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› April 29, 2003
iTunes 4: $.99 Music
Apple released today the latest revision to its popular iTunes software, which now allows users to purchase individual songs from major music publishers directly within the application, for $.99 per track.
The tracks are not MP3 format, but instead use Apple's new AAC format (which, according to Apple, provides CD-quality audio with smaller file sizes than MP3), which presumably allows Apple to enforce their 3 Mac copying limit on purchased tracks (the new QuickTime 6.2 is also required for playing/encoding AAC files).
One of the nicest things about the new "store" UI is that it stays out of the way: if you have no interest in using this new feature, you never have to see it. Apple has also refrained from forcing advertising down users' throats, which was one of the first things I looked for after firing up this new version. Once again, Apple has made a smart decision which makes for a much better user experience.
What are your impressions of the "new" iTunes? (Discuss)
Comments
1. April 29, 2003 03:02 PM
2. April 29, 2003 03:06 PM
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pixy Posted…
However, Music Store is for US citizens only. :((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((3. April 29, 2003 03:07 PM
4. April 29, 2003 06:25 PM
5. April 29, 2003 06:40 PM
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Michael Hanscom Posted…
huphtur — Most albums are $9.90, no matter the number of tracks (I found a Spike Jones "Best of" compliation with 27 tracks for $9.90). There are some exceptions, but that seems to be the general rule. De La Soul fans are safe (except, of course, that that album isn't in the store yet…).6. April 29, 2003 06:54 PM
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Dan Rubin Posted…
huphtur: Again, Apple has shown their forethought by pricing entire albums at an almost-fixed rate, which prevents problems with recordings such as "3 Feet High..." Attention to detail at its finest. And I'd just like to throw out a "ditto" to Nate's comments: Even the way Apple employs something as standard as breadcrumb navigation seems better than the average implementation. And I just love three-column browsing -- it's a natural extension of the Finder UI, and it also is similar to the UI used on the iPod, which is a Good Thing™7. April 29, 2003 10:42 PM
8. April 30, 2003 02:15 AM
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coffeeKId Posted…
I do use eMusic. I pay $10 a month for unlimited downloads. The draw back is that some (not many) of the mp3s sound a bit shabby. They have a trial offer... I highly suggest you check it out. Another plus - the staff is quick to respond to your questions.9. April 30, 2003 02:15 AM
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coffeeKid Posted…
I do use eMusic. I pay $10 a month for unlimited downloads. The draw back is that some (not many) of the mp3s sound a bit shabby. They have a trial offer... I highly suggest you check it out. Another plus - the staff is quick to respond to your questions.10. April 30, 2003 09:15 AM
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~bc Posted…
I keep seeing this everywhere "AAC=Apple." AAC (advanced audio coding) is a standard format, not created by Apple (actually Dolby developed it). Just like MP3 is the music layer of an MPEG movie file, AAC is the music layer of an MPEG4 file. The format stores music at higher quality and lower file size than MP3. Artists and engineers asked Apple to use a higher quality format on their service, for higher fidelity. Whereas Apple is simply the first to role out files encoded in the format on a wide scale, it's by no means proprietary. BTW, the iTunes music store is a good way to pass a couple hours... lots of fun to browse.11. April 30, 2003 01:59 PM
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Nate Posted…
Dominey shares info on how to link to items in the store and how to share tracks in a network (Rendezvous) pool. Powerful stuff.. and hopefully more tie-ins will be discovered or created.12. May 1, 2003 03:12 PM
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tastypopsicle Posted…
Nate, one of the biggest "complaints" floating around (WDIK and SpyMac for instance) is that you cannot stream the purchased Apple AAC files (via the internet or Rendezvous on a LAN) to any and all computers. Those computers must be one of the 3 designated machines through the Apple account (which really only leaves 2 since the Mac streaming the music must also be on the account). If you have a Mac at work a few more at the house it's not possible to listen to music that you legally purchased on all of these machines. Apple's Solution: buy an iPod. These music files purchased through iTunes can be loaded onto as many iPods as you want. Analysis: most likely another brilliant marketing move on Apple's part to sell more iPods. Also, I think may be excited about $.99 downloads now because