Art Machine
Just another former infatuation junkie

Thud responds to my statements earlier today regarding the “competition” for the iTunes Music Store.

So, from a “should we develop for Mac� standpoint, here’s what I see:

• Small market.
• Difficult market to penetrate.
• Apple likely to get peeved if I compete with their service.
• Apple’s means of competition include both lawsuits and sudden OS changes.
• Remember the Mac Clone makers? Remember how fast they were put out of business? That could be us.

In other words, if I was a large software manufacturer I think I could be forgiven for fearing I’d lose my investment down an Apple Stealth Upgrade.

None of these are trivial concerns. Almost all of them have nothing to do with an anti-Apple superiority complex; they have everything to do with Apple’s unwillingness to play nicely or by anyone else’s rules. So instead of asking people why they don’t have a Mac version, I think it’s worth asking Apple: why don’t people feel comfortable writing for Macs?

I may be wrong, but I can’t shake the feeling that Thud has responded to my rebuttal question by merely rephrasing the question I was rebutting. My earlier comments were not meant to suggest that Apple is playing fair or has a right to do what they do because of the way other companies act, but rather to point out that companies are missing an opportunity to steal a bit of Apple’s thunder.

But allow me to respond to the bulleted items in Thud’s post, first. In order:

• Small market, yes, but according to the figures for the past few years, a rapidly growing market that – thanks to the new switchers – is no longer nearly as cultish as it used to be.
• The idea that the market is difficult to penetrate is based on old information and on an old prejudice that Mac users are willing to swallow anything that Apple puts out. The fact is that this market is expanding and is starved for new products. Switchers in particular are used to having options, and many faithful Apple users – myself included – are starting to feel that it would be nice to have options to the software turned out by Apple.
• Apple has a history of getting peeved at competition. Microsoft, however, is also likely to get peeved – and this hasn’t stopped people from developing for Windows.
• Fair point. Saying that Apple is a little trigger happy when it comes to lawsuits is kind of like saying Judge Roy Bean hanged a couple of people, and Apple does like to jump on third party alterations of their software – hard. As they did with an earlier attempt by Real to make their own DRM music iPod-compatible.
• Mac clone makers were generally speaking on the level of the lowest of the low PC makers, using non-standardized schematics and cheap part to make products that barely ran. Most ran out of money and consumer goodwill long before Apple finally pulled the plug on their hardware licensing.

I think as one of the Mac faithful (which I still am, even if I’m not as ready to drink the Kool-Aid as I used to be), I make a fairly good indicator of what the market is ready for. I would like to see competition for Apple, and the cult can’t completely shut down new competitors. And I think that it’s very telling that while Real has no plans to extend their product into Apple’s desktop market, they continually release new versions of their workaround to put their music on the iPod every time Apple shuts them out. Apparently, they’re not worried about their investment in getting on the iPod going down the hole.

But the fact remains that Napster and Real continue to bill themselves as “competitors” for the iTMS, when they haven’t even taken the first step that Apple took to make the iTMS truly competitive – taking it cross-platform.

All of the reasons that Thud gives for people being reluctant to develop for Apple could be reversed and applied to Apple’s decision to develop for a Windows platform, with the exception of “small market.”

• The PC market has been downright vicious to Apple and its products in the past. Even the iPod was initially greeted with sneers, and many PC platformers still call it an “overpriced toy” and jeer at anybody who suggests they might want to buy one. Putting out an iTunes with the music store included for Windows was no guaranteed sale.
• Microsoft has a history at getting annoyed by anybody competing with them or delivering a product that they don’t offer, themselves. And before anybody pulls out the old chestnut about Microsoft “owning” Apple, Microsoft’s shares account for nowhere near a controlling share of the company. Microsoft is still – as always – a competitor of Apple’s.
• Microsoft’s means of competition include both lawsuits and sudden OS changes, as well. Microsoft also happens to be fond of a slash-and-burn approach to competing companies – buying them out and closing them down.
• Okay – there’s not really a parallel for the Mac clone builders, either. But I think Thud has the wrong idea of what happened to the clone builders, anyway.

