iTunes isn’t so bad
The title of this article may be shocking to some of you. You’re probably worried that I’ve became an Apple fanboy now that I have my very own Mac (which I’ll be writing a complete article about in the coming days titled “My First Mac). Anyways, the other day I was thinking about the iTunes Store and then today, I saw this article written by Apple’s very own Steve Jobs.
Fair Play earns it’s name
A long time ago I absolutely refused to purchase any music from the iTunes Store. Why? I would always fuss and complain that the music on there is full of DRM (digital rights management) and that you couldn’t do what you wanted with the music.
Well, that is partly true. The music does have DRM on it but, really, it’s truly one of the most lenient DRM models out there. Why? First of all, you can play your music on up to 5 computers. If you get to the 5 computer limit, you can now login to the iTunes store and de-authorize all of the computers and start over (and you don’t have to ask anymore!). I don’t know about you, but I don’t have 5 computers to play music on.
Another interesting thing that I did not know that I read in the article that Steve wrote is that your music can be played on any iPod, so, I guess that means you could put the music that you purchased onto anyones iPod. I don’t have an iPod, so I really don’t know about this but I assume it is correct since Mad Dog himself said it!
Also, if you absolutely refuse to have the DRM on your music, you can burn the music to a CD and rip it back to your computer without the DRM. You can import the music in AAC or MP3 format. Out of being annoyed by the fact that the music I bought had DRM on it, I’d always do this, however, lately, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a waste of my time. I would usually wind up burning a couple of tracks to a CD-R and then re-import the CD using something like Windows Media Player. I’d then have to tell Windows what the song was and if for some reason it couldn’t find the information in the online database, I’d have to manually enter the ID3 tags. This, truly, was a waste of my time. Don’t get me wrong, I think burning your music to a CD is a great feature, especially if you’re wanting to play your music in a car stereo, but, I don’t have a car and don’t go places often so for me, it was becoming a waste of time and a waste of a blank CD!
PayPal Integration
if it wasn’t for the fact that iTunes purchases can be made using PayPal, I would not be making purchases on iTunes. I don’t have a credit card and I refuse to have one. I transfer money to my PayPal account and then I go into iTunes and go on a shopping spree (depending on how much I transferred!).
Something that my friend Steve Harris mentioned earlier when I was discussing this with him is that it is a great idea for parents. They could give their kids an iTunes allowance via PayPal. They could go to the store and buy an iTunes Store gift card, but, in my opinion, it’s a waste of paper.
What I’d like to see
The iTunes’ podcast aggregator. I like it and it does work really well, but, there is one problem that I have with it. If I have to re-install my operating system, go to another account or use another computer, I lose my podcast subscriptions. I know you can export your subscriptions, but, I always forget. For a long time I’ve been using a service called PodNova to subscribe to all my podcasts. My list of subscriptions stays on their website and if any of the above happens, I can still access my list of podcast subscriptions without a lot of hassle. I haven’t done this, but, I could use their service and subscribe to the giant feed that they provide to you so you can plug it into any podcatcher and it will supposedly download all the latest enclosures, but, you don’t really get the same type of organization that I and many other people expect. I’ve just been using the PodNova client (based on Juice). I install the application, sign in and there are all of my subscriptions waiting for me.
Think about this, if you have iTunes on your computer you more than likely have an account with them. I think Apple could do the same thing that PodNova is doing but make it even better. One way to make it better is if I go to another computer and open up iTunes, I could login and only the latest episodes that I have not listened to or watched would download instead of the last entry for every single subscription downloading.
Another reason I am loving iTunes!
After I finished writing this entry, I decided to go and have a look around on the iTunes store because I’ve been wanting to get some new music. I saw one of the coolest things. STAR TREK EPISODES! They don’t have Voyager (although I already have all the Voyager episodes), The Next Generation or Deep Space 9, YET! I hope they will soon! But, I’m very excited! They have The Original Series (TOS) and Enterprise.
[tags]apple, itunes, steve jobs, apple.com, podcasts, fair play, drm, windows media player, import, cd ripping, cd burning, mp3, aac, paypal, steve harris, reinvented software, itunes allowance, parents, podnova, star trek, voyager, the next generation, deep space nine, enterprise, the original series[/tags]
February 7th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
I’m a fan of albums, so I don’t really buy anything from the ITunes Store. I just get the CD’s. But overall, I think the store is OK. And while DRM sucks in general, I think Apple’s done the best they can. The higher-up’s at the record labels see all digital distribution (legal or otherwise) of music as piracy. There was no way they’d agree to systems like iTunes without DRM.
Also, I agree with you about the iTunes podcatcher. I use it to collect my podcasts, and it’d be nice to have some sort of online backup of my subscriptions.
February 10th, 2007 at 8:52 am
I agree with Shawno about DRM basically sucking, but until something better comes along, I think iTunes is still the most painless way to get the latest and the greatest music online. A buck for a song, a couple bucks for a TV show, it ain’t really that bad. I’ve never downloaded a movie, ‘cuz I’d rather have them on DVD, but it’s nice to know I could if I wanted to. I suppose.
As far as keeping your podcast subscriptions online, I like to use iTunes’ “export as OPML” function to get the job done. You have to do it manually, but it’s an easy way to keep track of all those URL’s and RSS addresses of all your podcasts.
Maybe someday, some really smart indie web developer (*cough*cough* Steve HArris *cough*) could write a script that would do such a thing automatically, then upload your formatted OPML list to a web-page every day or two so it’d be there in case of a disaster.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot — I’m looking forward to hearing a review on your new iBook, too. Welcome to the Mac Fanboy Club, Andy Melton!
February 14th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Shawno - The RIAA and MPAA see computers as piracy machines, that’s all they see them as.
Tim - I’ll forward your comment along to Steve, lol.