Slashdot Log In
iTunes Music Store sells 275,000 Tracks in 18 Hours
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Thu May 01, 2003 12:28 PM
from the now-it-gets-interesting dept.
from the now-it-gets-interesting dept.
physicsnerd writes "According to this article on Billboard.com, Apple's iTunes Music store sold 275,000 tracks in its first 18 hours of operation. The Register.com estimates that this netted Apple just under $100,000! Not too bad for a 99 cents store."
Impressive considering the connection problems people were having. Remains to be seen what usage will be after the hype settles down.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
A lot of curiosity (Score:5, Interesting)
They need to sort out international licensing too, This could be huge in the UK where albums frequently cost as much in pounds as they do in dollars here in the US.
A nice looking service (Score:5, Interesting)
I may now have to buy an Apple just to use the service. It's easy to use, has a wide selection, and is everything a music service should be. Only time will tell if they have the pricing right.
I don't know what took the music industry so long.
Re:A nice looking service (Score:5, Funny)
You've got that right. After I purchased a couple of individual songs yesterday, I checked the "don't ask me again" box that pops-up after you click the Buy button to remind you that you actually will be charged. I then purchased a couple of full albums, which was so quick and easy without that pop-up reminder that I thought to myself just how dangerous this could be to my wallet.
Parent
Re:A nice looking service (Score:5, Insightful)
How about D) He actually likes the idea of some money going to the artists, rather than stealing the music.
Parent
Quickly != P2P (Score:5, Insightful)
Even aside from your odd sentence structure, the word "quickly" must mean something really different to you than it does to the rest of us. Maybe it means "slow and frustrating"?
You mention P2P stuff, but you don't seem to have looked for anything less common than Britney's latest hit... I had a little Limewire phase, but dang it if I have the time to hassle with that.
But I agree, the parent was a Pollyanna post. I also gotta notice that a lot of people bought music on this service fast. Maybe you should be wondering why instead of flaming away, you know? Hint: the answer is not "Those Mac people will believe anything 'cause they're zealots." Maybe it has something to do with Apple seriously thinking about how to hit the sweet spot so they could satisfy the customers and the labels. You think?
Parent
Re:Everything a music service should be ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Concidering everyone else is still stuck on MP3, which is not open at all (and is even more expensive than AAC to use) you can hardly fault apple for this.
Their option is no worse than what anyone else is using.
Its amazing, apple offers many features that everyone conciders great, and on this one feature they do basically the same thing (use a closed format like everyone else), and thats the feature that gets bashed.
MP3 is closed, and requires licencing to make encoders or decoders.
redbook (audio CDs) are also closed format and requires licencing (Though i dont know about the costs for that one)
AAC is closed.
Seems to be you should be bitching at EVERYONE that isnt the 0.01% of the population that uses a computer and OGG, not just apple.
Parent
Re:A nice looking service (Score:5, Insightful)
I fully plan on buying a Mac for my next system. I now can safely say I have no reason to stick to Linux, because I can still operate just as well using the BSD tools. I'm not a desktop programmer, so I don't care about that.
This is just one more perk to owning a Mac, and I'm fully ready to start becoming a full-fledged, card carrying Mac whore.
The only issue I have with Macs is their cost, but I think I can cope by having a pretty damn cool, commercially supported, end-user Unix system.
Parent
eMusic ups the ante (Score:5, Informative)
eMusic has increased the quality of songs available on their website from 128kbps to 192kbps VBR. The annoucement is available here [mp3.com].
Currently, this is the only pay and play option available to iPod users without a Mac! For those that don't already know, eMusic offers all-you-can-eat downloads, song previews and has recently also added message boards [emusic.com] for each genre.
This is pure, DRM-free music so sign up and support the business model! It is hard to find music so I hope they add streaming radio and collaborative filtering in the near future to make it easier.
Don't wait for the non-Mac Apple music store - This [theregister.co.uk] article in the Register points out that only two labels have signed up for the Windows version of the music store.
Adi Gadwale.
Re:eMusic ups the ante (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't wait for the non-Mac Apple music store - This [theregister.co.uk] article in the Register points out that only two labels have signed up for the Windows version of the music store...
... so far. Surely they're waiting to see how successful the current version is. Also the Windows one probably won't be out for awhile, so there's still time for everyone to get on board. (And I predict they will).
Parent
Internet Crack (Score:5, Insightful)
Once they roll this out for Windows or Linux, I'll have a hard time fighting the impulses. It's only 99 cents, right? Cheap! 15 or 20 tracks later, I'll realize I just dropped $20.
