Apple Releases iTunes for Windows

Billy_D_Goat writes "Today at a special media event, Apple Computer released their acclaimed iTunes Music Store and stand alone player for Windows XP and 2000. They also announced a partnership to sell music on AOL and give away songs with special bottles of Pepsi. You can learn more and download it from here. "

Re:Great! kind of

Reading this comment reminds me of exactly why Apple has such great mind share with average home users and Linux doesn't. In a word: innovation.

Now, before you start flaming me, please listen to my intent:

Apple: puts out uber-cool, lickin' your chops iPod, but makes it only available on Macs (to start). Puts out actually workable online music service and makes is only available on Macs (to start). People love both of these things and buy them in hoards. Mac users have status and coolness as they're the only ones that can get this awesome stuff... at least for little while.

Linux: Can we run this on WINE? In other words, can we take this cool stuff from another platform and try to make it work on ours. You probably can and probably will, but meanwhile you have to wait for some point in time AFTER everyone else has it. Let's face it, cool is very often about being first... about having something others don't have.

What Linux needs is innovation. They need something that only they have (at least for a little while) that everyone else wants. That is how it will build mind share, not by saying "look, we can do it too (if you're only willing to wait a while)"

TW

Re:Great! kind of

It's not like you can just go code iTunes++ for Linux. Most of the magic, so to speak, is not in the code (which I suspect is fairly straight forward), but rather in the deals they've gotten with the record companies.

There is plenty of innovating going on - but expecting Linux users to just ignore exciting developments on other platforms is idiotic. Why can't Linux innovate _and_ use other people's innovations? Total originality all the time is highly over-rated, if you ask me.

-Erwos

Re:Great! kind of

Please tell me - what experimental innovative software is there available for Linux? What does innovative software mean to you?

BTW, I've been running Linux since kernel version 0.99pl15, and am running servers with RedHat 7.3/8/9, debian, and embedded linux-ppc based on YellowDog linux.

All I see now are me-too web browsers, me-too developer IDE's, me-too office applications, me-too games, and me-too multimedia apps. Yes I know there is value in making a word processor that feels like Microsoft Word, but where are the experimental word processors that go beyond Word, GUI and functionality-wise? Word is not and never was a good GUI design. It makes me really want to write up my own...

The innovative software that I have I've seen running on Linux was not written with Linux in mind but was originally written for Unix/X11 before Linux existed.

Back to the iTunes topic, I installed iTunes on a WIn2000 machine. On my Mac, I ran iTunes and clicked 'Share Library'. On the Win2000 machine my Mac's music library automatically appeared in the left panel. No complex setup either. It is these little things and attention to detail that make iTunes more innovative than any music player on Linux.

I myself am guilty of promoting complexities. Since I know how to set up NFS and Samba and Apache and Shoutcast, I would just use one of these tools on my own Linux boxes to accomplish the same thing with XMMS or X11AMP or even mpg321 with a cgi php4 script front-end with apache and the mp3 meta-data extracted into a PostgreSQL table for faster searches. All the tools are there, and as a programmer, I find it fun to implement these kinds of things - and I HAVE spent time doing this for my own system.

Because I did it myself like this, I forget about the fact that there would be a much easier way for the end user who maybe does not have these tools or does not know how to use these tools, or does not care - he just wants his music on one computer to be played back on another computer without having to think about file sharing or audio streaming software or DNS issues or IP addresses or IP ports or protocols.

Click on 'Share Music' on computer A.
Click on shared music on computer B.
Press 'Play'

Brilliant Idea!

--jeff++

Re:Great! kind of

Unfortunately you are 100% correct.

Why does linux need iTunes when Linux already has mpg321, postgresql, cdparanoia, sox, LAME, cdrecord, samba, and php with apache? Just connect them up and you have an even MORE powerful system than iTunes! Amaze your computer-illiterate friends with your knowledge of arcane things!

Meanwhile, I run iTunes and now I have more time available to post to slashdot.

--jeff++

Re:Can PC users tets it and report?

Downloaded, installed it, imported my existing music library. It asked if I wanted to sort my music library (or something like that) and I said OK. Now all of my MP3s are sorted into a million subdirectories based on artist and album information, all files are renamed to just the track number and the song title. I had all of my MP3 files in "Artist - Song Title.mp3" format and that is now all gone.

I then do a Windows Explorer search for all .MP3 files and move them back into my main MP3 directory and start getting overwrite questions because now two different versions of American Woman have the same file name, same for two different versions of Burning Down the House, etc.

Other than the fact that it's fucked up my music library and I'll now have to spend hours sorting and renaming files, it's great.... Grrrr...

