Microsoft's Take on iTunes for Windows 588
Skruffy writes "The Register has an amusing article about Microsoft's reaction to the launch of Apple's iTunes software on Windows. It seems that Microsoft is very keen to warn its users of the dangers of using a service that would restrict them from accessing music from other sources... Oh the irony."
What I'm afraid of ... (Score:2, Insightful)
OK... (Score:3, Insightful)
This from the restriction overlords themselves... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, right. If Microsoft understood open formats, they would have launched their own music download service months ago.
Now I remember why my cluebat has a permanant imprint of Mr. Gates' forehead on one side.
Round 2! (Score:3, Insightful)
It *is* extremely hypocritical, but also typical, of Microsoft to make thiese kinds of statements. They're really upset that
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This from the restriction overlords themselves. (Score:4, Insightful)
If companies could be forced compete on the merits of their products alone (instead of trying to trap customers and lock them in), this world would be taking a step in the right direction.
Re:OK... (Score:5, Insightful)
Incidentally, as to circumventing the AAC DRM: if you burn to a CD [which you can do unlimited times with AAC files] you can then re-rip it to either DRM -free AAC files or MP3 or whatever. Obvioulsy, a loss of quality incurred whenever you recompress, but from my tests thus far [going from 128 AAC > CD > 128 AAC or 192 MP3] I've yet to notice any actual difference [although file size sometimes varies].
Re:OK... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not of you burn them onto a CD and rip them again. And that is the major difference between Apple and Microsoft: Apple provides a legal way to "circumvent" DRM when the user is willing to spend some time to burn a CD and rip it again. That is real fair use, IMHO.
Laugh all you want... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple needs to fight this with some powerful prime-time adverisements. (Like they did for the "Switch" campaign, except without the annoying chick). They need to remind users that iTunes can play any MP3s (and WAV files), and their iPods can be used to take their entire CD collection on the road with them - not just purchased music from the iTunes Music store. (Heck, that was one of the major reasons why I bought one - you can easily press "Next track" on the iPod while driving, but it's hard to change CDs, and CD changers are expensive and only hold 6-10 CDs).
Apple also needs to do more plugging on the fact that users can burn any number of plain vanilla audio CDs containing their purchased tracks. (You can only burn the same _playlist_ 10 times if it contains purchased tracks, but you can burn the tracks themselves any number of times. The playlist restriction is to prevent you from downloading an album, making a playlist of that album, and burning 50 copies and selling/giving them to your friends. And really, that's not unreasonable - would you do that with CDs you purchased?)
Re:OK... (Score:5, Insightful)
The iTMS restrictions are a) no more than 10 burns of a playlist containing an iTMS track (fine, make a different playlist), b) sharing iTMS tracks with no more than 3 (or is it 5) other computers on your local network, c) no sharing over external networks, d) no direct conversion to another format (gotta burn to disc, then re-rip in another format). What about that is so awful? No, it doesn't allow for wholesale piracy, I mean sharing. Yes, the tracks are in protected AAC/MPEG4 format. How is this better/worse from protected WMA format? Have you looked at the restrictions on tracks from buymusic.com? Many (most? all?) of the other sites restrict your use of the purchased tracks to the machine to which you originally downloaded the tracks. That's it...
Checking a select few sites:
napster.com (pressplay.com is a redirect here) requires Windows, requires IE5+, requires WMP7+.
buymusic.com requires IE5+ and Windows (not using IE, I don't get any further than that requirement page... I'm sure WMP is required).
iTMS requires iTunes. Now, there is no restriction to Mac only, and an external browser is not needed at all. This seems less restrictive than other sites (fine, bitch all you want about no linux/*BSD/etc. support).
I do wish the quality was a bit higher, since the price of an full iTMS album is relatively similar to the price of a CD, but it's a trade off. You get (almost) what you want, when you want it, and you have more control over iTMS tracks than any legally downloadable music.
The best endorsement for iTunes yet. (Score:2, Insightful)
Um... (Score:3, Insightful)
What more is there to say? Should everyone just repost their comments from yesterday? Or was this just another Microsoft-flamebait-for-page-hits article?