Apple may very well succeed because of the low investment necessary... and because at only 99 cents, the instant gratification may get addictive. Smart move on their part.
Re:Internet Crack (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but the difference is that now you've dropped twenty bucks to get the three or four good tracks from each of a half dozen different albums, rather than paying for all the filler on one CD. Not only that, you didn't have to get in your car and drive to the mall.
You got value for your money, and you saved the planet. Feel warm and fuzzy? Reward yourself with another couple of songs. ;)
Parent
Re:Internet Crack (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple may very well succeed because of the low investment necessary...
Not that low of an investmet at all, actually. According to this interview [time.com]:
TIME: Can you say anything about [Music Store's] development costs or Apple's investment?
Jobs: I had somebody comment today, "Now that you have introduced your store, do you expect a lot others?" And I guess our answer is no. This is really hard. Over the last several years we've created an infrastructure to pump oceans of bits out in the world for movie trailers and stuff, and that's tens of millions of dollars for server farms and networking farms ? it's huge ? and we've already got that in place. And to have millions of transactions, and to get our online store all tied into SAP and have the auditors bless it, that's tens of millions of dollars. We have one-click shopping, only us and Amazon have that, and then to make a jukebox ? how much does it cost to make iTunes and make it popular? A lot! But we've got that. And then iPod, if you want to make an iPod, what does that cost? Well, nobody has done it but us, people have tried, but they haven't even come close. That's a lot of money. So we've already made these investments and we can leverage them. And then we've invested more on top of that to make a store. But to recreate this, it's tens of millions of dollars and years. That's why I don't think this is going to be so easy to copy.
Parent
Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
I expect that within a year, there will be MUG meets where the topic of discussion will be "Music Store Addiction:How I lost my wife and house downloading music".
Just wait till Apple releases iTunes for Windows [monster.com], so you PC users can join in the fun.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
It's enough to make you want to buy a mac... (Score:5, Interesting)
It might make sense to consider something like a 17" iMac as purely a home-entertainment component. Sure, it's $1800, but you'll probably eventually spend more than that at the iMusic store
Anyone want to bet on how many days go by before someone has reverse-engineered the MaciMusic store protocol and written an app that masquerades as iTunes-on-a-Mac thus allowing Linux and Windows users to purchase music through Apple?
G.
Yes, it will keep up (Score:5, Informative)
Yes it's really that cool. (Score:5, Interesting)
If I was allowed to buy, I probably would have purchased 10-20 songs by now.
Yes I have Acquisition (a really sweet Mac Gnutella client), and I have the usual assortment of piracy^H^H^H^H^H^H file sharing tools for Windows, but in that sea of file searching it's easy to lose one's vision of a really nice way to download music.
For example: I figured I would try to find some old Tears For Fears music. In the search field I just typed "Tears For Fears". In less than 5 seconds I had a track listing of 6 different Tears For Fears albums, including tracks I never knew they had done (did you know they covered Bowie's 'Ashes to Ashes'?)
Let me say this another way to better illustrate just how cool it is: it was EVERY ALBUM TRACK, listed only ONCE. I pick the song and I get it, really fast. With a file sharing app I pick from a list of thousands of different rips of the same songs, all of varying quality. I hit download, and maybe the host is slow. Maybe I get a "swarmed" download that won't be reconstructed properly when it gets here. Maybe it won't even really be the song I think I'm downloading. Maybe I get "remotely queued". Maybe it looked like a good bitrate before I downloaded it, but it turned out to be a crappy rip.
On the Apple service I hit "play" and I'm previewing the music in real time. I hit "download" and I've got the actual song I want, with no glitches.
Seriously - with these advantages, plus the fact that it is actually legal, I can't see why people wouldn't shell out a buck a song.
Like everybody else I hope Apple creates an indy section, maybe even something iDisk-based so that
My Own 30 Second Take (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know about the connection errors others were reporting, as I didn't have any. I already own an iPod, so the AAC/MP3 issue isn't one for me as it is for some others making posts here. I also had no problem setting up my account - I had an account when I bought my first Mac a year ago, and just used that.
The biggest thing I noticed when I started it up was the ability to finally buy the 1 song off of a track I wanted. Bob Dylan is OK, but I just wanted "Growing in the Wind". That's it. A buck later, and I had it. Another 2 or 3 minutes later, it was on.
