RSSCommentary: One Bad Apple
By Joe Wilcox | Published May 2, 2003, 9:58 PM
Apple's April 28, 2003, launch of the iTunes Music Store has raised more buzz than a ruptured hornet's nest. The company that Steve Jobs built arguably has created the easiest way to get digital music - and it's legal, too, if you don't mind paying a buck a song (Please, let's call the 99-cent price tag what it is. A buck). Apple also has raised the stakes in the fierce competition over which company controls the digital media market. If Apple's strategy is successful, none will.
No other company on the planet has executed a better digital media strategy than Apple. Doing digital media on a Mac is much easier and more satisfying than on a Windows XP PC. Apple's iLife digital media suite is the best thing going for working with digital photos, music, movies or DVD burning. Too bad you need a Mac to get it. Oh, let's repeat that for the iTunes Music Store: Too bad you need a Mac to get it.
PC users, the iTunes Music Store is the bomb. This service is so cool there aren't any appropriate words to describe it. The selection is phenomenal, with lots of "you can't find that anywhere else" acoustic tracks and other hard-to-find goodies. And buying tunes is so easy. You give up your credit card number, associate that with an ID and you're in business. Songs come with 30-second previews. You click "Buy," and that tune starts downloading to your hard drive. Ka-ching! And a buck quietly disappears from your line of credit.
Have you ever been to Atlantic City or Las Vegas and watched people plug pennies (OK, quarters and half dollars) into slot machines, hoping to hit the jackpot? Before they know it, the bag of coins is empty and some security guard is booting them out the casino door for loitering. Buying music from Apple may not be so different.
The problem with the iTunes Music Store is that buying is too easy. There's no complicated shopping cart process with itemized lists and the option to back out should the final price boggle your senses. You literally click "Buy" and that's it. A buck doesn't sound like much, but those dollars add up fast if you're not too careful. This has got to be the best gimmick since adult outfits started doing 900-number hot lines. The money is all spent silently and easily, with the shock reserved for that next credit card statement. "You see, your honor, my client is declaring bankruptcy because he maxed out all his credit cards at the iTunes Music Store. He's such an unlucky sod, because his hard drive crashed and he lost all the music bought on credit."
Still, Mac users have deeper pockets than do most Windows users, so they can afford those hefty charges. The average person buying a portable music player has an income of over $100,000 (Geez, who makes that can kind of money, anyway?), according to NPDTechworld. But 55 percent of Apple iPod buyers have incomes of more than $100,000.
Your Tune for Windows
Windows users, see what you're missing? It's more than bankruptcy. Apple has made obtaining lots of good music easier than pecking around the file trading sites looking for nuggets. That convenience and the buck a song price -- less if you buy some albums -- should be available to Windows users. Apparently that is Apple's plan, to bring this service to the Windows masses by the end of 2003. Launching the service for both platforms through iTunes would extend Apple's reach and give AOL Time Warner and Microsoft executives catastrophic heart failure. How many ways can you say, "Pushing up daisies?"
It's not like either competitor has done that well in the digital media market. The executives over at AOL Time Warner sneeze and the company loses $50 billion. (Show me any successful AOL Time Warner digital media product? You can't!) Microsoft's idea of digital media marketing is getting every hardware manufacturer on the planet to support Windows Media file formats. Most computers come with a floppy drive or cars a cigarette lighter, but that doesn't mean most people use the gear. Get real, Microsoft.
Mr. Jobs has the right Hollywood connections, he's successfully courted record labels for his new service and rumor has it his company is even negotiating deals directly with music artists. Apple has the right relationships, right strategy and right technology to pull off a successful music service. Don't forget that Apple's iPod music player is the retail market share leader as measured in revenue, according to NPDTechworld.
Apple appears to have all the pieces in place to execute on a music service that's easier to use than Macs. Great music selections, reasonable prices, click-and-buy ease of use, delivery through one of the best digital music software packages available and portability on a great music player: The combination is potentially great for Apple, its shareholders, consumers and, more importantly, competition.