Re:While I like the idea...

I guess I don't understand your complaint... you can burn these into a CD ALL YOU WANT and from there you can do anything you want to them (mp3, record them onto a *cough* tape player, whatever).

or maybe you're just upset that there's a resonable compromise between DRM and free use rights. Come on, if you want legit digital downloads, there's going to have to be some restrictions.

Did anyone see the requirements?

From the iTunes 4 download page for Win2K/XP:

128 MB RAM minimum/256 RAM recommended

OK, I know RAM is cheap these days, and most people should have at least 128MB on modern machines, but I just have to ask--why would a simple network file retrieving application (let's face it, that's all this is with a little security thrown in) need that much memory? Damn...

Re:Did anyone see the requirements?

Well, it rips CDs to MP3/AAC/AIFF/WAV from CD, burns CDs, compiles smart playlists, accesses the iTunes Music Store, displays visual graphics as music is playing, etc.

So, I'd say it does a bit more than a "simple network file retrieving application" - never mind that a Win2K/XP machine with less than 256MB RAM is going to be awfully painful (my Thinkpad had only 384MB and it was painful if I tried to actually use multiple apps simultaneously).

Re:It's also an MP3 player.

I've gotta say, while I'm a Mac fan. Apple likes to eat up RAM like candy.

Hmm, yes and no. The philosophy of Mac OS X (and quite a few other operating systems, especially Unix-like ones) is that you should use as much RAM as you can. RAM access is usually much faster than hard drive access, so why not fill up RAM with stuff that you might possibly need from the hard drive at some point.

Memory management in Mac OS X goes like this: boot up, take up a good percentage of available RAM and place system stuff in there. Every time a window is created, make a backing store for faster and smoother access. If the user runs a program, load as much stuff related to that program as possible. If the user quits a program keep most of it in memory anyways, they might want it a minute later. They access the hard drive? Read into memory the next few sectors beyond what the user asked for simply because they may want them next.

All of this fills up RAM pretty quickly and makes the operating system look bloated. Actually though, it's highly efficient. It's usually much quicker to free up RAM then it is to fill it. Even in the case where you need to page out memory (store it back on disk to make room for something else), it's still not much slower than having the memory empty in the first place. This is why having more RAM makes Mac OS X faster, it uses the extra space to be more efficient.

To show you what I mean try launching Internet Explorer (or any other large program). Time how long it takes to launch, then quit it and start it again. Time how long it takes to launch for the second time. For IE I got 4 seconds for the first launch and then 2 seconds for every launch after that. This is because IE is now cached in RAM and doesn't need to be loaded from the hard drive to be launched.

So again, you are perfectly right in that Mac OS X takes up a lot of RAM. However this is actually a feature. After all RAM is pretty cheap now and I think most people would trade off a few bucks to have their system more responsive. On the other hand I do know that Mac OS X does cope decently with low-RAM situations. It can run just fine on a machine with 256 megs of RAM but it will seem slower than a similar machine with 512 megs of RAM. I'd say that 512 megs of RAM works well with Mac OS X, any less you see slowdowns, any more and you don't notice much improvement under normal use.

Other updates today

For Mac OS X users, check your Software Update, as QuickTime has been revved to 6.4, iPod software hits 2.1, and iTunes itself is now at 4.1.

Just downloaded it. pretty sweet

it's fast on my Athlon 1700XP with 1GB Ram. But you sure need a shitlmoad of ram : in the taskmanager, iTunes itself gobs up a whopping 26MB when browsin. qtask takes another 13MB and iPodservices another 7.

After a while (and when in bakground) those numbers drop to a more reasonable 9+4+3 so it's feasible on a lesser machine. But prepare for some heavy trashing on launch.

Music sharing between OSX & XP works like a charm, even with dynamic playlists. I still gotta try out how my iPod responds when connected to the firewire port on the PC.

Right now i' mgonna do a little stresstesting with iTunes+media player + warcraft, playing all together. The wife sure is going to love that sound :-)

New iPod accessories

Apple also released several new accesories for the iPod [apple.com]. They include such things as turning the iPod into an image tank for CF cards and the much-rumored voice recorder.

More Goodies ... Even for Mac Users

The new iTunes Music Store now supports gift certificates & music "allowances" for your kids.

Plus, the catalog still seems to be growing at a healthy clip - unexpected holdouts such as the Grateful Dead are now available and Audible audiobooks are now available through the store.

I still wish that they would keep track of single song purchases and deduct them from the album price (a kind of installment plan) but a nice feature bump nonetheless.