From there, I wound up spending $20 on the service. No problems, except that it didn't have everything I wanted (I'm still trying to get Queen's Bohemien Rhapsody). But I spend more in 2 days than I've spent on music in 1 year.
Is is perfect? No, but you don't need an iPod - you can burn the music to a regular audio CD if you like, and either rerip this to MP3 (with a loss of quality), or just play the CD in a regular player.
But so far, it's 95% of what I've wanted with online music sales. Hopefully they'll get more music on there, maybe even some game/anime music (as that stuff is *way* more expensive than it needs to be), and more players out there will start support AAC. I'm not worried about the latter - since its part of the MPEG-4 standard, that should only be a matter of time and a firmware upgrade later.
Selling out (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, I got this in my email box this morning from Michael Robertson of Lindows and former CEO of MP3.COM. I find it coincidental after this Interview [slashdot.org] session, and I find his comments about Apple selling out intersting. The text of his (mass) email follows:
Most of you probably know that my former company was MP3.com, which was instrumental in bringing digital music to the masses. One of the things we stood for at MP3.com was the consumer's rights over their own music collection. Our belief was that consumers who purchase their music should have the ability to convert that music into a format they like and put the music on any device they desire. We even tried to get a law pushed through congress affirming this (we did not succeed in that attempt). The last five years have seen multiple attempts to limit consumers' rights via DRM (digital rights management) technology. These are schemes which add "big brother" restrictions to what you can do with your own music library.
It's no secret that the major record labels want to embed restrictions into music and force those restrictions onto customers, but recently they've been getting help from some surprising sources -- namely Microsoft and Apple. While I was the CEO of MP3.com, Microsoft repeatedly offered millions of dollars to us to convert the library of tunes at MP3.com from consumer friendly MP3 to Windows Media format. We always politely declined. Microsoft's strategy was that if they could get the whole world to convert to Windows Media, then they could get the record labels to pay them huge sums to limit how consumers could listen to their music. Thank goodness that hasn't happened yet, because having your music "expire", disappear, degrade in quality, not be able to burn to CD or load onto your devices is an awful consumer experience.
Microsoft is at it again though, trying to use their money and dominance in the OS to get a foothold in music by selling out consumers. Recently, news.com reported that Microsoft is cozzying up to the leading CD restriction company. This means we're one baby step away from all music CDs ONLY playing on Microsoft Windows XP. Imagine having to buy a copy of Microsoft Windows XP for every music device just so you can listen to your own music, and even then being restricted from making a compilation CD for your car!
Apple has understandably succumbed to pressure from the music labels to bolster their chances of securing music licenses for their iTunes music service by trampling music buyers rights. The 2.4% of the world which use Macs will find out that all the music in their newly announced service is wrapped in a digital padlock. This gives Apple (or the record labels) the ability to control what a buyer can do with the music they purchase. The user doesn't get to pick which computer they can listen to their music on (Macs only). Forget any device that isn't an iPod, like my current MP3 player (tiny, no cables, rechargeable battery - nice). Don't even think about burning a disc full of 100 MP3s to play in your DVD player. (Have you noticed virtually all new DVD players will play MP3 files?)
Straight ahead of us is a world where CDs will only play in Microsoft Windows XP computers. Digital songs you buy online will only work with Apple software or an Apple sanctioned portable player. You will not be able to burn any of the music you've purchased onto an MP3 CD to pop into your DVD player. That's a sad and expensive world for music fans because labels and large corporations will extort money from their users who just want to enjoy their own music.
When you pay for music, you should be able to enjoy that music in all the different and convenient ways available. I'm still a big believer in the value of MP3 because it ensures that the
Re:Selling out (Score:5, Insightful)
Without DRM, you can't restrict free trading of files on P2P networks. What will prevent all those AAC files from iTunes appear on Kazaa... the business model will fail that day.
Apple has taken a sensible approach to DRM. They allow you to burn the AAC files to CDs as data files and as audio CDs. The latter will play in ALL players.
Now Michael Robertson (of mp3.com) is bitching that users won't be able to play it in MP3 players... fine enough. MP3 SHOULD CEASE to exist.
Better formats like Vorbis are not picking up just because every Joe is making MP3 players.
Apple, for one, will succeed in doing one thing - making those Joes realise that there is something *else* than MP3 too!! When the HW mfgrs will realise that, they will look for major alternatives... sure 8 out of 10 will go to AAC/WMA/RM route, but 2 will also do Vorbis, and there it will break the ice.