That's because Microsoft's idea of digital media is controlling file formats the way it uses them in Office to dominate productivity suites. (You knew there had to be a reason why your waffle maker supports Windows Media formats, right?) In Microsoft parlance, competition is a market where all the products are made by Bill Gates & Co. (Hey, you can choose from six different versions of Windows XP. Woo Hoo!) Microsoft is trying to establish its digital media format as the defacto standard through the aforementioned hardware partnerships and also by creating what arguably is great digital rights management technology. Too bad, but the DRM only works with Windows Media file formats, folks.
Microsoft has given music labels a free tool kit (What's $500 million in unrecovered research and development costs between friends?) so they can make CDs with some content protected by Microsoft's DRM. It's a good Windows Media format proliferation technique, but music labels haven't been biting. The labels, which are uncertain about how to deal with online music file trading, appear frightened of a devil's deal with Microsoft. At the same time, Microsoft hasn't had a lot of luck with music downloads of copy-protected Windows Media Audio files.
Or so I say. Microsoft points to Pressplay and a 300,000-song library -- supposedly 100,000 more than the iTunes Music Store- - as evidence record labels in fact do support Windows Media Audio. But Microsoft is comparing, well -- pardon the pun -- apples to oranges. Pressplay is largely a music-on-demand service, where people pay a flat fee to stream songs. Yes, the songs can be purchased, too, that is if the device you want to play it on supports WMA. Sure, that aforementioned waffle maker is a good sign that your device might support WMA, if you like the format. To my discerning ear, 128kbps WMA files don't sound nearly as good MP3s at the same bit rate, 160kbps or 192kbps.
Apple has a DRM, too, but it's there to prevent mass piracy, while allowing for the kind of personal copying allowed under "Fair Use" laws. I encourage everyone to check out Pressplay for more oppressive licensing policies enforced by WMA's DRM.
Stomping for AAC
Apple would like nothing better than to steer digital media toward accepted standards, such as using MPEG-4 for digital music and video. Forget Microsoft's DRM and WMA lock and key. The consumer electronics industry, Hollywood and music labels generally have favored that approach. Apple's music service could be instrumental in providing a viable and attractive alternative to making a Windows Media format devil's deal. That also would ensure that Microsoft could not in the future choke the Mac out of being able to access or use digital media, which is driving new computer sales.
For the iTunes Music Store, Apple adopted the Advanced Audio Coding (ACC) portion of MPEG-4. (This AAC should not be confused with the Agility Association of Canada or the Aluminum Anodizers Council.) Four companies contributed to ACC, so content creators and consumer electronics companies wouldn't be beholden to technology from Microsoft or anyone else.
If successful, Apple's online music strategy and push for MPEG-4 -- a standards-based technology to which more than a dozen companies contributed patents or technology -- could really sway music labels. Hollywood is an easier win. Mr. Jobs already has great presence there as CEO of Pixar, and Apple software is the most widely used in movie and broadcast production.
As for AOL Time Warner: I'll be the first person to admit I could use to knock off about 40 pounds. But AOL Time Warner is really huge! That company can't get off its fat ass to compete with lettuce. Until AOL Time Warner trims down some, that company is just going to continue sitting there picking its teeth and talking about digital media and online entertainment. But the company never does anything but add more weight, as in buying more digital media technologies, and staying sitting down on its even fatter ass doing nothing.
Now comes along svelte Apple, Hollywood ties, great technology, legendary stylishness and ease of use in tow. Would you buy music from Microsoft? Hey, don't yell at me for asking! But Apple's cool, right? You might buy music from Apple rather than searching for it on file trading sites, right?
Still, AOL Time Warner is doing a few things right. The company has dumped RealNetwork's proprietary digital media format for ACC in its online radio service. And rumors are abuzz about an eventual sweet-heart deal between Apple and AOL Time Warner for using the iTunes Music Store as part of America Online.
But that won't happen without Apple delivering a Windows version of the service.
