iTunes 



I finally bought my first music though Apple's iTunes yesterday.

I'd delayed because I wanted to make sure my music got backed up (I don't normally back up my music, because it's all from CDs). This required tweaking my backup scripts (I run a backup server using Retrospect).

The process was as easy as everyone has said — you can get a 30 second preview to make sure you really want to buy. I tended to play everything I could from an album, to make sure I wanted to buy singles and not the album. This ruled out a few songs (I'd rather own a physical CD if I'm going to buy an entire album, if only for the lyrics/liner notes).

The $0.99 price is OK, but it still feels a bit high — I just bought a used Pogues CD today for $7.99, which is cheaper than albums on iTunes, and is higher quality (CD resolution, rather than compressed MP3), without any restrictions on how I can use it (besides copyright law, of course).

The biggest concern I have with the iTunes store is selection. I'm listening to the Mekons as I type — they've been around for over 25 years, but are totally absent from iTunes. There were any number of other omissions. I went through my list of songs I wanted to find, and managed to find only one. (I did find some of the artists, but they were very poorly represented.) So I had to visit my local CD store to get more Mekons.

Still, I ended up buying a few interesting tunes I'd never heard before, which makes the experience a success. 

Posted: Sun - November 16, 2003 at 08:23 PM          

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