Today every DVD/CD player comes with MP3 support just because they are oblivious to the fact that something else exists... they just don't want to go to desk and design a decoder chip for anything else... Apple is poking them and shouting "wake up"... This is a Good Thing (TM). In the process if Apple makes some money... well good for them. Things have to start somewhere.
Finally... get over with that "mp3 is word of god" thing. Sure you don't want to give up your existing player... but some time down the line when you'd be seaching for your next player... you'd definitely want a choice besides MP3.
Parent
Re:Selling out (Score:5, Insightful)
He has clearly mentioned the disadvantages of the service (as have many others). However, he completely failed to mention the major disadvantages of his own failed service, and how the Apple service attempts to form a balance.
Clearly he has not learned from his own failures. Not a good businessman.
There are consumers and there are copyright owners. The goal is to be fair and reasonable to both. MP3.com failed in this mission. Napster also failed. Gnutella fails.
We all see the advantages and disadvantages. Now it's time to see if this is merely a step (or a leap) closer to a workable solution.
Parent
"Forget any device that isn't an iPod" (Score:5, Funny)
I am sure he will issue a correction and an apology as soon as this fact reaches him.
Parent
Widely varying reports of quality (Score:5, Informative)
Apple states that the 128-kbps AAC "combines sound quality that rivals CDs with smaller files sizes (compared to MP3s)." Someone reported that Apple said during the original PR event that some of the tracks actually sound better than the original CD tracks because they went back to the original master recordings to encode. Ok, I'll buy all that. AAC offers better compression and higher quality at lower bitrates. Fine. If really true, I might even consider re-ripping my CDs to AAC and saving some disk space. IF it's really that good. But as I said, the proof is in whether I can hear a difference. All other technical mumbo jumbo is meaningless.
I previewed a number of songs the first night it was operational and was fairly impressed. Definitely much better than 128 kbps MP3. Then I put my headphones on and started to notice possible compression artifacts. I wasn't sure if I was imagining these or whether I was really hearing something, so I started listening to the previews of tracks I already have, ripped from original CDs. I compared the preview tracks to my MP3 copies, which are high quality VBR averaging a little over 200 kbps. I went back and forth between the store preview and my copy numerous times, and always felt like I heard compression artifacts in the previews. I wanted to setup a true blind test to make absolutely sure I wasn't being biased by knowing which sample was which, but I haven't had time this week.
Apple's Discussion board [apple.com] for iTunes has numerous topics debating the quality of the AACs. Some people swear that the previews are lower quality, and what you get when you buy is perfect. Others say just the opposite. Apple itself says of the previews, "You'll hear a 30-second sample that rivals CD quality sound." Doesn't exactly say that the preview is the same quality as the purchased track, but kind of implies it too. MacInTouch has tons of reader reports [macintouch.com] that are interesting as well.
I suppose ultimately I'll have to spend $0.99 and see for myself what happens. I'll try to choose a track that I have, and whose preview sounds pretty bad. If the purchased track is indistinguishable from the CD, I'll be a happy camper. But if it's the same as the preview, I'll be severely disappointed. I'd so love for this to take off, as it is the future of music buying. I think Apple has done a good job of balancing consumers' fair use rights with the rights of the copyright holders. If this flops, it'll be more fodder for the RIAA to push legislation through that protects their dying business model. (sorry, had to get political for a second there)
But mainly I'm excited about the prospect of buying music this way. Hopefully in the near future, they'll have liner notes, etc available as a PDF when you buy. And lots more artists, including any that are out of print. That would so rock. So many CDs on my wishlist now are so hard to find, and I'd buy them in a heartbeat if they were available this way now. So please, Apple, don't let us down on quality! And if the quality really is subpar, let's all send them feedback (link at the music store main page) until they listen!
Independents (Score:5, Informative)
The other big news yesterday was that Steve Jobs confirmed that Apple is going to start putting up independent music once they get all of the big label music they negotiated for uploaded:
from: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,4 48048,00.html
Stye (Score:5, Insightful)
Interestingly enough, this could VERY easily be viewed as a Very Good Thing by all the IP-based companies. Proof-positive that people will climb over each other to buy your product if you just let them but they'll obtain it by other means if you don't.
But will the RIAA & company view it as such? No. Why? Because what they want more than revenue is control. Because control, in their current model, is equivalent to a sustainable business. When they start loosing control of how the product can get to market, when they lose their status as the so-called gatekeepers of IP whose ass you must lick to be heard, they're screwed. You can't abuse people when you aren't the only game in town.
Then it becomes a buyer's market. Which, trust me, is the last thing these people want.
