My biggest problem is that the average user just clicks, OK, and Apple is making tonnes of money off of this nonsense anyway. And those users will suggest I’m the moron for telling them how horribly wrong it is. And they’ll use that exact phrase: It just works. No, do you even understand what’s going on here?
The answer is no, they don’t. And they don’t care.
That’s really sad.
@Silvercode: There is problem with installing iTunes software when, for example, one is using Linux…
I’m no mac user but i don’t think this is an itunes problem. If they were to link you directly to the content then you’d need some type of player to play it. This is true for any media online. A stop screen is certainly better than a browser window full of binary/hex characters.
Everyone has software installed to play media online… lets make a list: .net runtime, java jre, flash, pdf viewers, windows media player (or other), codecs for said media player, etc.
without installing flash a lot of sites don’t work. there was also a time when IE stopped supplying java support and you had to download crap to make that work.
This is some pretty weak sauce. Apple sells music through a local app, just like tons of other services. You can hyperlink to items in that local app, just like you can link to email addresses, FTP addresses, and a million other things that aren’t web pages or browser-based information. I suppose you should also be upset at everything here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URI_scheme#Official_IANA-registered_schemes
While the lock out from Apple can be annoying, I’m surprised people actually link to iTunes pages. From iTunes it isn’t immediately obvious how to do this or that it is at all possible. But apparently there are several people that think this is useful and use it on the web.
What’s even crappier is the fact that the iTunes store is an actual website, just hidden behind tonnes of Apple spackle. There’s actually no reason they couldn’t just expose the website outside of iTunes (well except the previews wouldn’t work because they hook into iTunes itself).
Saying iTunes is only available for Windows and OS X. is like saying iTunes is only available for 99% of all computers.
As far as I can see, there are only two things missing from Safari to stop it from replacing iTunes - a) HTML5 audio and video elements, b) HTML5 offline cacheing.
Both will probably be complete in Safari 4 (and Firefox 3.1). So Jeff, you may get your wish soon!
What really bothers me is when people only post an iTunes link to their podcast. Way to immediately deter thousands of potential listeners. (I’m looking at you, jayandjack).
Someone needs to make a browser plugin that converts apple phobos links into a reasonable alternative.
Right on man!
Ciaran, you’re just partially right. Amazon let’s you browse, preview, buy and download music online just with a web browser, wherever you are with the only exception of albums. ITMS quite frankly does not. (Album downloads require Amazon software because it uses a custom compressed .amz archive format for distribution.)
Using iTunes I can find something online, buy it and have it on my ipod in about three clicks… you might not appreciate that, but I am sure there are plenty of novice computer users that will put up with the inconvenience of having to launch a desktop application for that convenience.
I believe Apple could do all this AND have a web storefront, too!
I am by no means anti-software to manage your preferred bit of multimedia hardware. I understand and appreciate the need; it’s not like browsers alone can reach out start downloading MP3 files to your iPod, or sync your music library.
But how about software that’s more in harmony with the rest of the web?
aren’t you being as fascist as apple by saying they should do it ‘your’ way? what is the ‘web way’ anyway? bit of an inconsistent mess i would say. sharepoint anyone?
I’ve not had any problems with the later versions of iTunes. The earlier versions were horrible, but not these days. (on Windows at least.) From a programming perspective, I think the custom app was a great idea. Imagine writing such a feature-rich web platform that had to be consistent across all browsers.
The DRM in iTunes sourced music is not that bad, in fact… I’ve seen worse. I don’t even have five machines that I want to have my tunes on. Only one PC at home is really needing it, my laptop at work, and my iPod. What’s the point of having the ability to play my music on three machines at home?
Also, This is the paradigm Apple has choosen, like it or not. Its their culture. Just look at how closed their computer ecosystem is. Its like going into a candy store and complaining that you can’t buy gas.
Their computer ecosystem is nowhere near closed. Apple support a lot of open source solutions even right on their own website. There are countless links to tools and applications listed on their site.
Normally I agree with your comments, but not completely this time. You seem to be miffed that clicking a link takes you somewhere out of your control and you don’t know what you are getting into; I would argue that you probably shouldn’t click on any link, if you don’t know what lies on the other side. Remember, just because you click a lick that ends in mp3, doesn’t mean that that is what the server is going to serve up to you.
I agree with you, Jeff. I recently set up iTunes U at my school (their extension to iTMS for educational institutions) and was saddened when I realized how locked down the whole thing is. The fact that they feel the need to force every little bit of their software down users’ throats just for market share is disturbing and disheartening.
How different is this from any other browser plugin? Like Flash. First time you hit some Flash content, you have to install the plug-in. Then you’re done. With iTunes, once you install it, you’re done. Is this SuperSite for Windows or Coding Horror?
Man I hate iTunes. It looks terrible on my Windows Vista PC (often loads with this wierd black shadow to it), is incredibly slow to sync songs to my iPod, and tends to screw up the nice organized song folder structure I had by moving songs all over the place. On my current PC, I have all the songs organized by artist and album, and it decided to move my files around for me into new, wrongly-named album folders AND make tons of duplicate songs! What the heck!?!?
Oh, and by the way, if you want to see a decent web-only music store, check out what www.Lala.com has. Truly beats the pants off of Apple, and its cheaper!