I see now why Itunes is so popular!

[mhemnarch]

I've used iTunes once. And only once.

When Depeche Mode came out with 'Playing the Angel', they had a deal where you could pre-order the album to jump on a ticket to a show and also get a B-Side of the album. I hopped on that like a fox in heat.

And then four months later, I reformatted my PC. When I realized my songs were gone and iTunes wouldn't let me re-download them, I wrote them an email.

I have to... re-buy the album?

I'm never doing business with them again, ever.

In their defense, there's nothing stopping you from immediately burning the songs you buy to disc for archival purposes, which is what I'd do.

Of course, that defeats the whole concept, but still...

[eduardo_b]

About DRM, if you don't like that crap talk to the RIAA,

Not quite old man. It's up to the record companies to make these choices, and some, such as EMI, have chosen to eliminate DRM.

By the way, your all Apple all the time is cute, but many prefer choice over integration. Go figure.

[cyanogen]

Napster lets you listen to entire songs for free, three times each:

http://free.napster.com

Some bands/labels only have 30-second excerpts available there, however.

[LarryAW]

I seriously dislike the DRM and low quality imports. Not to mention that if you have a disk failure and didn't back up the songs you purchased, Apple will force you to purchase them again. I also much prefer owning a physical product, but I know a lot of other people don't care.

That being said, I much prefer eMusic for any downloads. $10 a month gets you 30 songs a month, they do a better job of encoding the tracks to MP3s, and will give you unlimited downloads. They also have a great indie rock selection.

My question is this: instead of iTunes charging me $10 an album or Amazon doing the same, why not offer the album at $15+shipping, give me the MP3s immediately, and mail me a disc? I would go for that every time.

I don't know if you know this, but early on, e-music didn't have any restrictions whatsoever on how much you could download each month. So, when it went from $9.95 for unlimited to $9.95 very limited (from my perspective), I cancelled my account. I know they're competitive, but after once being unrestricted, it's hard to view being restricted for the same price as being a good deal.

[pough]

Is it true about backing up songs though? I just bought a couple things (not much, I bought the 3 Square Enix Bootlegs which are pretty cool and interesting!) and I'll email them to myself if I have to to preserve the tracks.

I just lost one of my songs I bought from iTunes. It's pretty standard Apple software, built for an ideal world that I don't seem to be a part of. One user, one Mac, one iTunes, one iPod. I have two iPods (one was a gift) and my girlfriend has one, as well. I use 3 computers at home and 2 at work. Because I am not living the ideal, I have zero hope for doing the photo thing and everything else must be done very carefully. Also, at some point there was a music sync that synced at least one of my paid-for songs out of existence. Forever, unless I give them more money.

There is one way to do things. Do it and things should be fine. Any deviation will not be tolerated.

So now I buy CDs (again/still), RIP them myself and only share them with iTunes. I'm not going to bother with buying from iTunes ever again and I'm honestly kinda miffed that some of the functions of iPods are pretty much completely useless to me. Oh well. It plays some songs.

[gnu23]

If you think iTunes is cool and you feel like you're in an elite club, you still don't know what else is out there.

Check out Rhapsody. Its what I have. its like iTunes, except its 10x cooler and costs 10x less.

Bingo! Rhapsody is the way I go for music. I do use the iTunes store for TV series I know I'm not going to buy on DVD (like Farscape Season 1, Weeds, Heroes, etc). I have an 80Gb iPod w/video (5th gen or 4th? it's the one pre-"Classic, anyway). I watch stuff on the train making my way to work and when I hit the subway I switch to music.

For music, I go all MP3 all the time and drag/drop stuff into the iPod using the iTunes interface. It's not the best and folks in the thread have mentioned better software for that, but iTunes is all I need for the copy portion as all of my music is already DRM-free and backed up.

As for Apple, they did pioneer the anti-DRM movement almost one-year ago today. See the open letter Steve Jobs wrote. That said, he was only stating what we all know to have been obvious since the first CD->MP3 ripper hit the net, but it was his letter that got the record companies moving off DRM.

You will find MP3s on iTunes Music Store now, but that majority of the offerings are still DRM'ed. That'll change as the libraries are converted.

What has always been true about Apple remains true today - they are the masters of aesthetics. They build what is generally perceived to be the best hardware/software combinations in the world. The iPod is just the most popular example. The iPhone is utterly cool as well, AT&T lockin issues aside. Their designs created the "Cult of Macintosh" years ago,and nothing has changed since except Apple just gets better at it.

Sure, folks will differ in their opinions on all this blurbage - this is just my $0.02US. I am jealous of the OPs shiny new 32Gb iTouch, though. Yes, I am one of the "infected". I'm gong to hold out for a 64Gb version - prolly next year some time or maybe Christmas this year will see it hit the market. God help my credit card when that happens. [/url]

[zerocrossing]

My wife buys from iTunes, but mostly I use it to listen to previews then go to Amazon and find someone selling the used CD for $4.61 and get it there. No need to back up.

[Reverse Engineer]

Just out of curiosity, do those who have partners have to buy the same music twice, if you both want it?

[neoxtrope]

They build what is generally perceived to be the best hardware/software combinations in the world.

"Generally perceived" by whom? Best for what? Bit of a sweeping statement there I think.

[bluedad]

I haven't read the whole thread...sorry if I'm repeating someone else BUT..,Amazon.com is now doing the download thing...I've found that they are generally cheaper, of the same quality and without the iTunes restrictions. Granted, there may not be the same amount to download...they have offerings that iTunes doesn't and vice verse, but they've become my go to when I want to download because of the cheaper price and non-restrictive policy.

I've discovered Amazon, too. If I'm not mistaken, I think their bitrate (256) is higher than Itunes. No DRM, and they've got some old stuff from the seventies that I'd been looking for!

[Emerald Tablet]

first of all : its slow on my pc
second : it makes copies on my pc
than : it makes folders on my pc
and : it doesn't support all formats on my pc
while : Forcing me time and time again to associate certain files on my pc
last but not least : it looks ugly to me

So : I removed it and never will re-install it

i'm still using winamp.

[Reverse Engineer]

If you live in the same house as someone who shares the same taste in music as you, and you are both ipod/itunes users...do you have to buy a single/album twice before you can put it on both ipods?

[mhemnarch]

I don't think so. That's part of the problem too, though - if you live in the same house as someone with different taste than you, you still share the same iTunes logins, which'll mess with your song ratings and stuff.

[Emerald Tablet]

And since Microsoft has 49% shares in Apple I don't trust them anymore

[jeffn1]

It seems like it is easier to convert Apple's DRM to standard mp3 than to convert Microsoft's WMA. Am I correct with this?

So, even though I mp3 player will not play mp4's, I think it makes more sense to buy from there than purchase a WMA version. (I think).

I have a subscription to Emusic. The problem with them is, more often than not, if you want some piece of music by a known band (even if it is decades old) it will not be there.

jeffn1