I also like the headline on Apple's homepage - "Hell Froze Over!"

First Impressions

Well I've been a Mac user for a while and love iTunes on my iBook, and I just installed iTunes for PC on my parent's machine. It feels just like iTunes for Mac, very polished, very smooth. I imported a bunch of songs (bad Kazaa, bad!) and they all were read in fine. It sees my shared playlist on my iBook and I can play the files from it just fine. Haven't gone up to the iBook to see if it works the other way, but it should. So far I'm very impressed with the quality of it, considering it's a Windows app.

Now I just get to tell my family about how buying the music is better than copying it for free. ;)

Alternate download site

If the Apple site gets bogged down it is also availible via BitTorrent at this site [yellowgoat.net]. It also looks like Apple is only supporting Windows 2000 and XP.

one of the best parts : allowances

THis really really rocks :
Allowance accounts and gift certificates Now you can give your kids a legal way to download their favorite songs with music allowance accounts, which give them access to the store without requiring a credit card and set a limit on how much they can spend. It's easy to set up recurring allowances which refresh every month, and you can establish different allowance accounts for each of your children. You can also buy music gift certificates -- just the thing for your favorite college student or birthday friend. A counter in the iTunes Music Store shows how much credit is left in allowances and gift certificates.

Best Windows App EVER.

Apple.com [apple.com] says it best, "Hell froze over. Introducing iTunes for Windows."
Followed by the awesome, "The best Windows app ever."

Anyone else picture Comic Book Guy when they read this?

Whoa.

They're partnering with Pepsi to give away 100 million songs. No matter how you cut it--hours, number of iPods filled, Libraries of Congress--that's an assload of music to give away.

This is just one reason why iTunes will likely kick the ass of its competitors for the Windows market--name one other player that has a promo even a tenth as big as this one. Apple is playing hardball, and there aren't many companies out there that can compete with an Apple/Pepsi combination, to say nothing of their partnership with AOL...

Re:Whoa.

The best part about the pepsi deal is when u try to imagine the look on John Sculley's face when he reads that shit :-)

Although I can't imagine they did it for such glorious reason. I think they did it to spawn a flamewar about pepsi vs cocacola taste.

Pepsi tastes like shit. No hit me with your flames :-)

Insanely great

I've been playing around with the Windows version for the past half hour or so. It's very well done -- and feature complete:

1) The Rendezvous stuff for sharing the tunes works well. I can now share 80GB of music with my wife's IBM Thinkpad.

2) My CD drive was recognized without any problems. I can rip and burn without any problems at all. Goodbye CDex, et. al.

3) The response time on the store seems to be pretty good. The uptake on the new Windows version will probably be a lot slower than it was for the Mac version (hundreds of thousands of the Windows faithful are NOT waiting anxiously for Steve to say "it's available today".)

4) It's kinda weird seeing the Aqua UI controls and metal skins in a Windows app, but it supports my theory that iTunes is a lead in for both iPods & regular hardware. Get them used to the way things are in the Mac world, and then get them to switch.

Well done Apple. I'm impressed!

I can't believe the title on Apple's page ...

"Hell Froze Over"

That's the best laugh I've seen in a long time ... now I've gotta reboot and install it on my machine.

iTunes rules

As a long time Linux geek (Debian all the way), I switched to a PowerBook this spring and have never looked back. iTunes is a big part of that experience; having it available for my Windows machines at work is even better. Plus, it means Apple has a huge chance at continuing to be viable in the marketplace. After all, this is about selling iPods--not music.

Anyway, having followed the launch even this afternoon and downloading immediately, I can tell you fidelity of the experience on Windows is good: everything is the same as Mac OS X. The look and feel will be recognizable as similar to QuickTime--the brushed metal look so often reviled among older Mac die-hards. Interestingly, I entered the same account information I use on my Mac at home, but that does not allow me to re-download music already purchased onto this machine at the office; if I want it here again (outside of my home network), I need to buy it again.

The Music Store itself appears inside iTunes; it's just another bookmark, like your playlists, your purchased music, any CD you have in your drive, and any other computers on your local network sharing music through Rendezvous. You can play music off another computer with Rendezvous, but you can't add those songs to one of your own playlists, or download / copy them to your machine.

The experience of using the Music Store inside iTunes is a little like a browsere experience, but on steriods: the interface is more sophisticated, but still based on following links for navigation, backward and forward buttons, a home page, etc. On many pages, lists of highlighted albums appear in scrollable horizontal strips of album cover thumbnails. Definitely more than a browser, more than a website.

