' have iPod by then. At least now I can recommend to my PC friends about good software for it.

 

[st5150]

Gee, I think windows users can't wait for the service to start so they can delete kazaa and other free P2P programs from their computer and install Itunes for only $1/song. Even if iTunes was 1cent per song, the free services will have 99.99% of the market share.

 

[MacDEF]

Quote:

Originally posted by st5150 Gee, I think windows users can't wait for the service to start so they can delete kazaa and other free P2P programs from their computer and install Itunes for only $1/song. Even if iTunes was 1cent per song, the free services will have 99.99% of the market share.

I think more than .01% of people have a conscience and believe in paying for what they use.

 

[SpoonMan]

Some people want iTunes to use as a media organizer...there's more to iTunes then the store...I've heard iTunes is a great program and personally am lookin very much forward to giving it a go

 

[rrhodes]

I have used iTunes Music Store and iTunes for the last three weeks. The quality of the downloads is terrific, the selection more than adequate and the price fair. Moreover, the iTunes software is (for this non-techy) so completely intuitive that I've only once had to consult the manual. It is genuinely elegant in every respect.

As to the earlier poster who questioned whether significant numbers would forsake ripping illegal music - I hope so. I've heard all the arguments in favor and they are so specious so as to be barely worthy of responding to. "The record companies make too much money - cds shouldn't cost so much" are the typical harangues. If that justifies theft, then, by the same token I ought to be able go under cover of night to my local Infiniti dealer and steal an FX45 because I think $45,000 is too much to pay. A copyright owner has the exclusive right to copy and distribute his/her music. What part of the word of "exclusive" do these nitwits fail to understand???????

 

[e-r0ck]

Quote:

Originally posted by SpoonMan Some people want iTunes to use as a media organizer...there's more to iTunes then the store...I've heard iTunes is a great program and personally am lookin very much forward to giving it a go

thats what i cant wait for. im using DrTag right now and i really like it, but iTunes is a lot prettier

. hopefully it'll be as good as everyone raves about it.

 

[maczrool]

Quote:

Originally posted by rrhodes I have used iTunes Music Store and iTunes for the last three weeks. The quality of the downloads is terrific, the selection more than adequate and the price fair. Moreover, the iTunes software is (for this non-techy) so completely intuitive that I've only once had to consult the manual. It is genuinely elegant in every respect. As to the earlier poster who questioned whether significant numbers would forsake ripping illegal music - I hope so. I've heard all the arguments in favor and they are so specious so as to be barely worthy of responding to. "The record companies make too much money - cds shouldn't cost so much" are the typical harangues. If that justifies theft, then, by the same token I ought to be able go under cover of night to my local Infiniti dealer and steal an FX45 because I think $45,000 is too much to pay. A copyright owner has the exclusive right to copy and distribute his/her music. What part of the word of "exclusive" do these nitwits fail to understand???????

Maybe so, but why should the market support highly compressed, lossy, locked down sound formats that must be hacked and further degraded to be usable? The iTunes store and other similar music services charge basically the same as CD prices (on a per song basis), with little advantage other than the convenience of instant availability. These services should be cheaper to run than conventional production, marketing and distribution channels and yet the consumer is not seeing any savings. For the price they are charging, I expect to have true CD quality and true portability. This jumping through hoops and inferior sound to save the record companies money just doesn't cut it. Bottom line- lower prices or increase quality (a lot).

Stu

 

[HappySoggyBagel]

iTunes is by far the most logical music ripper/organizer/player/burner I have ever encountered. Now, of course, I won't be able to make fun of Windows users for having to use the vastly inferor winamp

Oh well, I'm glad they will finally be able to use it. Maybe now I can send them AAC files without directing them to a place at which they can download the proper winamp plug-in.

 

[e-r0ck]

Quote:

Originally posted by HappySoggyBagel iTunes is by far the most logical music ripper/organizer/player/burner I have ever encountered. Now, of course, I won't be able to make fun of Windows users for having to use the vastly inferor winamp Oh well, I'm glad they will finally be able to use it. Maybe now I can send them AAC files without directing them to a place at which they can download the proper winamp plug-in.

people use winamp to play stuff. i think the big difference is that we just dont care. maybe because we cant use iTunes and it just never crossed our minds. (im speaking generally) i just organize my stuff by folders.

 

[bubbaj]

I agree with maczrool. A typical album has 12 to 14 tunes. That means I'm spending an average of $13 for a CD. But I don't have the CD. I must burn that myself and put it in a case. No liner notes either. Now they are starting to drop the prices of Cds to a list of $13. Which means I can probably buy it for less. Let's say $10 or $11. So it seems to me that the service is way overpriced. I'd like to see 50 cents a tune. I think that is more reasonable.

I've never heard the AAC Mpeg - 4 audio format before. The web site claims that most people can't tell the difference between that and uncompressed audio. I'll bet I can. However, I will say that it is probably an improvement over the 128 "CD quality" tunes one can get elsewhere.

Streaming over the web to wherever you are is a feature you won't get with the purchase of a CD, but I don't think it's an important feature for most people ..... yet.

 

[blessingx]

I'll probably be holding off on using Apple's Music Store again until they get to a quality level I feel comfortable with, but you guys do realize that most albums are $9.99 there, right? It's not $.99 per song if you buy the whole album. Before we get off base with $12-$14 price discussions, lets please keep that in mind. You may still feel its not worth it, but we're talking $10 for an album of lossy files versus $15 for a CD. We'll see how the recent Universal price reductions on CD's influence this, but at least there's some savings for the files for those that only need them. I really wish though that Apple would bump the AAC's to 192 (especially VBR that some have rumored with the next version of QT).

 

[MacDEF]

Quote:

Originally posted by bubbaj A typical album has 12 to 14 tunes. That means I'm spending an average of $13 for a CD. But I don't have the CD. I must burn that myself and put it in a case. No liner notes either. Now they are starting to drop the prices of Cds to a list of $13.

As blessingx pointed out, most albums are $9.99.

But more importantly, I don't buy albums at the iMS -- I buy singles. Instead of paying $15 for a CD that only has one song I like, I spend $.99, or maybe $1.98, for the 1 or 2 songs I want.

So I've saved a lot of money since it opened

 

[maczrool]

Quote:

Originally posted by MacDEF As blessingx pointed out, most albums are $9.99. But more importantly, I don't buy albums at the iMS -- I buy singles. Instead of paying $15 for a CD that only has one song I like, I spend $.99, or maybe $1.98, for the 1 or 2 songs I want. So I've saved a lot of money since it opened

As long as you aren't too concerned about sound quality or liner notes or any of those luxuries, then that's great. For essentially full price as compared to CDs, you are giving up quite a bit in my opinion.

The iTunes AACs sound okay, but what if you want to play them on an incompatible device? If that device is anything other than a CD player, you'll have to convert them to AIFF and either leave them in a bulky uncompressed format to prevent losing nore sound quality or recompress them into MP3 or some other compatible format. Once recompressed, those AACs really start to lose their luster.

Stu