In a widely anticipated move, Apple has announced that it is releasing iTunes for Windows. This is pretty big news, as the popular online music store was previously only available to Apple users. I still think $1 a track is still a bit high to pay for music, but iTunes is one of the only online music services (possibly the only, actually) that has a clue. If I remember correctly, iTunes is the only service that lets you burn unlimited mix CDs with the music you download without charging you extra, a concept that should be common sense but which most of the music industry still doesn’t seem to get.
I think I may have to swallow my kneejerk, admittedly slightly irrational bias against Apple and try this out. As much as I love it, Kazaa has gotten harder and harder to deal with, although it still does very well with older songs. However, I should probably put my money where my mouth is, as I asserted some time ago that I would be willing to pay a reasonable fee for high-quality downloadable music that did not infringe upon my rights to fair use. Reading the comments at MetaFilter and Slashdot makes for a mixed bag of rants and raves, but that’s not too unusual for something like this. I think I’ll give it a try, and I’ll be sure post a review if and when I do…
I was even taking a hard look at the new 40GB IPod MP3 player, which would fit my entire collection, with some room to spare even (for now :-). Besides having a cool way to listen to all of my music on the road, I would really like a way to back up all of my MP3s, as I’ve spent way too much time tagging all of the artist, album, and cover art info into the files; this would do very nicely. On the other hand, hard drives are pretty cheap these days, although they would obviously not satisfy my desire for music portability. I guess I need to add some more things to my ever-growing wish list…