Apple’s iTunes Music Store might only support the iPod so far, but it supports Windows users without forcing them to switch operating systems – which, given Apple’s emphasis on getting people to switch, would not have been that much of a stretch. The Windows-based music sellers, however, have seen fit to design their systems in such a way that not only do you have to buy one of their supported mp3 players (to use their to-go service – which is what their marketing insists makes them “competition” for Apple), but also to require you to switch operating systems.

Should apple license out their DRMed AAC format? Yes. Should the iTMS support more than just the iPod? Yes. But it’s more than just “Apple’s unwillingness to play nicely or by anyone else’s rules.” Microsoft is unwilling to play nicely or by anyone else’s rules, and these systems still run on Windows. Real has a history of playing neither nice nor by any defined set of rules. Napster began life as a rogue, illegal p2p network. The entire computer industry is filled with buccaneers and scalawags out to grab any advantage they can – Apple is not alone in this. In fact, if developers developed solely for people who played “nicely or by anyone else’s rules,” then the only operating system anyone would develop for would be Linux, fercryin’outloud.

I do not charge Real and Napster – or even Microsoft – with an unreasonable hatred of Macintosh and its users. That would be ridiculous. In the end, it’s an operating system.

What I do charge them with is poor business sense. Microsoft is just as likely to lock out Napster and Real tomorrow as Apple is – and they have done similar things in the past. Apple users are starved for options and are not as likely to reject new software – and many would see Rhapsody or Napster as a service to get in addition to the iTMS, as opposed to a replacement for it. Macintosh versions of Napster and Rhapsody just. make. sense.

I don’t know. The iTunes affiliate links may not be long for this site. It’s nice to be able to link directly to downloads in the iTunes store, but with recent events it gets harder and harder to recommend the service. I still dig a lot of the things iTunes does – like the fantastic free monthly downloads of the Street Official Mixtape, the ability to add your own playlists to the iTunes store, and the Discovery Downloads. And there’s something beautiful about the convenience of iTunes – and something a bit scary for my bank account.

But there’s the recent issue I’ve had to deal with concerning missing tracks, and my recent discoveries regarding Apple’s policy toward exclusive tracks. I understand that it helps to sell more full album downloads, but it doesn’t leave a fan much choice in the matter as to whether they want the digital album or an actual, physical CD with complete liner notes.

And there’s the fact that I have yet to find a way to voice my complaints directly to Apple. Anybody have a link to a customer feedback form? That works?

I’m not the only person starting to get frustrated with the iTunes Music Store. My brother has voiced his own catalog of complaints recently and has been a vocal opponent of Apple’s iPod-only approach to their iTunes Music Store files.

Now, any sensible consumer like yours truly would respond to all of this by starting to investigate options. And we’re constantly being told that there are options when it comes to the iTMS. There’s the Napster service – if you can get past the fact that it is “Napster” in name, only. And there’s the very popular Rhapsody service that Thud seems to favor, calling it “Real’s only decent product.”

Rhapsody recently updated – and they even offer a free subscription now to encourage people to buy their service.

Users who download the software can select and listen to, but not download, 25 songs from the online store’s music library of 1 million tracks. The new software allows subscribers to also transfer songs to portable devices.

It would seem that there’s real competition for iTMS. Yup. Real competition.

Except that I happen to be running a Macintosh.

I love my Macintosh. It’s the OS I grew up using, the OS I’m familiar with, and the OS that fits my personality the best. While I’m proficient in Windows and Linux and wouldn’t mind working in either system, I prefer the Mac for my personal platform.

Rhapsody, Napster, and any of the other services currently available feel that if I’m going to use them instead of the iTMS, I should switch to Windows. Neither one supports the Mac OS, nor do their websites show any indication that they’re even considering support. Even Weedfiles – which are not technically a music service but offer an alternative distribution model – do not work on Macintosh because they use Windows’ DRM model, which Microsoft has yet to make compatible with the Mac.

