I was ready to deal with the tender mercies of Apple Customer service about my missing 99-cent song, when a FAQ informed me to try the 'Checked for purchased music' item under the 'Advanced' menu. After entering my password, the download restarted - and arrived this time. Apparently, the store keeps a record of what's been purchased and by whom - and if it doesn't 'see' it in iTunes, it sends the tune along. Someone thought this through... Apple could have been killed by support costs on 99-cent purchases... the AAC encoding is very nice on my Cambridge Soundworks speakers...
Comments 8:48:49 PM    

Obviously, I won't be downloading and paying again for songs I already have - indeed, many of the 'classics' on this machine have been paid for 3 or 4 times already - on vinyl, cassette and CD (how many times have I paid for Beatles and Stones cuts?). Will I buy new music this way? Yes... one time, anyway, just to see how it works. $10 reported for an album on my Mac and iPod is a discount over the $14 to $19 a CD would cost.

However there will be the inconvenience of not being able to drop a CD into the stereo in the family room and living room - I'm still looking for a more convenient way to connect the stereos to the digital music collection (basically our favorite CDs ripped to disk) on our Linux server - toting the wireless laptop and connecting wires each time is a bit tiresome, and the current generation of commercial devices are expensive and otherwise underwhelming.

The other problem I have is that a lot of my faves probably aren't going to show up in the majors' catalogs. I like the blues, and cling to some obscure 60s and early 70s bands that never made it to a major label. Indeed, a lot of the artists I'm interested in don't even show up on P2P networks - just try finding Lester Bowie sometime.

A better model in my mind is the one O'Reilly Safari Books offers: any 3 titles for $9.95 a month. For the annual price of 2 or 3 titles (that quickly go out of date - I have a whole garage box full of old O'Reilly books - I have access to everything O'Reilly publishes, and can change the mix reasonably often. So I always have the latest BIND, and Apache and Mac OS X data when I need it. Safari is a better use of my annual O'Reilly budget.

I'd like to see a deal where I could have a reasonably large music library - 300 titles? - for a reasonable monthly fee, with the privilege to change the mix at frequent intervals. I'd also like a way to get to Indy and unknown artists with the same mechanism. I for one will be interested in seeing how Apple develops this service in the future... I think Steve has the vision, marketing talent and deal-making skills to finally move the music biz into the 21st century... I'll be looking forward to today's 1 PM announcement...
Comments 9:05:25 AM    

Chris Gulker's view from Silicon Valley - in words and pictures