it's fresh and new but I believe it's only a short matter of time before people will question why we're paying the same (or close to same) price for a CD quality track without the CD. I think it's agreed that the cost of a CD is generally over inflated so why charge such a premium price on a song when there's no distribution/shipping/stocking/inventory charges? I like what Brian Zisk says in today's Wired article - Dollar Songs: Bargain or Rip-Off? Brian Zisk, technologies director at the Future of Music Coalition, thinks labels would do better to simply make the price of downloads so low that consumers wouldn't mind paying. Zisk said he believes the appropriate price of a downloaded song is 18 cents. At that price, he said, the songwriter and publisher could receive eight cents per song, the inflation-adjusted sum they are entitled to under the Copyright Act of 1976. The performer and label would get another eight cents, leaving a couple of pennies for the distributor.13. May 1, 2003 05:49 PM
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Nate Posted…
Ed, You make some good points there. Certainly some of the excitement surrounding iTunes 4 and the associated music store and file format comes from it simply being brand new. In regards to the streaming limitation: I don't think it's necessarily wrong or anti-consumer for Apple to place such restrictions. Bottom line, you can burn a CD of the music, and by doing so, you already have more than you would (in terms of music files) than if you just bought a retail CD (since you have the AAC files too). Encouraging consumers to purchase iPods by lifting any restrictions to them ends up just being an extra benefit as I see it. My opinion on this may be somewhat influenced by the fact that I have no need to stream files. The 99 cent question: I don't know enough about the costs involved with regular music distribution vs. the new apple store distribution costs, but I would imagine that there are some fees to cover getting the music into the store, serving it to millions of people in the form of previews and downloads, and credit card processing. Of course this still may not approach the fee being charged, but I would honestly be disappointed if Apple didn't have the business smarts to charge as much as is feasible. Also keep in mind that while the 99 cents may be equivalent to retail music CDs, the option to purchase one or more songs does not exist at your local music store. This choice is a big value add for some folks who can decipher from the preview which songs they want, not so much for those who like to purchase full albums regardless of the individual tracks. Personally, my taste in music is fickle, uninformed, and sometimes non-existent. I would be most excited to see some sort of tie-in services that would allow more personalized music recommendations, preferably in the form of some sort of web service14. September 27, 2004 09:09 AM
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Nate Posted…
I'm glad you oppened up this topic Dan, certainly there's been a lot of buzz about the new service/features/application/format, but here we can feel free to disect whatever aspects are of interest to us. [read: "I'm going to start blathering on, please feel free to ignore"] I'll start off by stating that I can be catagorized as one of the many folks who are blown away by the new store. For those who don't have Mac OS X, or who haven't yet downloaded iTunes 4, here's a screenshot (warning: large jpg) of the interface within iTunes. The iTunes store offers several impressive ways to get to the music you want to hear, such as a set of primary Navigation Methods on the top left corner of most screens. This consistency helps new users find what they want, and also provides more advanced features for those who have very specific things to find. The "New Releases", "Exclusive Tracks", "Staff Favorites" and "Up & Coming" modules are repeated from genre to genre, and include a sliding tray of items to look through. One of the strongest UI features of the iTunes store is it's redundant navigation. You can use primary navigation tools, side bar links, center modules, and any combination thereof to either browse around for something of interest, or find a specific track. Next up, the breadcrumb navigation, this isn't revolutionary, but there's something about the implementation of this that really seems to work well. I think the embedded arrow slices really make the navigation structure intuitive, seems to make more aesthtic sense than just a coulple of arrows. I mentioned a couple of usage functions above: user 1 = "I'm just looking around, not for anything in particular", and user 2 = "I want to find such and such by someone". User 2 will have a very easy time finding what they want with the three column browse navigation. It's of course, very simillar to the column view option in OS X finder - which I don't use very often - but when looking for music, it seems to be a fantastic method.