Music Match Downloads Announced

Good:

Looser restrictions, so that means Apple will get the same deal.

Unclear:

Apple is the only major player not using WMA. The iPod -- while it has a large market share -- does not play these files. This is either an advantage... in that if people want an iPod they will have to use the iTunes Music Service... or a drawback, in that they will appear to be proprietary and exclusive.

arn

Sorry not for me, ITMS is just so well put together and integrated, plus macs are way better.

Waiting for my G5 to come due in tomorrow!

But AAC isn't proprietary and exclusive because it allows mp3's to run on it as well. But i think it is a mistake to have these services in only .wma and cater for everybody without an ipod for other players that support .wma.

Maybe Apple will be forced to use it and add it to the other formats it supports that way they are not left out. But it depends on how strong the iPod is.

Its pretty silly to lock out the biggest and best mp3 out there as well because all it will do is turn people off these other services thus hurting themselves. If i was a windows users still and i had an ipod, i would simply wait for Apple's music store to come out...no biggy anyway. I still buy my music the old fashioned way and rip them.

[off topic] But strange thing is, i am a mac user and i wouldn't buy any songs anyway off itunes because i cannot get them at the desired bitrate i want. Plus i prefer the original CD. If apple sold them as well alongside the digital albums then i will bite.

This is what puzzles me... I mean I just assumed that work on iTunes for Windows was largely, or at least partly done, back when iTMS was launched, and that delays were the result of stricter Windows licensing.

But now that's not the case? I don't think this bodes well.... tons of Windows people already use MusicMatch, and it is coming to market first. What will be the incentive to download Apple software now that the iTMS is not unique? We could brush away BuyMusic, but MM seems to be just like iTMS.

I guess they can focus on wma vs. aac, but I don't see all that being persuasive to lay people.

I am looking at MM, and it is just so UGLY. I can't understand how Windows people use low rent software like this :)

I don't think this is good news for apple and the music store. I think that a big part of what made the store a success was the lack of restrictions on the downloads. If all the windows services are now going to receive the same deal then no one from that world will bother giving apple a chance...as usual.

Of course we all know what else they'll be missing but they won't. This is the biggest problem with the battle between Macs and PC's. Almost all Mac users it seems have used PC's and switched at some point for some reason but most PC users have never used a Mac and just don't know whta they're missing. This service now looks like it may have the same problem.

My first reaction was the "good" point Arn mentions above: this should remove any doubt that Apple will be able to get the same restrictions on it's Windows-based service as the current.

I can't figure out how the whole WMA vs. AAC thing is going to play out. I mean, people clearly want iPods, and that isn't going to change in the near future. And Apple has good reason not to support WMA, to push people towards their own service. So it seems to me that as long as Apple can do a good enough job implementing ITMS on Windows, the iPod users will go there en masse. Users of other MP3 players will probably use the other services.

I wonder how the quality of the competitive download services compares to Apple's 128kbps AAC?

Originally posted by arn
Apple is the only major player not using WMA. The iPod -- while it has a large market share -- does not play these files. This is either an advantage... in that if people want an iPod they will have to use the iTunes Music Service... or a drawback, in that they will appear to be proprietary and exclusive.

The key word there being "appear", of course. In reality, AAC is an international standard developed and endorsed by the Motion Picture Experts Group. In contrast, WMA is just Microsoft's own proprietary format.

choice=GOOD!

not being compatible with ipods=BAD

hopefully this will be temporary

And if anyone wants to burn a mix to take to a party or something, will the WM9 CD play on a regular CD player?

So you have to take a computer around with you to play your burned CDs?

remind you of something? :)