I would use it. When I listened to my first AAC-encoded song purchased from the iTunes Music Store, my heart sank. I simply didn't like the audio quality at all. It was like something was missing. Yeah, how about Windows. In listening to music purchased from Apple's store on a PC and a Mac with the same setup -- M-Audio's Sonica connected to Logitech's Z-680 speakers -- the sound satisfied on the Windows XP notebook and disappointed on a Power Mac G4 and 1GHz PowerBook G4. I've long been a critic of the Mac's inferior audio quality to a Windows XP PC. So for now, I'll be buying my music on a Mac and listening -- after burning to a CD or converting to MP3 -- on a Windows XP PC.
Joe Wilcox has been covering technology since 1994 and now spends his days writing about Microsoft for CNET News.com. More rants and raves from Joe can be found online at joewilcox.com.
I might consider using this service apart from the fact its runs on an apple mac I would never buy an apple mac purely based on the last 6 months at work. My Recent experience includes Emacs, 10.2 and 10.2 server.
We have 11 Emacs of which I have sent back 6 to be repaired in 8 months.
The software is written by hippies and isn’t finished. I have had more problems with implementing this OS (10.2) then I have ever had with any MS OS and as for service packs there are plenty from apple, sometimes they even make u pay for them. It’s a joke.
As for the server software oh my god, not getting into that, basically we sent it back, the server made a good door stop.
And then there’s apple support, where they order the parts before they have picked the machine up. Strange that! Sometimes it can take weeks for a repair.
Other things that r done very badly:
Sharing Printers
Network shares
Well this has led me to believe these machines r for media/ home use only, in my experience the reliability is very poor if u buy 1 I suggest the 3 years extended warranty option.
itunes is good and easy to use.
The PC world will catch up with Itunes there will be several versions giving more choice and more content its only a matter of time or u could just get it for free from Imesh.
PC's are better at most things and can do anything a Mac can.
n1ckster
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|an exellent point has been made in the very first post. Since an average (not the discounts/budget) retail cd costs about 18€ (a euro is still the same amount of money as a $, right?) and one track 1$, the price is the same or even a bit more expensive. When Napster first came out, they ranted that it violated the author-rights. Now that Napster is gone and they can't control the wildspread of p2p networks, guess they wanted to attack a legal firm wich is more likely to pay the fees they want. Sorry, but for me the fun of downloading some music died with those p2p programs. What ever happened to good ol' irc? :(
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|$1 a tune...
average cd has 13->18 tracks
the average cd costs 12->16 dollars if you know where to shop
that makes the average cd cost/song ratio about $0.90
now lets say you own 270 CD's with about 15 tracks on each.
that equals about $400 saved. which could buy about 29 more cds
And you want me to buy a mac to use this???
I like to own a mac but there just doesn't seem to be enough compatible parts around the house to build it...
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|yep $1 a tune, but most of the albums are $9.99. Now do the math. Also, since you can just buy the good songs you can "save" even more. Why buy the whole album when you only like some of the songs. The savings will be enormous.
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|The sound of iTunes Store tracks coming from the digital speakers on my recent-model iMac (17"/800 from last year) is probably the best quality I've heard on any of the PCs I've owned, including one with a SB Live! 512-bit card. However, this iMac comes with free digital Pro Speakers, and I suspect that Apple's sound hardware is simply optimized for digital speakers and the increased dynamic range one gets w/ those. I use a pair of analog Sony studio monitors and while the quality is generally great, I don't get the same deep, deep bass tones and high, sweet sounds that I hear from the speakers. I'm not even an audio person and I notice the difference.
Macs are capable of producing good sound, and getting better all the time. However, they are producing it in Steve Jobs's world, where $20 analog speakers are forbidden and digital audio is limited to a nice, clean 16 bits.
Incidentally, Apple doesn't lock one into the whole 1-Click debacle, although they sure don't make it obvious that there is an option not to use 1-Click. If you go into iTunes preferences you get the option to use a traditional Shopping Cart instead.
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|I don't mind DRM, its gives a false sense of security to the RIAA. There are ways around it. One such method comes courtesy of Microsoft, but thats all I have to say about that. If you want more info, you'll have to throw me some more bait. I can't go fighting crime on an empty stomach, small fry.
