April 29, 2003
I just downloaded iTunes 4
I just downloaded iTunes 4 for my Mac. It includes access to the Apple Music Store, which is a service that lets you buy tracks for $1 each. Similar services have existed for a while, but never with very many tracks from well-known artists. Apple has changed that. I don't think I can stress this enough:
THIS IS BIG.
I have to assume I'm not the only one out there going through my music collection and buying songs that I've been meaning to buy for a while now. The vast majority of my 1,913 songs are in fact legal---ripped off of CDs I bought and that are sitting on my desk at home---but there's a bunch that I heard on the radio and downloaded, or that I ripped off a friend's CD to check out a new band. For instance, until a few hours ago my entire collection of country music was illegal, mostly because I haven't had a chance to get to the music store this semester.
But I just spent $30 picking up most of the country music I had. It's now legal, and includes liner art (!), and I bought it from my own computer, using an interface that is essentially an extension of the same software I've been using to manage my music for over a year now. It'll probably take a while to work through and buy all the tracks I don't own (not to mention that even at $1 each, tracks do add up---then again, I just got thirty songs I *like* for somewhat less than I'd pay for two CDs), but I'll get there. Apple certainly seems to have damn near all of them in its store.
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention: every one of the tracks in the Apple music store has a 15-25 second preview that you can play; so among those thirty tracks were at least five or six songs that I had never heard before, and some that I'd never even heard *of* before, but sounded neat. The preview interface is just a matter of double-clicking on the title---remember, this is the same interface as the music library---and if you like it, you click the "BUY SONG" button. This has the strong potential to be one of the most societally-important technological developments of the year.
If not the decade.
NICE BRIDGE. WATCH OUT FOR THE TROLL. --Eva Schillace
Posted
by blahedo
at 4:42pm
on 29 Apr 2003