Perhaps Napster, Rhapsody, and other music providers have decided that they’re not going to even bother with Mac users because we tend to be fanatically Apple-only. But the fact is that Apple has managed to get a lot of switchers recently who are used to choice – and there are even long-time Apple supporters like yours truly who like to be able to shop around.

Apple may only offer support for the iPod currently, but even Napster and Real limit the mp3 players they support if you want their “To Go” plans. And Napster and Real are the ones who are currently limiting what OS you can use, while Apple offers iTunes and the iTMS for Windows platforms.

So in checking out the competition, the only true competition I have managed to find is, well, eMusic. eMusic still offers their music DRM-free, cross-platform, with no limits on the mp3 players you can use. Their music selection is more obscure than the other services, but they have some of the big names (Tom Waits, pre-”Spend the Night” Donnas, Isaac Hayes) and a good selection in their Jazz and Folk genres. If I hadn’t been burned by eMusic before, I would be seriously considering them.

So allow me to pose a different question about the iTMS than many of my Windows-using friends have been posting. They want to know when Apple will catch up with the times and offer a subscription service like Napster. They want to know when Apple will allow them to put their DRM-protected iTunes purchases on players other than the iPod.

Here’s what I want to know. When will the iTunes Music Store’s so-called “competitors” get off their butts and catch up to iTunes by making their service available to Macintosh users?

We’re all familiar with the current administration’s contradictory naming policy (“Clean Air,” “Safe Forests,” “Saving Social Security”). I am pleased to announce that the administration has broken through to the next level. Not content with merely naming their bills to reflect the opposite of their intended effect, they have moved on to non sequiturs.

The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, approved by the House of Representatives last Tuesday, represents the entertainment industry’s latest attempt to thwart rampant piracy on file-swapping networks. Movies such as “Star Wars: Episode II,” “Tomb Raider” and “The Hulk,” have been spotted online before their theatrical releases.

The law had drawn some controversy because it broadly says that anyone who has even one copy of an unreleased film, software program or music file in a shared folder could be subjected to prison terms and fines of up to three years. Penalties would apply regardless of whether that file was downloaded or not.

I’m a little bit curious as to where “Family Entertainment” enters into the equation whenever I hear the name of this bill. The copyright issue is clear – it’s yet another draconian anti-piracy bill composed to smack down online film pirates. We’re talking three years in prison for sharing a copy of Waterworld on a P2P network? Copyright infringement may be a serious problem, but I don’t know that internet pirates should wind up living through the first season of HBO’s Oz for it.

Still, I want to know – where is the “Family Entertainment” mentioned in the first half of the bill’s name?

It occurred to me today – if I buy a CD and the iTunes Music Store has a version with “Exclusive Tracks!” it only costs $0.99 apiece to get the tracks I’m missing. When I buy an iTunes album and I’m missing tracks, I have to pay the full price for the CD to get the tracks I’m missing.

Then I checked out some of the albums with exclusive tracks on the iTMS. Guess what?

You can only get the exclusive tracks if you buy the entire album from iTunes. They aren’t available as single-track downloads.

So if I buy an album on CD and the iTMS has exclusive tracks, I have to pay $9.99 to get them. If I buy an iTMS download and it’s missing tracks (see previous entry), I have to buy the CD at full price.

Hm.

You know what? I’d rather have the tracks I’m supposed to have than get an occasional exclusive track.

That brother o’ mine, Thud, has waxed eloquent recently on his problems with Apple’s iTunes Music Store. A lot of his complaints are valid, but I have to admit that I’ve been kind of hooked on its convenience – even with my consumption of its DRM and streaming-rights-limited product meaning that I was helping to funnel still more money into the music industry’s system of reducing artistic achievement to little more than data on discs of plastic to be sold at exorbitant prices to consumers who are treated not as valued customers, but as either sheep to be fleeced or thieves to be jailed.

Excuse me while I catch my breath.