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|Hehe...sounds like you've been playing a lil too much Zelda. ;)
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|"No other company on the planet has executed a better digital media strategy than Apple. Doing digital media on a Mac is much easier and more satisfying than on a Windows XP PC. Apple's iLife digital media suite is the best thing going for working with digital photos, music, movies or DVD burning. Too bad you need a Mac to get it. Oh, let's repeat that for the iTunes Music Store: Too bad you need a Mac to get it."
I guess he fired the help before they could finish the paragraph?
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|"Doing digital media on a Mac is much easier and more satisfying than on a Windows XP PC."
I use WMP9, and it's incredibly easy to use. Pop a CD in, and a dialog automatically appears asking what to do. Just click "copy to cd", and WMP9 automatically gets the track info and rips the CD into the WMA quality of your choosing. All with one click! If you have a bunch of unorginized audio files, WMP9 will automatically tag them and move them to the right folder under My Music, no matter if it is mp3 or wma.
By chance were you comparing iTunes to the ancient WMP7-8?
WMM2 rivals, and might even beat, iMovie, too. I've used it, and it is extremely easy to use, especially with the taskpane (something iMovie doesn't have). It also actually uses an efficient video format (WMV) which is much better than the poor MPEG4 Quicktime format.
Other people back those statements up, too; just go to http://www.winsupersite.com and look at the WMP9 review (20+ pages long!) and the WMM2 review (with point-by-point comparisons to iMovie!).
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|about imovie...
with imovie you can choose what format you want to export your video to file as.
with WMM2 you can only save it to WMV.
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|So, why would anyone want to save to a different format, since WMV9 is so good? ;)
Besides, 99% of people who would use WMM2 wouldn't care what format it uses. Advanced users can use Adobe Premiere, though v7 is going to use WMV9 too... :)
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|Actually if you hunt around in WMM2 you will find that you can save as .avi, and from there you can leave it as is, or convert/compress to any format using 100's of different software packages, both commercial and freeware.
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|Are you for real? Ever heard of proprietary formats? Please look it up in the dictionary before replying again ;-)
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|I don't see why proprietary is so bad...? Just because something isn't open-source, doesn't mean that it's bad :)
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|I just read another writer who said she got much better sound quality on her Mac using Mac's own digital speakers.
>
Think you have a typo here.
In any case, I find it very hard to believe that the average portable music player buyer makes over $100,000/year, as it's a youth market.
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|Don't forget to pick the right equalizer mode for the type of music you are playing and turn off the sound enhancer in the preferences. These two changes make a big difference
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|Well, well, well. 200, 000 songs to lauch a new service can't make everybody happy. So you're not happy that you can't find The Stones or The Beatles at the iTunes Music Store? You will by the end of the summer. Why? Because they will want to be a part of it. Who wouldn't. Obviously the same pc users who were screaming for an iPod will want to. In the meantime, lets bring on the reasons why Apple is doing such a bad thing, or why this isn't going to work, or about the irrelevant Windows format that just doesn't cut it. Love your Mac.
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|right on the heels of the inane 'apple should buy vivendi's music unit' we get this whopper. so let's do this by numbers:
1. "Doing digital media on a Mac is much easier and more satisfying than on a Windows XP PC."
this is absolutely true. iTunes just smokes anything you'll find on windows. there are some very good media players on the wintel platform (QCD comes to mind), but iTunes is simply a far more simple and easy to use program, that scales well for new users and works well for intermediate users. true audiophiles won't likely find it all that great, but then the same people will turn up their noses at just about any windows offering as well.
anyway, this is a very true statement. cherish it.
2. "PC users, the iTunes Music Store is the bomb. This service is so cool there aren't any appropriate words to describe it. The selection is phenomenal, with lots of "you can't find that anywhere else" acoustic tracks and other hard-to-find goodies."
quote from another board i frequent:
"Well, I just downloaded iTunes 4. The program is pretty slick, but I couldn't find The Beatles, The Stones, etc. in the online store."
no beatles and no stones alone would make me 'eh, who cares?'. 200,000 tracks (i thought the apple lit said 500k?) really isn't a very big track selection in my book.