Re:The pot and the kettle are both black. (Score:5, Insightful)
Blockquoth the poster:
Burn everything to a CD and then rip it.
Seriously, it's time to reconsider your expectations. It's an online music store -- the RIAA would not allow it to exist without some form of DRM. So be thankful for the loophole.
Re:OK... (Score:5, Insightful)
that's a first (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that's the first time I've seen a monopoly with something relatively insignificant like 10% of their given market. Didn't I recently read that even linux has a higher market share than Apple?
The fact that apple has good products, and has a very exclusive set of products that interact with each other well, has nothing to do with being a monopoly, directly.
These writers are confused... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Why is it that you and just about every "rumor" site insists on confusing iTunes for Windows and the iTunes Music Service? Everyone claims that by installing "iTunes," you are effectively supporting an "Apple monopoly," simply because the DRM-enabled files purchased from the iTunes Music Store can only be played on iPods (or other copies of iTunes). This completely ignores the fact that iTunes is a "plain 'ol MP3 player" (and a rather nice one, at that). The ONLY time DRM comes into play is when you purchase DRM-enabled AAC files from the iTunes Music Service. That makes sense, given how music publishers are paranoid about "rights-free" music downloads. Installing iTunes for Windows (as I have done on my Dell laptop at work, and a Compaq Evo tablet) in no way locks one into Apple's DRM-enabled AAC "world." I can still encode CDs as MP3s, burn these tracks to CDs (although this Evo is so slow, that would be rather painful!), and transfer them to a cheesy MP3 flash player (so far, I've avoided them as mostly useless- I'm waiting to buy an iPod, once the new baby's expenses are met).
So, please get it right. iTunes for Windowsb is benign. Buying tracks on iTunes Music Service may "lock you in," but what's the alternative? Choice? What choice? Buy DRM-enabled tracks from WMA-supporting sites? No thanks. Can't even play them on one of those junky WMA-enabled flash players. Talk about no choice. Apple negotiated good DRM policy on my behalf, and that's why I've spent good money on a few dozen tracks already. Getting to play them on the best "digital jukebox" out there is just a plus..."
Re:irony no. (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference is that you don't have to use AAC if you don't plan on buying from the iTMS.
You can use iTunes with mp3/aiff/wav with no problems and it works with just about any portable music player out there. My friend uses his Rio with iTunes on the Mac for example.
If you want to buy music from the store then you're limited to iTunes (or Quicktime) and the iPod but how is this different from buying DRM-ed music in WMA format? You're limited to Windows Media Player and a portable machine that supports it (ok, so there are more of those available).
I couldn't play WMA music with DRM on my Mac becase I don't have a version of Windows Media Player that supports it (Microsoft delightfully decided not to update the Mac version of WMP so we can't play any videos or music encoded in version 9 format - how's that for choice?!).
Any competing service is going to contian some limitations as to what you can and can't use and can and can't do. It's the nature of things. Remember, both Apple and Microsoft are out to make money. The iTunes Music Store and iTunes exists primarily to sell iPods - Apple are a hardware company first and foremost.
You only use Apple software if you want to use their hardware, that's the way it's always been. iTunes for Windows is there as a resource for owners of iPods who use Windows and not Mac OS. If you don't have an iPod you have three choices:
1. Use iTunes but don't buy any music from the iTMS, ensure you rip in mp3 format and use any portable player on the market.
2. Use iTunes with an iPod - buy music from the iTMS and rip in either mp3 or AAC format.
3. Don't use iTunes. No one is forcing you, and it's not the law to do so (although the way things are going it might soon be illegal to use anything but WMP... just kidding)
Microsoft's Right! (Score:5, Insightful)
BUT
WMA support is IRRELEVANT if the Digital Restrictions Management that infests Microsoft products doesn't allow me to play it anywhere else anyway. I once had a free offer to download WMA files from some music service and found that once the files were copied to any other computer, they were useless anyway. Copying to a player which did play WMAs was fruitless as well.
So the DRM (remember it's Digital RESTRICTIONS Management) is the overriding limiting factor, and not whether WMA is supported or not.
