Apple Introduces iTunes Music Store, iTunes 4, new iPod

Steve Jobs took to the stage at Moscone Center today for a special Apple Event, and introduced Apple's new music service, "iTunes Music Store," which will allow users to download music in the AAC format for $.99 per song, and is built-in to iTunes 4. The service offers 200,000 tracks and counting, with unlimited CD burning for personal use. iTunes 4 also adds playlist sharing, and the new iPod add new features, including a new design, a dock, and USB 2.0.

The iTunes Music Service files are 128 kbps AAC (reportedly better than 128 kbps MP3), with free previews, cover art, and "reliable downloads." You can browse the music store in iTunes, similarly to browsing your own Library, and preview them directly in iTunes. "One-click shopping" allows you to purchase the song and download it, adding it to your Library, in one click.

The store also offers exclusive music, music videos, and other multimedia, all in the main iTunes window. iTunes 4 will be available now (along with QuickTime 6.2), and the music store will be available today. It is Mac-only now, but will be available for Windows by the end of the year.

As a compromise to help prevent piracy, you must change your playlist every 10 CD burns, and you may share the music with only three other Macs (you may modify the list of computers that the music may be shared with at any time). There was no word on the technology used to handle this DRM.

The iTunes playlist sharing allows sharing of playlists, and the streaming of music from one machine to the other, though copying is not supported ("that would be verboten," Jobs added).

The new iPods will be $299 (10GB), $399 (15GB), and $499 (30GB). The dock holds the iPod upright, and has a line-out. The FireWire port is now on the bottom of the unit, and the buttons have been moved up higher, just below the screen, in a row. The improved screen features a backlight. The new units will be in Apple stores on Friday.

Why not...

[swordboy]

Why don't they just buy a record label and be done with it?

In other news!

[smartin]

Hackers announce breaking Apple DRM, details to follow.

30GB iPod + 7500 songs = $499 + $7425 = $7924

[mst76]

if you don't have any CD's to rip...

Re:ACC to MP3/OGG Converter

[Anonymous Coward]

They sell them at Radio Shack. It's a small plug with a male stereo miniplug connector on each side.

Oh, sure ... I can hear it now.

[Anonymous Coward]

should be per MB or per song minute charge

"Check, check". "Is this thing on? Test test". "1-2-3-4. Check check". "Is tape rolling?" ("Rolling!"). "Inna Gadda Da" ("cut! You were flat."). "From the top? Check check". "Can someone adjust my monitor volume?" bwanggg! "Damn, I broke a string!" ...

Re:Total ripoff

[Anonymous Coward]

$1000 cables I bought for my Bose speakers aren't going to help that much when the source material is total shit.

True, since they aren't helping that much anyway.

Clue: If you spent $1000 for cables you aren't really in a position to be judging whether or not something is a rip-off. :-)

Re:The obvious question

[xombo]

The question I heard from yesterdays story was "What colour will the new music note be?" But we all know now, it's green!

Re:Total ripoff

[Enry]

$1000 for cables? For Bose speakers? After paying that much, no wonder you consider yourself an audio snob. Buy some cheaper cables and better speakers.

Re:Total ripoff

[10Ghz]

For example, the vibration dampers and $1000 cables I bought for my Bose speakers aren't going to help that much when the source material is total shit.

You got ripped off. Plain and simple. Those 1000 dollar cables will do jack shit to the sound-quality, and whatever benefit you might get (due to placebo-effect), will be compensated by those "average at best" Bose-speakers

Why don't you just install green LED's in your CD-player? Or color your CD's with green magic-marked. It's alot cheaper, it's also popular among audiophiles and it gives you just as much benefit as those 1000 dollar cables do (read: none).

Re:Still kinda expensive...

[0x00000dcc]

Considering I'd have to add another $0.25 (I'm guessing here, I'm in Canada)

Hey now, there's no reason to poke fun at Canadian math skills ...

Re:Hey dickhead, pay attention:

[Slashdolt]

I'm not sure what dickhead wasn't paying attention, but it sounds like it was you. I'm not sure where this post was meant to be, but it sure doesn't see to apply here.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Apple not /.ed yet

[imnoteddy]

Come on, people, we can do better than this! iTunes 4 is downloading as fast as my DSL pipe can take it!

Re:Why not...

[frodo from middle ea]

Yeah, and their first ever CD would be
Best of Celin Dion (Don't play on a MAC)

Re:The *really* obvious question

[Anonymous Coward]

So you hire live musicians to come play in front of you any time you want to hear music? You must be pretty damn rich!

Re:Why is this SO F**KING hard to understand?

[Zoop]

You missed a step:

7. Earn $1.75 per year.
8. Get Drunk.
9. Work at McDonald's.

Please, if there was that much of a market for indie artists, CD Baby would be edging out Amazon by now.

Re:Why is this SO F**KING hard to understand?

[American AC in Paris]

1. Get music from artists,
2. Offer tracks in an open format (ie ogg),
3. Charge 50 cents per track,
4. Keep 5 cents for your trouble,
5. Give artist 45 cents,
6. Shut up.

Right?

Right. Now for the X-Prize checklist:

1. Design rocket.
2. Build rocket.
3. Launch it into the upper atmosphere.
4. Do it again within two weeks.
5. Collect prize money.
6. Go buy a keg.

Couldn't be easier, huh?

