Art Machine
Just another former infatuation junkie

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?

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 28th, 2005 at 9:49 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.