3. "Have you ever been to Atlantic City or Las Vegas..."
there are terms for people like that: addicts, sheep, etc. but riddle me this one...
if the same people were given the choice of playing slots on a slot machine that takes your quarters and one that is free, which one do you think these people will use?
yeah, they might be sheep for flushing their money down a one-armed bandit in the first place, but that does not necessarily make them stupid.
4. "Still, Mac users have deeper pockets than do most Windows users, so they can afford those hefty charges."
well, ok. i know people who have dropped in excess of $15,000 on a wintel box. not a server -- a regular, high end gaming system, customized to the nines, but nevertheless -- that's a price bracket even most mac users would just roll up their eyes on.
i think it's pretty absurd to make a blanket statement that most mac users have deeper pockets. in fact the 2 guys i know who are committed mac users are pretty much right at the bottom of the pay scale of all the people i know.
just because you are willing to pay more for the privilege of using a mac does not make you automatically rich beyond comprehension. throwing out such an unfounded blanket generalization really does nothing to lend merit to the bulk of your opinions here (quite the opposite, in fact).
5. "The labels, which are uncertain about how to deal with online music file trading, appear frightened of a devil's deal with Microsoft."
just where are you getting this astounding piece of research from, btw? please cite some quotes and examples, because i'd love to see it.
i've seen a goodly amount of announcements and whatnot saying that the record companies are in fact VERY interested in making that devil's deal with microsoft, but generally are either more committed to their own schemes (sony) or are waiting to see just how functional the MS DRM scheme is in protecting their copyrights.
the latter has little to do with the music companies being afraid of doing business with MS (in fact, if you read some of the rhetoric being said on the subject, doing business with MS seems to be one of the *PLUSES* in this whole notion) but the simple fact that most record companies are still lightyears away from formulating anything resembling a coherent and sensible digital strategy. be that as it may, MS' DRM effort is still well ahead of anything apple has in place right now and i would not dismiss it's adoption across the industry as matter of factly as you seem to do.
6. "To my discerning ear, 128kbps WMA files don't sound nearly as good MP3s at the same bit rate, 160kbps or 192kbps."
your discerning ear, while in the end only tasked with pleasing you and you alone, doesn't really seem to be in tune (ha!) with the discerning ears of just about everyone else. i'll concede that 64 or 96kpbs WMA sounds rather crappy (but then, so does a 64 and 96 kbps mp3), but at straight up kpbs levels, WMA sounds every bit as good as any mp3 i've ever heard. oh, yeah, and the files are still smaller.
be that as it may, who cares? your article isn't about mp3 vs. wma. it's about wmv vs. apples' mp4/aac format. the only one who is comparing apples with oranges is you.
7. "Apple has a DRM, too, but it's there to prevent mass piracy, while allowing for the kind of personal copying allowed under "Fair Use" laws."
'fair use' laws allow me to make as many copies of an item i want or need for personal use and personal use only. if i want to make 1000 copies of a sone and then behold just how cool it is that they are taking up a few gigs on my HD -- i'm entitled to do so. apple's strategy is to restict that ability to make copies of stuff one pays for to up to 3 computers (which, frankly, is still a much better deal than the 'can only sync with one computer' iPod thing a while back).
this IS NOT 'fair use'. by easing up on the leash of DRM a bit, you present the audience with the appearance of complying with the fair use standard set out by the supreme court, while at the same time making an utter mockery of the concept as a whole. the solution isn't to go with the DRM that MS makes or whatnot, but to reject ANY of these DRM standards and ask the record companies to get a freaking clue and create systems that are not as blatantly anti-user as the current technologies under consideration.
8. "Apple would like nothing better than to steer digital media toward accepted standards, such as using MPEG-4 for digital music and video."
of course they would. they embarked on supporting this standard and now they are stuck with it. why WOULDN'T they want to flack for it?
be that as it may...
lets be honest here: wmv and wma are a better standard than mpeg4 is right now. you can hem and haw about this all you want, but just about every quote i've ever read on the subject matter agrees with this. so, we should reject the better technology because MS initiated it?