A possible addition (Score:5, Interesting)
Much like the Software-2-Go kiosks [slashdot.org] in stores, there could be a Music-2-Go kiosk. You would create or sign into your AMS account and purchase music. An extra $2.50 or so for the on-site burning, cover art, etc. I don't think it could do the booklets, but maybe...
Of course, you would also be able to burn music you already own. You fly across the country, stop into a music store, burn a CD for $2.50, and pop it into your rental car's CD player.
It's an interesting thought.
This will go the way of iPod (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it's fair to say that "Slashdot wisdom" concerning these things isn't exactly a great indicator of success or failure. Everyone here on slashdot either has an iPod or wants one. Yeah, even if it doesn't run Linux.
Slashdot readership as a whole may contain a lot of knowledge and wisdom. That's why I come here. But it certainly doesn't have a finger on the pulse of consumer-oriented technology.
And for the record, I think Apple has gotten this thing about 95% right straight out of the gate. Clearly it is going to be the model for how this is done for everyone else. Kudos to them. They deserve it.
Re:Future looks bright (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Future looks bright (Score:5, Interesting)
> rid of those pesky cashiers. Why don't they just trust me to leave an
> appropriate amount of money for the goods that I walk out of the store with??
> They are treating me like a criminal. Wah.
Sad part is, even thou the above was posted by an AC and modded down to -1 flamebait, he's 100% right and not flaming anything at all.
Those moderators should be ashamed.
Parent
Re:Future looks bright (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Future looks bright (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Future looks bright (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Future looks bright (Score:5, Interesting)
I applaud Apple's effort to be reasonable, but DRM is still unacceptable. I wrote a short essay on why I believe this; it's on my site [overcode.net].
Furthermore, sharing is a fundamental part of experiencing music. I believe that noncommercial song swapping should be fully protected under copyright law.
-John
Parent
Re:Future looks bright (Score:5, Insightful)
AAC sounds fantastic. I usually rip MP3s at 160-192 kbps, using VBR. This makes very nice sounding MP3 files, and I can't tell the difference between the MP3 and the CD. The only draw back, is that they are kinda large, but with a 20 Gig iPod, I'm not too worried.
AAC actually sounds as good, as far as I can tell, as my MP3s do. So all this talk of "low bit-rate" and "DRM-sUckS!" is ridiculous. If you don't like the DRM, burn a CD (or 10 before changing the playlist), and re-import it as MP3s and never think about AAC again.
Parent
That logic seems to be at the crux... (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow, if people don't make purchasing something as convenient and cheap as you expect it to be, you have the right to take it.
In the case of utilities with true monopoly on the electric power coming into your home doubling their price in a two month period, I could see the justification in say altering your meter to cut the price back down to where it was. This wouldn't seem unjust to me.
In the case of charging too much for music (not food, not power, not water, CDs), and not making it available online with massive bandwidth and high-bit rates for cheap, I can't really see how this entitles you to buy one copy and distribute it to 400 people, any more than waiting five minutes at the QuickMart entitles you to a free magazine.
How does this work?
Parent
Re:Future looks bright (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Future looks bright (Score:5, Insightful)
this is funny AND true. ever stepped into the huge conglomerate music stores of late? same music they were selling last year, just with different band names, and song titles......
The state of music today would certainly allow Indy to take over, just because of creativity alone. Apple would be wise to catalog Indy music. (and those profits of 100,000 would be ten fold.)
Parent
Re:Future looks bright (Score:5, Insightful)
If Apple starts selling Indy music, then they can either do it at a lower price, higher profit, or both. Without the record labels in the way, set Apple's cut at $.33, the musicians' cut at another $.33, and that makes for a $.66 song. Pretty good competition for the RIAA, really.
Of course, then they'd have $6.66 albums.
Parent
Re:Future looks bright (Score:5, Interesting)
Record companies are never going to allow an online music store like this unless there's some semblance of rights management.
Also, we've been over this 47,000 times now, but the DRM imposed on the Apple store tracks isn't restrictive to a user at all. The only time it gets in the way is if you want to do something less than legal with your purchased goods.
Parent
Re:Future looks bright (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess I'll give the AMS a try, though I probably won't like it, because I'll feel like I'm paying for something I won't actually own, and I'm used to at least feeling like I "own" the music I buy. I hate the fact that my computer is actively working against me to do what I want to do. It's not that I can't do it because the technology doesn't exist or something...the computer is actively working against me. My own computer!
