New Apple iPod, iTunes Music Store
 

Surely you all have read about it, so, what do you think?

I purchased my first two songs on the iTMS yesterday and everything worked without a hitch. I copied 'em to my iPod and was listening to them up until a few minutes ago when I put on something different. I can see myself using this a lot, because it's something I've been waiting for - a <b>decent</b> music service (free or not) that works with Macs. Honestly, I think it's awesome. You really have to try it out to realize how cool it is.

As for new iPods... I'll be buying a 30gig one today. I still own a first generation 10gig, and this is a third generation 30gig with quite a number of updates (not to mention smaller size, etc). Playlists on the go makes it worth it for me alone, since this is really the one feature I felt the iPod lacked. I'mma give my 10gig to Andrea or Jen and buy a new 10gig for whoever doesn't get the old one.

I will, of course, post impressions of the new iPod, but you and I both know that it's going to be a glowing review - 'cause let's face it, Apple gets its hardware right.

So... anyone else seen these things? What do you think?

What's the selection of classical music like? None of the big-name pay services have classical selections worth anything. (emusic.com has some things to recommend it, enough to get me to pony up for a subscription. I've wondered why it never gets mentioned in articles about commercial online music services--surely its model of a subscription fee and unlimited downloads with no DRM is what consumers want, so the question is, have they made money, and have the artists and lables who have participated made money?)

I know this may seem like a silly statement, but I really hate how they preface all their new product titles with a little 'i'. It's really, really stupid. It reminds me of how all the dot-com's prefaced everything with 'e'. It could be the best product on the market, but the title would still make me think they're trying a little too hard to make me think they're cool (or not hard enough).

Er... they didn't release a "new" product. iPod has been named that way since the fall of 2001 and iTunes has been out even longer. Yes, I hate how they called it "Music Store". Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

I still prefer the Audiogalaxy model where I pay $10/month and can stream as much as I can eat, including their randomized "radio" streaming, then burn at 99 cents a song if I need to. This works for me because of the amount of time I'm listening at the computer. The streams are 128 kbs WMA, not sure if the burns are streamed first, converted and then burnt as CD Audio. I have never burnt anything with it yet.

Also, my car player (that Clarion unit) doesn't play AAC, so it's a loser for me.

Audiogalaxy says they have 19000 albums, Music Store says they have 200,000 songs. I think Music Store wins. But both need more stuff.

Here's my "Me, too!" post. I'm heading over to the Apple Store a few miles from here in a few hours to pick up a 15 GB iPod. I downloaded iTunes 4.0 last night, so I guess I'm set.

Re: New Apple iPod, iTunes Music Store
 

It took me a minute to parse that. "Wait, he has 10 gigs, why is he taking stuff off..."

"Put on" actually dates from the time of records (45s specifically) where the only way to change the song was to put another record on the turntable. My parents still have all my 45's. (I'm your boogie man, that's what I am.) I might be inclined to rip them, if I had any interest at all in that crap.

I'm with juju... at least they didn't call it the iMusic iStore.

I got my 30 gig iPod last night. So now I own 3 - a 5 gig, a 10 gig and a new 30 gig. I must say, the new one is pretty sa-weeeeeeeeeeeeeet.

Diff'rent strokes for different folks. I like actually "owning" the music, which means unlimited burning and playing whenever I want to listen, like in the car. If you spend most of your music listening time in front of the computer, then a streaming service makes perfect sense.

Apple's adding new music "as fast as we can rip it". Expect that total to get to 300,000 shortly. Pretty much every label is dying to get on it, which means that very shortly, their selection is going to be far superior to pretty much anything out there. I agree though, both need more songs.

I read an interesting stat - Apple's music service sold, in the first 18 hours, more songs than all the other music services have sold in the last 6 months - combined.

Re: Re: New Apple iPod, iTunes Music Store
 

I read an article in Playboy last month (I swear I buy it only for the pictures) about a guy that has developed technology to rip records using a flatbed scanner. They mentioned the quality is fairly crappy still, but the ability to do so is just as important. I'm sure it won't be long before it's improved upon.

I'd chalk it up to better marketing/visibility and a larger following. Good for them, though.

Actually, come to thing of it, it's because the other services aren't so oriented towards selling songs. Rhapsody and Pressplay are both more streaming oriented.

But since there's no bizarre subscription to have to figure out, the more I think about it, the more this is a big winner. My own use of it right away will depend on the encoding quality, but that won't be a factor for most people. They will buy new digital toys during the next boom period (if it happens) and so will probably wind up with AAC support to start.

After using Rhapsody, and especially after ripping my entire CD collection, I have little patience for file-sharing to get music on a regular basis. To test stuff out it's great, but now that I have a whole library in one format with one set of filename conventions, etc., it really bugs me to try to find and then verify anything shared to add to the collection.

I tried one of those jukebox programs that tries to organize your collection for you, but of course it just tried to take control of the system and never really did produce the needed level of organization.

I agree 100%. This is why I was willing to pony up $$ to emusic, and also what convinced me to take the plunge with XM Satellite Radio (the availability of a portable unit--I had no interest in making the hardware investment in something that I couldn't listen to except in the car).

Don't worry, I read Penthouse, but only for the letters.

I agree, in terms of my time spent, it's usually more worthwhile to me to just buy the stupid CD and rip it, but that's partly a function of the kind of music I listen to.

I bought an Archos 20 gig jukebox for $200, about 1/2 what an Ipod costs. Other than a sleeker design, I don't understand the attraction.

ahhh... The Penthouse Forum. I haven't read one of those since I was 13. ...Memories...

The penthouse forum (and Letters to Xaveria) used to be one of our favorite college activities ... there was a monthly reading aloud of the forum in my dorm.