If you spend time with iTunes, you discover that more and more music arrives everyday. Things you didn't see when you did a search last week are now there. Over time, it starts to have the same jaw-dropping effect as Napster did in it's heyday: all the music you ever wanted, right there.

Re:I love this but Windows version doesn't maximiz

The window does not expand to fill the whole screen. Am I missing something here?

The Mac OS and the QuickTime APIs have no concept of a "Multiple Document Interface" as Microsoft calls it. MDI is a Microsoft Windows exclusive concept that how MS originally got around some of Apple's early "look and feel" litigation. There is also some historical reasons for why Apple never adopted this kind of interface.

When Multifinder was introduced to an earlier Mac OS, it was considered desirable for a user to see content from windows between applications. Macs previously used "desk accessories" to approximate multitasking before, and this UI decision helped smooth the transition. Letting applications only have window scale control, rather than the full screen, eventually allowed Apple to discontinue the DA concept in favor of microapplications.

In addition, as the Mac OS developed, Apple started advocating drag-and-drop data manipulation. This requires that both the source window and destination window be visible for a drag operation to occur; this continued emphasis is why OS X now has the trash can in the Dock and Panther includes an "Expose" feature to make all windows visible at once.

Mac users are accustomed to bouncing between applications readily while most Windows apps seem to be designed for exclusive, one at a time use. Other interface quirks, like floating verses anchored toolbars and the global menubar, are extensions of this differing emphasis in multitasking.

My Review

OK, I just did it... I tried iTunes for the first time.

My Sister has a Mac and has used iTunes since the spring - and she has told me on several times how much she loves it.

I don't own a Mac (or an iPod), but for my sister to give a glowing review is a rarity - so I figured I'd try the windows version when it came out.

I'm a 20% Windows user. The other 80% of the time I'm a linux guy, with Linux on my main machines at work and at home. But I also have a Windows 2000 PC at home for things like Visio and Microsoft Money [blush].

So I fired up that w2k machine and then fired up Mozilla and downloaded the iTunes for Windows software. The download was uneventful. I fired up the installer.

The installer is much like any other Windows installer - a license agreement and some basic questions about the install process, and you're good to go. I did have to reboot after the installation, but hey, I'm used to that with Windows.

After the reboot I fired up iTunes. I checked out the internet radio stuff (very easy to use), and then I went right to the iTunes store and started poking around. I did some searches for some stuff I'd expect them to have (Pink Floyd, Beck, etc)... and found everything that I was looking for.

The search feature was very easy to use: basically, you just type what you're looking for and it gives you a sorted result set. Pretty basic stuff.

From there I "previewed" some of the results. Simply clicking on a line item plays a portion of the song. It was good quality, and they had a nice fade-in/fade-out.

From there, I decided "what the hell" and downloaded Beck's latest album. The price was $9.99, which is a bit cheaper than the cheap stores.

iTunes asked me to log in or to set up a new account. Of course, I chose to set up a new account. It asked me for some very basic information - the biggest thing being my credit card information.

Then the download began. It was fast and uneventful.

After the download, I figured I'd burn the Beck album on a CD. Usually this is a pain in the butt for me, since I have crappy manufacturer-provided CD burning software.

This is where iTunes was INCREDIBLE. It opened my CDR drive and asked me to insert a disk. I did. From there, it told me to click "burn". I did. And then it burned the album.

It was way easy. You have to ask why other software is so much more a pain in the butt.

15 minutes later the CD was done, and iTunes gave me a little "ding!". I popped the new CD out of the drive and played it in my regular old CD player. Flawless.

That's all I've done so far.

It's impressive how simple iTunes is and how well it works. It doesn't do amazing things - but it does what it does very very well.

Now I see. iTunes is simple and elegant. I'm going to try to download the same music off the net and see how well I do. Although I've downloaded music off the net before, it has never been so freakin' simple.

I hope Linux developers take heed of Apple's progress in simplicity. I'm not an Apple fan, but I must say that iTunes is on the top of the heap so far.

Now I wish there was an iTunes for Linux.

Re:iTunes for Windows Screenshots?

Yes, the typical front end interface looks a lot like iTunes on the Mac, except they use more Windows-centric fonts. However, I give them kudos that the menus and configuration dialog boxes are all standard looking Windows dialog boxes rather than the crummy half Windows/half Mac dialog boxes from their Quicktime players.

Re:iTunes for Windows Screenshots?

Here [kinnetica.com], and here [kinnetica.com]

running on Windows 2003 Server. Memory usage is little bigger than other mp3 players, but I have 1gig of ram, so it's a non-issue.