9. "Hollywood is an easier win. Mr. Jobs already has great presence there as CEO of Pixar, and Apple software is the most widely used in movie and broadcast production."
hollywood TV shows and movies seem to be sporting Dell's and Gateway's these days. why? well, Dell and Gateway pay for the privlidge. used to be apple did so and thus they had a high 'Q' factor in hollywood. things have changed.
yeah, a lot of artistic types work on apples -- but that is the case just about everywhere. i suspect that if you inspect the corporate intranets of just about any major studio, you'll find the same story: a linux/unix backbone with a large presence of wintel terminals and a smattering of macs here and there.
lastly, pixar is a technology driven company which has a long history of using the best possible technology for their efforts. which is why most of their render farms are now intel machines running linux. and that story was all over the news a while back. i suspect the various flavors of *nix are far more prevalent than apple's offerings in current hollywood production (and not just in renderfarms).
if being CEO of a company in san fran (which might as well be NYC to the hollywood crowd) gives steve jobs so much cachet in hollywood, why aren't apples and hollywood ubiquitous anymore?
lets face it: in hollywood, money talks -- and money is something microsoft has a lot more of than apple.
10. "Now comes along svelte Apple, Hollywood ties, great technology, legendary stylishness and ease of use in tow. Would you buy music from Microsoft? Hey, don't yell at me for asking! But Apple's cool, right? You might buy music from Apple rather than searching for it on file trading sites, right?"
now here comes little apple, ho-hum hollywood ties, lousy hardware specs (coming soon: OS X on x86...), legendary failures such as the cube and famous for it's ever-shrinking marketshare.
would you buy from a company that to this day has a rather dubious reputation as a developer for the windows platform? hey, but you don't have to yell at me for saying so. just get a copy of quicktime (though, in all fairness, it's much better now than it was 2-3 years ago -- shudder.)
apple was cool, once upon a time, right?
and you might be silly enough to pay for stuff that you can get for free elsewhere, right?
and in the end, that's really what it all comes down to.
who is gonna give up 'free' for 'pay'?
it matters not that kazaa, morpheus, grokster, etc are buggy, tough to use and an all-around pain in the ass. most any computer user worth their salt (even a goodly portion of your elite corps of mac users) won't pay if they don't have to.
period.
end of story.
the availability of such a service in onto itself *IS NOT* a guarantee for success. you have to create a *DEMAND* for such a service first. and with the the competition giving it away for free, that demand will be a long time coming -- regardless of how sucky the client software in question is.
and at that level, all your points are completely moot. a mp3 can sound just about as good as any wmv or aac file. the fact that it is 1 meg larger is offset by the 'free' price tag. the fact that it's a bit harder to get is offset by the simple fact that it's far easier to manage and deal with once you have it in hand.
right now, you have lots of decentralized mp3 trading networks that allow you to get *MILLIONS* of songs for free -- and a culture of using said networks that's getting to be pretty old and pretty sophisticated. until the RIAA (inevitably) stamps out these networks and destroys that culture, these pay-for-play networks will always be something of a niche player.
based on apples initial figures and their profit projection, they might just make some good coin on this niche -- and more power to them for doing so. let's revisit these numbers in 6 months and see how sustained buying is.
but this is not the panacea that the digital media industry needs nor is it gonna make a big impact on those already getting their stuff from established sources. though it is sure to please the anything-but-microsoft crowd.
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|I'm curious why you hold Wilcox to standards to which you are not beholden yourself.
1. "200,000 tracks (i thought the apple lit [sic] said 500k?)"
No, they didn't. Apple said 200,000...to start. Maybe you could "cite some quotes and examples" of where they said 500,000? Refer to the Quicktime broadcast of the Music Store introduction.
2. "i think it's pretty absurd to make a blanket statement that most mac users have deeper pockets."