All the other online music services are music RENTAL right? If so, I won't participate regardless of the format.
Microsoft's argument is irrelevant until the WMA-supporting music services offer more lenient restrictions. I don't want my music to stop after I stop paying $19/month, I don't wanna have to worry if I bought the correct license to burn to CD for every single track I buy!
Re:What I'm afraid of ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I know I have. I've been spending the past few days sorting and cataloguing my music. Normally I didn't give a shit about ID3 tags but iTunes has changed all of that.
Its just so insanely powerful and simple. I think most of the Apple bitchers at the moment are having trouble switching from a "Now Playing" style playlist to the library style of iTunes. It eventually grew on me and now I can't live without my Library and my Browse button.
Orlowski thinks Apple is a monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
It's as stupid as calling BMW a monopoly because only BMW makes BMWs.
Or perhaps Orlowski is thinking that Apple is in a monopoly position as regards the suppliers of software. Actually, because their market share is small, the opposite is the case. They have to provide reasons for suppliers to support them. The fact that some applications may be subsumed by Apple is a fact of life: every manufacturer has to make make or buy decisions all the time. Currently conventional wisdom is that everything is better subcontracted out, but eventually if you go far enough the subcontractors own you.
Personally, I suspect that the ITMS may be too small to survive: if revenue is around $30 million and none of that is profit, there is no real budget to promote it. But at least it's a try, and Apple should be given full credit for trying.
Re:which means they see it as a threat? (Score:4, Insightful)
If my math's correct, that averages to a smidge greater than three purchases per second for the entire 366 day period.
The biggest problem Apple has at the moment is still one of a limited audience. They have yet to open the iTMS to an international audience. Canadians, especially, are really feeling as if they're left out in the cold, and may go to other services (if they haven't already).
And don't forget the premier gaming platform... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Um... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not just ridiculous, outright false.
If iTunes only works with music from the tTMS, whatever have those Mac people been doing with the program for the last 4(?) years? And I guess those people walking around with iPods have just been listening to static.
Re:What I'm afraid of ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep competition is a good thing. The problem is that when you have a company that is a monopoly in a market and it uses that monopoly position to create a barrier to entry into that market then any other company will find it too difficult to enter into competition.
Take cars for example. Suppose Ford has a super engine that runs only on fuel made by Ford. Now Fords sell like crazy and take over the market. Years down the road the gas stations only sell Ford fuel because there are so many Ford cars. What are the chances of a new car being made that runs on Ford fuel? None, because Ford engines are the only ones that can. What are the chances that new cars come out that don't run on Ford fuel? None, because there are hardly any service stations that sell non-Ford fuel. The net result? Only Ford cars and Ford fuel are produced.
Yes, this is a simplistic example and might not be 100% real-world but it does highlight the basics behind monopolies. Right now Microsoft has a monopoly because it is the predominant operating system. If it uses that monopoly to drive out competitors in related markets, say web browsers, then it is abusing its monopolistic position.
The same thing goes if Microsoft decided to release a security update that breaks Apple's iTunes without telling anyone. Boom, iTunes starts working crappy and people blame Apple when the fault is all Microsoft. Don't think this can't happen, it has happened before with Quicktime. It was shown in internal memos that Quicktime was broken on Windows for a while because Microsoft deliberately changed a few libraries without warning.
As long as there is fair and open competition the consumer, and the companies, will benefit. If any company is allowed to squash its competition entirely then the consumer will suffer.
Re:What I'm afraid of ... (Score:3, Insightful)
I won't argue with you on the very little screen space. Minimode takes up more space than WA's windowshade mode but at 1280x1024 it doesn't really bother me that much.
Winamp 3 was a good rough and ready solution for those people that needed it now but iTunes is far more elegant (and pretty, IMHO) solution.
Re:Orlowski thinks Apple is a monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple has a few billion in the bank, so there's your promotion budget.
Also, no matter how well the iTMS does, Apple still only makes a pittance from it, thanks to the record labels and their huge cut. The whole service is basically a loss leader designed to sell iPods (which are quite profitable), and ideally even induce some people to switch to the Mac. The iTMS is the razor, and iPods are the blades.
