RSSApple Launches Music Store, New iPods
By Nate Mook | Published April 28, 2003, 4:52 PM
Bringing to a close months of speculation and rumor, Apple CEO Steve Jobs took center stage Monday at the Moscone Center in San Francisco to announce the launch of the iTunes Music Store and fresh iPod models.
Built directly into the newly released iTunes 4, the Music Store features 200,000 songs from the five major record labels, each available for $0.99 without a subscription fee. Full albums can be purchased at discount rates depending on the number of tracks, with standard albums priced at $9.99.
Jobs said Apple aims to correct failures of rival music services such as Pressplay and Rhapsody by offering album art and free 30 second previews of every song in the iTunes Music Store library. Downloaded songs can be copied to an unlimited number of CDs and iPods, as well as played on three separate Macs.
For some artists, music videos are available free of charge.
"Apple is the first company that has brought together the entire eco system of the digital age," Jobs said as he announced the company's oft-criticized "Rip. Mix. Burn." slogan would be replaced by "Buy. Mix. iPod."
Each song is encoded in AAC, the MPEG-4 audio format developed by Dolby, at a bitrate of 128kbps. Jobs said Apple had used digital masters, rather than CDs, as the source for the encoding to ensure the highest possible audio quality.
iTunes users navigate the Music Store using the application's built in browser, and can purchase tracks or albums with a single click. The service stores credit card information for expediting music purchases and downloads.
Songs downloaded from the iTunes Music Store are appended to a special playlist, which can be used in other applications including iPhoto and iMovie.
Because of its dependence on iTunes, the new service is currently available only to Mac OS X users. Apple is rumored to be developing a version of iTunes for Windows and Jobs said the Music Store would support Windows by the end of the year.
To help push the iTunes Music Store, Apple released third generation iPod models, sporting a dock with audio out and a customizable main menu. Apple has added new backlit touch buttons as part of the iPod's "no moving parts" navigation.
The new iPods will ship May 2, with the 10GB model retailing for $299 USD and the 15GB model priced at $399 USD. A 30GB iPod, the largest ever released by Apple, will cost $499 USD.
Current iPod owners can upgrade to software revision 1.3 supporting AAC in order to take advantage of the iTunes Music Store, but will not otherwise benefit from the features added to the new iPods. Those wanting to rate songs or edit "On-The-Go" playlists directly on the iPod, play solitaire, write notes, or set an alarm must purchase the newest models.
"With the new iTunes Music Store, you can now buy music online and transfer it right onto your iPod for listening wherever you want," Jobs said.
In classic Apple fashion, however, the iTunes Music Store remained mostly unavailable after its launch. Users constantly encountered "Error 504" and "Credit card processing is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later." messages as Apple worked to iron out the kinks.
iTunes 4, which also requires QuickTime 6.2, is available for download via FileForum. More information can be found on Apple's new Web site, AppleMusic.com.
"Apple is rumored to be developing a version of iTunes for Windows"
That's some of the best news I've heard in quite some time - iTunes is just a GREAT mp3 playing app, I'm really looking forward to using it on WinXP :)
Score: 0
|i couldn't agree with you more. iTunes on Windows XP.... wow that would just rock.
Score: 0
|Yeah, but look at QT for Windows.... a particularly horrible application.
Score: 0
|$0.99 per song and/or $9.99 for an album
> That's cheaper than used price at most places.
MPEG-4 AAC Encoding from digital masters
> Better quality than alot of the above mentioned CDs.
30 second previews of every song
> More selection than the very few headphones at a store
... and can purchase tracks or albums with a single click.
> You cannot beat that kind of convience
It's legal as well. Support the artists you like, and the songs you like. This is going to work quite nicely for me.
To top it off, I have been a fan of iTunes for quite some time, so that's just the cherry on the cake.
Score: 0
|How is that good? AAC encodes at 128kbps for $0.99 is good? It would make no sense to buy full albums that way - for nearly the same price as a conventional CD (lossless audio), you're getting OK at best quality lossy encodes. This sounds like pure hype: "Each song is encoded in AAC, the MPEG-4 audio format developed by Dolby, at a bitrate of 128kbps. Jobs said Apple had used digital masters, rather than CDs, as the source for the encoding to ensure the highest possible audio quality."
You can't possibly have highest possible audio quality while using 128kbps AAC. AAC can be pretty good at 128kbps but not at a price compareable to a normal CD.
Score: 0
|You'd be surprised. The AAC format Dolby created is pretty amazing. Don't judge it simply based on MP3.
