Apple’s iTunes music store software review @ Yahoo! News

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23 Oct 03 12:41 by G@M3FR3@K in category Uncategorized To news archive

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Via our href="/news/submit">news submit
size=2>GristyMcFisty reports us that Yahoo! News has
posted a brief href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=528&ncid=528&e=5&u=/ap/20031023/ap_on_hi_te/tech_test_itunes_for_windows"
target=_new>review on Apple’s recently
launched Windows version of the iTunes music download software. In the
review we can read that the installation of the software is easy and downloading
and/or buying a song via the iTunes music store is very simple to do.
Here’s part of the review:

src="http://www.cdfreaks.com/contentimages/newsimages/1204502100" align=right vspace=5
border=0>Even in Windows, iTunes resembles a program on the Mac OS X
operating system. The interface looks like brushed aluminum ‘” you’ll
either love it or hate it. The screen, which annoyingly doesn’t resize
quite like a Windows program, is divided into several panes. One is for
the source of the music: your own library, the music store, or play lists
that can be created manually or automatically. Another is a search field.
Click on the rainbow eyeball in one corner and the view changes for quick,
simple browsing by genre, artist or album.

The navigation scheme is carried to the iTunes Music
Store, which is always easily accessible and charges 99 cents per track or
$ 9.95 or more per album. Like the original Mac iTunes, Apple has enabled
one-click buying. But because of licensing arrangements with the recording
industry, the online store is available only in the United States.

Also impressive is iTunes’ implementation of Apple’s
networking technology. With iTunes running on my networked Mac, and iTunes
running on my networked Windows PC, both versions instantly recognized
each other’s music libraries so songs downloaded to one computer could be
heard on the other.

Apple also has partnered with Audible.com and offers
5,000 audiobooks for sale. For $ 15.95, I purchased Walter Isaacson’s
recent biography of Benjamin Franklin. The process was as painless as
buying a song.

With the audiobook deal, Apple is offering something
that competitors such as Napster 2.0 and Musicmatch lack. On the music
side, the new Napster claims it will have 100,000 more songs than Apple
promises at the end of the month.

ITunes also offers free features that rival jukebox
programs ‘” including Musicmatch, Windows Media Player and Napster 2.0 ‘”
either charge extra for or can’t do at all.

For instance, Windows Media Player can’t encode a CD into
MP3 format without an upgrade. Musicmatch allows CD burning and ripping
but forces users to upgrade in order to do it at the full speed of their
CD drive. And Napster 2.0 doesn’t handle ripping at all; you need a
separate program to transfer songs from a CD to a computer.

A pre-release version of Napster did have a better radio
service that identified tracks and made it possible to skip ahead to the
next song. Then again, the Napster radio service costs $ 9.95 a month for
a premium membership.

And Napster doesn’t have an option to automatically synch
with its player, the Samsung YP-910GS, or automatically generate play
lists based on the number of times a song has been heard or how it’s been
rated.

I was impressed with the Napster music store’s full-song
streaming ‘” but that’s also part of the premium membership. ITunes, like
the free version of the new Napster, only plays 30 second previews of
songs before they’re purchased.

One thing iTunes can’t do is play or encode songs in
Microsoft’s secure Windows Media Audio format, which is becoming the de
facto standard for competing online music stores.

Apple is sticking with the secure Advanced Audio Coding,
the native format for its music store, and its Windows and Mac software
also support the popular MP3 format.

Though quality is very good under those formats, Apple’s
decision not to support WMA could limit future platform switching. Apple
says its songs won’t disappear. But they can’t be played if you decide to
dump iTunes and switch to Musicmatch or
Napster.

If you’ve followed the news lately you might have noticed
that Apple is having a lot of success with their iTunes music
downloading service. Their first Mac version was welcomed and served
millions of downloads within weeks of its launch. It remains to be seen if the
Windows version will be as successful as the Mac version since there is quite a
lot of competition at the moment from various
companies.

Source: Yahoo! News

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