I guess the fact is that I simply never considered DRM that much of a hassle – like most consumers.

Let me tell you what I do consider a hassle, however – not getting what I paid for.

“But, Glen,” you might be saying (if you have a habit of responding out loud to blog entries as you read), “you aren’t getting what you paid for already when it comes to DRM. What about fair use? And Betamax? And the greed of the RIAA and its member companies?”

The point is that when you factor in convenience and value, you tend to think in terms of getting the music and listening to it – not in terms of the limitation of your rights as a consumer. So despite my political and artistic objections to the RIAA, I would probably continue to be a customer of the iTunes music store.

What bugs me, however, is when I spend money and I don’t get what I pay for.

One of my earliest complaints about the iTunes Music Store was the high number of “Partial Albums” it sold. These albums are listed in the store, but when you click on them you discover that they are only a selection of the albums.

Thankfully, these albums are labeled (“Partial Album” – easy, no?) and don’t feature a “buy album” button.

Or, so I thought.

I recently purchased the soundtrack to Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical (yes, such a thing does exist) from the iTunes Music Store. I enjoyed it thoroughly. When I hit the last track on the album, I was greeted by the voice of the actress playing Debbie inviting the listener to sing along with the included Karaoke tracks.

That would be the entirety of the eleven-second final track of the album as purchased from the iTunes Music Store. There are three songs missing from the iTunes version of the album that can be found on the CD as purchased from an outlet such as Amazon.
It has the announcement for the karaoke tracks, but is missing the karaoke tracks themselves as well as the much-lauded “Bonus Track #69.”

What bothers me is that the store has no indicator that the album is missing tracks, and it features the “Buy Album” button.

Now, granted, the album cost just slightly over half what I would have paid for the CD. The CD, however, would have included liner notes and would have been a physical object without DRM on the individual tracks and in a non-proprietary format, allowing me to also deposit these songs on my old Nomad as well as my new iPod. I considered the reduced cost a fair exchange for giving up those aspects of the purchase – not as an indicator that I might not get the entire album as promised.

What does this mean?

Well, probably nothing. I’ll probably continue to use the iTunes Music Store the way I have in the past because I’m weak and I like inexpensive music delivered quickly and legally. And because Napster, Rhapsody, and other music services online have yet to make their services Mac compatible. I am a devoted Mac user – even if I’m a little disappointed in the iTunes Music Store right now – and see no reason that I should have to change my operating system to use a competing service. (And before anybody tells me that Napster and Rhapsody are simply doing what Apple is doing with the AAC format – no, they’re not. Apple has made software available that allows AAC files to play in a Windows environment. Cutting out competitors in the portable player market is vastly different from cutting out an entire segment of the desktop computer market)

On the other hand, I still can’t figure out why I haven’t signed up for Yourmusic.com, yet (link is not an affiliate link).

But I’m probably going to be a little more hesitant to recommend iTunes as a source for music now, and I’m going to double-check every album that I purchase to make certain that I’m getting all of the tracks that are actually supposed to be part of it.

Yup. It’s time for the Friday Random Ten

• Lucretia Mac Evil – The Trilogy
• The Remedy (I Won’t Worry) – Jason Mraz
• Cracking Eggs – Jan Turkenburg
• In Germany Before the War – Randy Newman
• Shimboo – Dick Schory
• Rock You Like a Hurricane -Scorpions
• Baise et Rebaise Moi – Lubina Lux
• Hat and Feet – Fountains of Wayne
• Barefoot Girl Pebble Road – Twizzle
• Goody Two Shoes – Adam Ant

It’s time for new movie reviews! First, there’s the black-and-white low-key drama that is Judy Berlin. Then for a change of pace there’s the 1996 Japanese exploitation flick Weather Woman based on the popular manga.

You know, I love Office Space. The script, the performances, the soundtrack – it’s all brilliant.

And I hate to see a film on television that has been “edited for content.”

But there’s something truly tragic about Office Space being shown with edited content.