And
"just because you are willing to pay more for the privilege of using a mac does not make you automatically rich beyond comprehension."
While you are correct that Wilcox isn't citing the demographic research that documents the per capita income of iPod buyers and Apple customers, you should be aware that such data has been presented before in other articles. Wilcox isn't so much making a blanket statement as he is vaguely citing figures presented in recent articles about the average income of iPod buyers. People get angry when a study came out stating that Mac users, on average, make more money than the average Windows user, and have more years of education. This angers people because they, like the pundits who fuel the fire, make the correlational leap that Mac users are therefore "smarter" or "more intelligent." This isn't necessarily the case; correlation does not imply causation.
I bring this up only because you seem to think Wilcox is making this up. To be fair to the author, he was basing his comments on data recently cited in articles; to be fair to you, he did not link to the citation, which may or may not represent good research.
3. "which, frankly, is still a much better deal than the 'can only sync with one computer' iPod thing a while back"
Unfortunately, you know not whereof you speak. iPod can be "synced" with only one computer, and that continues to this day. Syncing, for those familiar with the iPod, know that it works by automatically transferring the contents of a playlist or the entire iTunes music library from one Mac to a registered iPod. However, if you wish to retain greater control over what goes into your iPod, you can choose to manually add only those songs you care to, and that can be done, to my knowledge, from any Mac you like. (In my case, I own two Macs, and can--and have always been able to--transfer songs from either Mac to my single iPod.)
4. "hollywood TV shows and movies seem to be sporting Dell's (sic) and Gateway's (sic) these days. why? well, Dell and Gateway pay for the privlidge. (sic)"
Well, where are your "quotes and examples"? I'd love to see them.
The standard for Wilcox is higher, as he is responsible for the journalistic integrity of his writings, than it is for you, since you're (probably) no one of import in the tech or journalism industries. Nonetheless, you make no case for him to meet stricter standards of integrity in reporting when you engage the same dubious arguments yourself. Examples of your stringent reporting criteria include "i've seen a goodly amount of announcements and whatnot," which, like your personal knowledge of the $15,000 computer purchases, are both anecdotal and self-reported. Worst of all, the "i've (sic) seen a goodly amount of announcements and whatnot" argument is not only self-reported (you've seen them, but that's about all you can say), the words are vague and fluffy. Goodly? About how many is that? And what, the reader wonders, is a "whatnot"?
Why not just write "I hate Apple and everything they do" and be done with your comment? At least this would be honest, rather than trying to bend logic and strict reporting standards to meet your end.
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|"no beatles and no stones alone would make me 'eh, who cares?'. 200,000 tracks (i thought the apple lit said 500k?) really isn't a very big track selection in my book."
1) The initial launch is 200,000 tracks, which is a great start if you ask me. Sure not everything you'd like is there - but Apple is constantly working on adding more. There are also exclusive tracks, which cannot be found elsewhere. The library may not be (and likely never will be) complete, but neither is the one at Best Buy or your local Barnes and Noble. I fail to see while lacking a couple artists precludes you from purchasing any music at all. Remember, there are no subscription fees.
"yeah, they might be sheep for flushing their money down a one-armed bandit in the first place, but that does not necessarily make them stupid."
2) Joe never said they were stupid. Joe's point is that the service works so well, you often forget that you're paying money. Which is a smart thing for Apple, but something for consumers to be wary of. Again, you're fishing for an argument where there isn't one.
"well, ok. i know people who have dropped in excess of $15,000 on a wintel box. not a server -- a regular, high end gaming system"
3) I can buy a 2.66GHz P4, 512MB RAM, GeForce4, 60GB 7200RPM HD, with CD-RW from Dell for $490. Enough said.
"i think it's pretty absurd to make a blanket statement that most mac users have deeper pockets."
4) This is a documented fact based on research from numerous analyst and consulting firms. Joe didn't pull this out of thin air.
"the only one who is comparing apples with oranges is you."