Score: 0
|Yeah, I'm familiar with AAC and have used it off and on for a couple years (Mostly Psytel and more recently Ahead's), not sure why you think I'm judging AAC on MP3. I'll say it again, it's good at 128kbps, but not at a price compareable to the price of a CD when you get down to it.
Score: 0
|The Psytel encoder uses completely proprietary technology and was created by an individual. My understanding is the guy who created it was hired by Ahead to create Nero AAC, so it's essentially the exact same codec. I have dabbled in AAC since 1998 and I would believe that Dolby has a better codec than the knockoffs. That's why they charge so much to license the thing and copycats appeared in the first place.
You may be right about it not matching true CD quality, but most people will never hear that anyway. The majority of people listening with computer speakers, or a bookshelf stereo or in the car will never know the difference. Apple isn't trying to make CDs irrelevant, but for most AAC will work just fine.
Score: 0
|The funny thing is that a huge number of the songs in the iTunes Music Store sound noticably to much worse then the same songs ripped from CD and encoded in iTunes 4 or Quicktime 6.2. I have witnessed this first hand and others have confirmed it too. And now others are saying that there are also many songs they have purchased that sound noticably better then the same songs ripped from CD and encoded in iTunes 4 or Quicktime 6.2. But these people also admit to having purchased worse sounding files too.
Also of note is the many people complaining that only 128Kbps downloads are provided. I for one wont even touch the service any further until they provide atleast 192Kbps.
Score: 0
|Oh, and to anyone who thinks that having crappy equipment means you will barely notice the quality lost in lossy formats, think again. The equipment used is one of the least important factors in the ability to hear lossy audio artifacts, flaws and changes. Just ask Dibrom, the creator of the "alt-preset standard" and "alt-preset extreme" settings for the LAME MP3 encoder, over at the Hydrogenaudio.org forums. He'll tell ya the same thing. He actually tailored those settings on crappy cheap equipment and ended up producing one of the most, if not the most, highly acclaimed advancement in MP3 encoding since it's birth.
Score: 0
|"You can't possibly have highest possible audio quality while using 128kbps AAC. AAC can be pretty good at 128kbps but not at a price compareable to a normal CD."
Even though it has been said argued over the last days that 128kbps AAC is un-noticable from CD quality. (See Slashdot article on MP3 vs OGG vs AAC... see comments of the link) I will probably agree with YOU on this one. 128kbps is decent. The price of a normal CD (at least in my area) is not however $0.99 a song nor $9.99 a CD, but almost twice that much at an almost $20.00 mark.
So at half the price. Could you agree on at least half the quality? Not to say that AAC is half the quality. Just that to me it seems reasonably priced in comparison. Overall it would be great if a song was $0.05 to $0.10 I guess, but that's kind of out of our hands.
Anyways, the comment you made is something everyone should know going into this. This 'AAC is no different than CD quality' claim is incorrect at best. It is however acceptable to some, and for those others there is always the Best Buy's and such of the world. (What happened to Tower anyways?!? I don't see any of those, did they vanish?)
Oh, and my last comment, the selection does still need to grow. Quite a few bands I could easily find at the store are still not there on the service (not even one song). So we'll see how it goes, but it's looking pretty good so far.
Score: 0
|You're correct about Ivan who worked on Psytel and now Nero. And he's made a lot of improvements over Psytel aacenc so they're not the same. And it has little to do with whether AAC is THAT good sounding at 128kbps AAC to be worth nearly CD prices, which is my point.
And I haven't seen any tests that confirm whether Apple's AAC implimentation is indeed superior to Nero's plugin that Ivan works on. I wouldn't take it for granted that just because it's from Dolby it must be superior, just as I wouldn't use any of Fraunhofer's MP3 encoders over LAME for MP3 quality.
Score: 0
|True, it very well could be an excellent codec. However, I do not believe Dolby ever publicly released any of the AAC source as occured with MP3 (I could be wrong).
Either way, I've been quite impressed with 128kbps AAC even though most of my files are top quality VBR MP3s encoded with LAME. I will continue to buy CDs of bands I like for the quality, but Apple's service is wonderful for getting a variety of individual songs and exclusive tracks.
Score: 0
|Read over this thread, it gives a little insite (from Ivan) into various AAC encoders: http://www.hydrogenaudio...amp;f=13&t=7951&;
Score: 0
|It's good, because you don't have to buy the full album if you only want one or 2 songs. Yea, it may not be worthwhile if you're going to buy every song on the album, but for a large majority of people, it will provide a nice, LEGAL option.
Score: 0
|I've been waiting for the new iPod for some time now... Totally psyched about this!!
Score: 0
|