~Philly
The difference (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft makes up their own "standards", and the market uses them because Microsoft has a monopoly. When they do release specs, the specs are wrong (ask the Samba team). When they do implement real standards, they change them in incompatible ways and make life hard for those who need interoperability with pretty much every other system.
You might argue that Apple only does this because they have to, having such a small market share. That may be true, but we don't have access to an alternate reality to find out, so we have to look at the current real-life situation.
Additionally, the Apple integration of hardware and software is the reason their computers work so well. You don't have to like it, but it seems to be catching on. And Microsoft does sell keyboards, mice, and Xboxes.
FWIW, I run Linux and can't use iTMS, but that is OK. Most CDs I buy are for $5-$10 at a show immediatly after seeing the band play for the first time (and the shows often cost less than $10 too). None of the bands I see would be arrogant enough to cripple their CDs, because they actually want people to hear their music. And if my friend, who uses iTMS, wants to put some songs from it on a CD for me, he can hand me a standard CD with no problems.
Re:Is There an Easy Way to Window Shop at I-Tunes? (Score:5, Insightful)
This bit of demogoguery is over the top. To say that a company who goes to the trouble to create the first practical, usable on-line music store for digital content, and does so completely in the context of the current laws and business climate we find ourselves stuck with, is "in league with RIAA" is like saying devlopers of WINE are in league with Microsoft or developers of a x86 Linux kernel are in league with Intel. Apple took all the tools they had to work with and made a solution that seems to work for all parties involved. Unless you can propose a more appropriate, successful, and LEGAL alternative, you should go peddle your conspiracies and new world orders elsewhere.
Re:OK... (Score:3, Insightful)
> to "Manage" anything.
Well, they got licences to distribute the music on iTMS, and its been argued that without some form of DRM this would never have happened.
Its not useful as a form of protection, its useful as a means to an end.
Re:Laugh all you want... (Score:2, Insightful)
"Apple IS selling a mechanism that locks you into Apple."
What the goddamn fucking fuck are you talking about?
I own a Macintosh. Save for the OS, all my software is from third parties.
And as for music purchased from iTMS, if you expected the RIAA to allow Apple to sell music with no DRM of any kind, you are too stupid to live. I suppose that the WMA files that only play on WMP9 is fundementally better than the Apple AAC format? Yes, you ARE too stupid to live. Please die, now!
Go drink some more of the MicroSoft Kool-Ade. Oh, and again, please die, now!
Thank you.
Re:Orlowski thinks Apple is a monopoly (Score:1, Insightful)
Really? I didn't know BMWs took a different type of fuel than do Mercedes or Aston Martin motorcars.
(Since BMWs can the same fuel, the car analogy is invalid--that, and it leaves open this: BMWs do cost twice as much as other cars, but unlike Macs, the go faster :).)
Only Macs can run Mac software. To purchase a Mac, you have to purchase OS X. Smells like a monopoly to me, albeit a tiny one.
Re:You don't understand what choice MS means (Score:2, Insightful)
iTunes Music Store sells AAC, but does not lock you in to buying ONLY AAC. It doesn't even lock you into using iTunes (to play your music), as the DRM lives in QuickTime, so pretty much any software which supports QuickTime 6 can play iTMS AAC files.
iTunes plays practically everything BUT WMA... so iTunes will happily work with any source of MP3, AAC, WAV, AIFF, etc. files. Drawing on QuickTime and publicly available plug-ins, iTunes can play from these files:
(yes, I'm lazy and just pasting stuff from Apple's website)
AIFF, AU, Audio CD, AVI, DV, MIDI, MPEG-1, MP3, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MOV, WAV, Ogg Vorbis (with plug-in), etc.
in these encodings:
24-bit integer
32-bit floating point
32-bit integer
64-bit floating point
AAC (MPEG-4 Audio)
ALaw 2:1
AMR Narrowband
IMA 4:1
MACE 3:1
MACE 6:1
MS ADPCM (decode only)
QDesign Music 2
Qualcomm PureVoice (QCELP)
ULaw 2:1