5) Considering Apple's format is new, Joe would have had a relatively small sample to compare AAC to WMA. So his point is that in his experience, WMA doesn't sound as good as MP3 (and generally, I agree with him, but that's another topic for another day). And because the whole point about these pay services is to get people to stop using MP3s, obviously the format needs to be better (which, as Joe states, WMA is not to his ears). Seems like you missed the point, but the comparison is right on the money.
"i'm entitled to do so. apple's strategy is to restict that ability to make copies of stuff one pays for to up to 3 computers"
6) Actually, you can copy the songs however many times you want, to however many computers you want. You can just only play them on 3 PCs at one time. And if you want to listen to them on a 4th, simple deauthorize one of the others and authorize the 4th - problem solved. Yes, it may not be as free and open as people would like given their experience with MP3. But Apple's solution is the best to come along thus far, and is extremely flexible.
"lets be honest here: wmv and wma are a better standard than mpeg4 is right now. you can hem and haw about this all you want, but just about every quote i've ever read on the subject matter agrees with this."
7) How do you figure this? MPEG-4 is an open standard that numerous companies are involved in, as compared to the proprietary Windows Media. Where have you been reading your quotes, Microsoft PressPass?
"lets face it: in hollywood, money talks -- and money is something microsoft has a lot more of than apple."
8) Very true. But that does not mean Hollywood folks are using Windows machines or that Microsoft is making any effort to push them to do so.
"now here comes little apple, ho-hum hollywood ties, lousy hardware specs (coming soon: OS X on x86...), legendary failures such as the cube and famous for it's ever-shrinking marketshare."
9) Your somewhat coherent post just turned to blatant troll. Congratulations.
"who is gonna give up 'free' for 'pay'?"
10) 275,000 people in the first 18 hours, according to Billboard. But you're also fishing for an argument here. People who pay are not necessarily going to give up free. But most people want to abide by the law and not get sued by the RIAA like the college students last week (who settled for around $15,000). So if there is a good, cheap, legal option for getting that song you want - people WILL do it.
"but this is not the panacea that the digital media industry needs nor is it gonna make a big impact on those already getting their stuff from established sources."
11) Not everything is black and white unfortunately and there is no simple answer to every problem. Apple has made great strides and hopefully more companies will follow suit. Sure, a lot more needs to be done, but you have to start somewhere.
"though it is sure to please the anything-but-microsoft crowd."
12) Just because someone uses a Mac, doesn't mean they are anti-Microsoft. Joe admits he likes the sound better on his Windows XP machine and plans to listen to music he purchases on the Mac on Windows. You don't have to be anti-Microsoft to want a service like this, or want a format with less restrictions (and better sound potentially) than Windows Media.
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|Nice article... but you really blew it with this statement:
"To my discerning ear, 128kbps WMA files don't sound nearly as good MP3s at the same bit rate, 160kbps or 192kbps"
Tsk tsk... that is certainly the most biased and simply incorrect statement you could make about WMA vs MP3. It has been shown time and again in test after test that WMAs are VASTLY superior in audio quality over MP3s at the same bit rate. Using variable bit rate WMAs, I can encode in the 85 - 120kb range and end up with files by-and-large indistinguishable to the CD original, and much higher in quality than 128 or even 160kbps MP3s.
Do a google search... the research is out there if you bothered checking.
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|I think his point is that no matter what research statistics and graphs Microsoft comes up with, WMA just doesn't sound as good to him. And because sound is all about perception, waveform graphs and the like are pretty useless in the grand scheme of things. If people don't like the format, they won't use it.
And honestly, I agree with Joe. Show me whatever graphs you want, but that CD I ripped with LAME sounds noticably better to me than one I ripped to WMA.
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|I have to agree with nate. Perception IS everything. For the vast majority of people that buy things, the technical superiority of something pales in comparison to the wow-factor. People, as a rough general rule, like things that are simple, easy to understand, and make them look good. I think that Apple is onto something here. And that's coming from an all-Windows user.
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|Um... Just alittle tip for all of ya'll. How about dropping WMA and MP3? Do vorbis! Vorbis has a execellent sound quality for lower bit rates. Vorbis baby! It's open source :)
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