Apple to launch iTunes for Windows this month
 

Groovy.

http://www.appleinsider.com/news.php?id=217

this will be good times all around. much speculation abounds about what formats will be availible to Wintel users. I am sure Apple has worked it out nicely so that it is as convinient as possible.
even though this is not a huge profit maker, it would be nice to see Apple be able to provide a good service like this for Wintel users. It cant hurt thats for sure.

Ahhhh and here it is but it's only for Winblows XP and 2000. Those of us who, like me, have never upgraded are still out in the cold.

I dl'd the software last night, but haven't used it yet. Actually, no real reason to use it unless Rhapsody doesn't have what I'm looking for...still good to have on hand though.

Why would it only run on Windows XP and 2000? Any Windows programmers know what they're doing to manage that?

<tt>
$version = `winver`;
if ($version ne "Windows 2000" || $version ne "Windows XP) {
&nbsp;&nbsp;print "Upgrade your fucking operating system before you use this shit.\n"
&nbsp;&nbsp;exit 1;
}
</tt>

(It isn't hard to find out what version of Windows you're running on, and they can take a dump on you if you're not within specs. Why they want you to be using XP or 2000, I don't know specifically, but it probably has something to do with using a version of Windows that doesn't <b>totally</b> suck.)

2000 and XP are built on the "NT" kernel, while all other versions are simply glorified DOS programs (literally).

The NT-based OSes offer better security and that sorta shit, but I don't know why that would restrict what iTunes runs on. I'm guessing it has to do with DRM (digital rights management) issues.

I think it has more to do with Microsoft's "end of life" schedules. I'm not going to argue about which version of Windows sucks less (that would remind me too much of work), but Windows 98 has been very stable for me, and I'm going to have to have a very compelling reason to shell out $100 to upgrade my home machine.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here.. surely you don't think Apple chose to support only Windows 2000 and XP in order to make some money for Microsoft?

No, not directly, but Microsoft goes out of its way to not provide support for older versions of Windows, and Win 98 SE will be officially considered "non-supported" on January 16. That kind of thing can make life difficult for developers no matter how they feel about Microsoft. (Or at least that's what a couple vendors I deal with at work tell me.)

So it turns out that, on my installation anyway, iTunes for Windows silently starts up two daemons at boot time, that take up 5 MB each. One says it's an iPod service and the other says it's an iTunes "helper".

I don't need a music library manager to require a 5 MB "helper" of any sort, and I don't really appreciate a 5 MB iPod service becoming a part of my system when I don't own an iPod.

The iTunes "helper" will terminate with Task Manager but the iPod service won't, saying "access denied". Fuck that kind of noise. I'm de-installing this thing, and will soon be recording all my vinyl albums onto reel-to-reel 1/4" tape. Where they can't possibly get to it and the signals will finally be mine all mine.

Yeah that bites... I really hate having to install special software to access a service. (That's one of the reasons I steer people who ask me to recommend an ISP away from AOL and MSN--because of the extensive and hard-to-remove collections of software they insist on installing.) But most of the music services are doing it. Even emusic.com, which started out as just plain MP3 downloads via HTTP, ended up requiring a separate downloader app, allegedly to get better control over the amount of music being downloaded. (I say allegedly because I don't see why they couldn't have enforced their limits just as well with the plain downloads.)

Although I'm lured by the technological capabilities of the new services, they all have issues (like the itunes software, or the buymusic.com lack-of-privacy policy) that make me queasy, and more important, with the possible exception of emusic.com, they all have classical music selections that bite. So it's still off to CDs for me for a while longer.

And Microsofts reaction: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/33468.html

Seems typical but they do have some points about iTunes for Windows being a closed system. Can anyone confirm this? I have not tried iTunes for Windows yet.