DRM "technology" turns computing on its head. Always in the past, I buy new hardware or software so it'll let me do new things. Now, here's "new technology" to prevent me from doing things I could do before! No thank you.
Parent
Re:Future looks bright (Score:5, Insightful)
This is like bitching that BMG offers a music service through which you can only buy CDs, and you have a tape player. Even though it really sucks that you just bought a tape player, it's not the actions of DRM that are keeping the music from working on it.
Parent
Re:Future looks bright (Score:5, Informative)
From the TIME interview [time.com]:
So this should put to rest the people claiming that indies would never be allowed because the majors wouldn't allow it...
Parent
Re:Future looks bright (Score:5, Insightful)
Point by point:
In a related article, recent studies show that Apple zealots will buy just about anything as long as it has a candy colored apple logo and some brushed metal interface.
Candy coloring is far less likely to have an effect on an Apple zealot, who probably knows something about technology, than on a technophobe who bases his/her buying decision largely on the appearance of a product. And, incidentally, the brushed metal interface has been almost universally bashed from day 1. There's even a utility to change the brushed-metal interface of Safari to Aqua [versiontracker.com].
As much as I'm against the DRM and the low bitrate itunes uses,...
Apple hates DRM. Clearly, considering you can burn as many CDs as you want, use as many iPods as you want, and transfer the song files between up to three Macs, not to mention play them on any computer you wish over a network or the Internet, the little bit of DRM Apple included in these files is there to pacify the RIAA. I'm surprised they managed to get the Big Five on board with as little DRM as this, frankly.
And the low bitrate comment is absurd. These are AACs, not MP3s. The quality of a 128 kbps AAC rivals [macrumors.com] that of the original uncompressed audio source.
Wow! Music with practically no DRM, delivered cheaper than CDs in a digital format over the Internet, and compressed at a high enough bitrate to be of better quality than CDs...and you actually think this is a good thing? What low standards!
The Indy music idea, on the other hand, is a good one...and it will probably happen [time.com].
Parent
Re:But how many more Macs will get sold? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
iTunes for Windows (Score:5, Informative)
I keep hearing great things about iTunes too, in that it's apparantly quite a bit better than most music database software. Personally I'm still looking for a good music db/organizing program for either Linux (preferred) or Windows (thank you samba) - I'm in the process of ripping ~1000 CDs to high bitrate MP3 for my TiVo and am in desperate need for some cataloging and playlist creation tools. From what little I've heard iTunes would fit the bill and do it well... but obviously I still need to find something until then (suggestions welcome).
Parent
Re:iTunes for Windows (Score:5, Informative)
It integrats with xmms, noatun. Can build playlists, extendable via plug-ins.
And Did i mention, extremly fast and accurate search engine. This is the feature that's most imp. to me. Just start tying in the search window, and it does an incremental search.
Parent
Re:Don't buy into the Apple hype machine, AAC (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Do any shopping lately? (Score:5, Informative)
$9.99, $99.99, $17,995 (for say, a car). We've had this as long as I've been alive, and from looking into older catalogues it's been standard practice in the retail industry since at least the 60's. EVERYONE rounds their price down slightly, so it appears cheaper when you quickly look at it. In fact, in the past decade many stores have successfully gone to a '95 cents' model, where $9.95 somehow looks more appealing to the shopper than $9.99. A whopping 4 cents less profit, but an amazing increase in sales.
Psychologists have known about this for eons, and marketing types do this routinely. 99 cents just looks cheaper than an even buck, to most people. In fact, it's so bad that if I'm in a store with someone, see something for say $395, I'll comment "wow, four hundred dollars for that?". Almost invariably, the person I'm with will say "no, it's only three ninety five". People are so used to this that rounding up prices just seems wrong, somehow.
Parent
Re:Yes, it's a nice beginning... (Score:5, Insightful)
'Yea its cool and all but I want DRM free music for $0.19'
[Tracks drop to $0.19, DRM free]
'Sure, thats cool and all but I want to be able to buy multiple tracks with a complex pricing algorithm that determines how mcuh to charge be based on my average usage across a limited period of time, plus the moon phase'
[Tracks do the above]
'Ok ok, I give up, I am just shooting holes in anything that is out there because its easier then admitting that someone MAY have gotten something right.'
I can not even count how many people, WITHOUT EVEN SEEING THE SERVICE, have sat around bitching about it. Its hilarious. Now, days later, they are all using it quietly.
Parent
Re:And the recording industry went along with this (Score:5, Funny)
Parent