Join me next week when I distill world peace into six easy steps!

(IHBT)

Re:But the price of music is still unrealistic.

[kyrre]

What would they do? They'd make their own food and not go to resturants.

So you are going to make your own music now? Good for you. Remember if you make any quality music, you'd probably want people to pay $15 for your cds too.

Re:But the price of music is still unrealistic.

[JabberWokky]

When you can afford a Mac with OSX, and then an iPod, I think you can then enter this conversation.

In the meantime, over to the right is an open mic night at a coffeehouse. You might be able to mooch and avoid a $4 coffee. Otherwise, there's that guy down the hall with the guitar.

--
Evan

Re:Its about farking time!

[TedCheshireAcad]

Aah...death.

Music Store:
The Apple Music Store is currently unavaiable.
Please check back later.

...the iTunes effect?

Re:The *really* obvious question

[telstar]

"But, I'd never be interested in BUYING a song in a lossy format."

• "like, say, a cd? (or do you really think a cd is a lossless format?)"
  
  • Well now you see why nobody's been buying CDs for the past few years!

Re:In other news!

[MalleusEBHC]

1. Burn to CD
2. Rip CD to mp3
3. Share mp3

i am teh 1337 h4xx0r

Solitaire!

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Yeah Baby! We don't need Windows anymore! Consider me switched!

Re:Food For Thoughts

[Uber Banker]

Why don't they just use Hi-8?

Re:Timeouts?

[berniecase]

Yep, same deal here. It's a damn shame, because I actually want to BUY some music. Can you believe it? For once, I want to BUY music!

sending a message

[Victor Liu]

First Gore gets on Apple's board, now they're showing off Eminem on the front page. Says something doesn't it? Hello Cheney?

In other words...

[Kjella]

Ironically, a search for Britney Spears in the iTunes Music Store brings up nothing.

Where do I sign up?

Kjella

No Metallica....

[berniecase]

Go figure.

No.

[death to hanzosan]

" music only lasts alittle while, once you hear it a few times it dies."

Rock and Roll will never die. A digital recording is forever. I still listen to music that is over ten or twenty years old because I can come back to it and it rocks out. For instance, Led Zepplin III is still a great way to get laid.

Your problem is that you're listening to the Backstreet Boys. Stop that.

Re:step in the right direction...

[shotfeel]

Why buy when you can get it free?

Because you can't get it for free...

Unless your time is free.

And your bandwidth is free.

And your conscience is free.

And your lawyer is free.

Porn-o-nomics

[Zhe Mappel]

There's a lesson to be learn here, maybe the pron industry is the way to go for the whole entertaiment industry: Less regulations, more diversity, very lax fair use and aggressive competition between big and small producers.

Uh, yeah. I like a little utopian lecture about free music as much as the next guy, but geez. I think you're oversimplifying.

Look: it would be nice if the whole world was run like a giant porn business, I agree. But you've got to give some thought to the pool of available talent, production costs, and the economics of distribution. Bottom line: it's somewhat easier to find a woman down on her luck who needs food and shelter and is willing to trade for them by laying in the center of a bunch of strangers who penetrate and ejaculate upon her, than it is to write, record, and sell a record.

From time immemorial, artists have been struggling with this very problem at the intersection where art and anonymous, for-pay sex meet. As Michelangelo once said, "Argh! If I don't get that Sistine Chapel commission, I'm going to have to do 'Venetian Orgy 4: My Tower of Pisa Leans to the Left'." Fortunately, he was spared that indignity and went on to paint one of the truly inspiring works of art of the ages featuring, but only by coincidence, God and Man in the nude.

So you see, while porn does appear to make the world seem more happily unidimensional, there are still nagging complexities that prevent our moving fully to a Porn-centric Economy. Besides, Alan Greenspan's ticker couldn't take it.

Re:It's all in the volume

[milkman_matt]

Cut out the middlemen, and the artists are probably getting a larger slice of the pie.

That wouldn't be ... apple pie would it? HAH! Ok, i'm an idiot.

-matt

The iPod Dock Double Entendre

[Anonymous Coward]

quoting from http://www.apple.com/ipod/ [apple.com]:

"no more reaching around looking for the right port"

indeed...

Re:Yeah but for $1 a song?

[PhoenixK7]

Yes but some people have more freetime than money (college students)

Obviously you're not an engineering student.

0 time, zero $$ ;)

Re:A lesson in economics.

[Ignorant Aardvark]

everyone who thinks they'll be able to get their top 100 favorite tracks by buying only 7 cd's please raise your hands... anyone... anyone... bueller...

Hey, I can get my top 100 favorite tracks on 7 CD's ... all of Weird Al Yankovic's CDs!

Re:What a silly troll.

[PissedOffGuy]

if youre into audio you also know he's a troll because nobody buys $1000 cables for bose speakers.

Re:Not good enough

[Zoop]

The same playlist 10 times sounds like a way to appease ignorant music execs.

Exactly. Unfortunately, they are still gatekeepers so if you want to play, you have to make them feel all warm and fuzzy. Would it were different, but it's not.

Later, when we digitize Hillary Rosen at the stake, we can dispense with the silliness, but for now...

Re:Its about farking time!

[AlanSmitheeX]

Geeks, get a life

As in the life of a middle-aged man who still has a roommate? A roommate that comes with an 18 year old son no less?