ITMS: The Little Things
Posted May 1st, 2003 @ 09:25am by Erik J. Barzeski
A lot of people's near-instantaneous reaction to the iTunes Music Store may be somewhat negative - a list of things they want, should be improved, etc. Give people something awesome and within five minutes you can be convinced it's shit. Not many really think that - the iTunes Music Store is effectively a 1.0 release, and it will improve with time (and customer feedback). Anyway, in an effort to appreciate the positive, here are a list of the "little things" the iTunes Music Store does right:
- The previews fade in and out instead of starting and stopping abruptly - classic Apple.
- Full on sorting for song name, time, artist, album, and relevance.
- Re-orderable columns (that remember their positions).
- Full-quality previews that start darn near instantly.
- Real buttons where appropriate, text "web-like" links where appropriate.
- Easy Peasy navigation with back/forward buttons and "breadcrumb" trails.
- Exclusive content (including free videos) that will only be expanded in the future - musicians love Apple!
- One-click! There is no step two!!!
- Near-invisible and I would say quite generous DRM.
- Already hacked to determine the itms:// linking format.
- Great search tools.
That's all I can think of for now. I'll add comments if I think of others, and anyone else visiting should feel free to do so as well.
Donate Life
Posted 01 May 2003 at 11:17am #
Very insightful comments on the new music service. I am really sick of hearing people bitch and moan, specifically I am sick of hearing the following comments:
"The iTunes Music Store sucks, because they don't carry all of the obscure music that I listen to because I am better than you, and have more taste, because I like music from very rare bands who are part of teeny-tiny independant labels!"
Hey, jackass, guess what? You a completely missing the point here. Apple managed to convince all five of the major record labels to put music on their service. This means that some nintey percent of the music you have ever heard will at some point find its way into the store. This is a rollout version of the store, and it hasn't even had time to put in all of the music from the major labels. Once it has, Apple has already stated that independant labels have been contacting them. Be patient, reasonable, and appreciate this thing for what it is -- an amazing initial release and a hint of a bright future.
Another comment I am already sick of:
"The iTunes Music Store sucks, because the songs are encoded in AAC, not , and is protected by evil DRM that is infringing on my personal rights! Apple is out to get me!"
First off, you are a jackass too. Shut your mouth, and stop missing the point. I know that you feel that Ogg Vorbis is the second coming of the messiah, but for the love of pete man, its only an encoding method. AAC sounds great, is as small as MP3 if not smaller, and if you are really pretentious enough to think that you are going to be traumatized by 0.1% inferior audio quality, then take your $0.99, invest it at high return, and buy yourself a digitally re-mastered gold edition CD single for $5.00 in about 15 years.
Oh, and as far as DRM goes, you need to remember something. Your paranoia means nothing to Apple or to record labels. Nothing. You have probably been stealing music for a few years now, burning it to CD, and sharing it with your friends. You have been able to break the law for years without getting caught, and if you are willing to spend hours and hours searching and downloading from Gnutella/KaZzA/Limewire, then you go for it. I for one am excited that I can save time and money through the iTunes Music Store. Plus, the DRM still allows me to do everything that I want to within reason, and doesn't infringe on my fair use rights.
Both of those guys can just kiss my ass. Sorry for the rant, but you really struck a chord!
Posted 01 May 2003 at 12:04pm #
Re: Apple Music
More insightful articles on the Apple Music Store...
Erik J. Barzeski lists "the 'little things' the iTunes Music Store does right".
Posted 01 May 2003 at 12:05pm #
iTMS Postives
To expand on Erik's list a few more things it gets right are:
No irrelevant advertising.
Very fast.
Iintegra...
Posted 01 May 2003 at 12:48pm #
Just got a TrackBack from here that I wanted to point out. They add some more good points:
No irrelevant advertising.Very fast.Integration with iTunes that doesn't feel like an awkward addition to the program. Which I guess stems from the first two.Optional ?Shopping Cart? buying system, as opposed to the 1-Click shopping, for us icky modem users.Extensive purchase history.Ability to hide the store.
Right on to those too. There's a lot to like about the ITMS.
Posted 05 May 2003 at 12:28am #
Music and the Future of Apple
Is it time to "think different" on the future direction of Apple. I speculate on the possibilities of Apple starting to sell to Windows users.