neorants

So yesterday Apple announced the new iPods and iTunes 4, which allows you to purchase music tracks encoded in AAC format (MPEG 4 audio, ostensibly better quality in less file size than MP3) for 99 cents a pop. Let me just start out by saying that I want a 30 GB iPod. Somebody rich needs to buy me one. As for the music service and iTunes 4, you can have a look here for what the analysts (who supposedly are “qualified” to make broad, sweeping statements about the advisability of any given course of action for any company) have to say, or you can click “more” for my take.

I played around with iTunes 4 and Apple’s new music service a little last night and they seem very cool. The interface couldn’t have been cleaner — type a search in the box at the top to get a list of songs matching your search or browse by genre, either way you get a listing of songs that match what you’re looking for in the bottom pane with full information about artist, album, etc. Double-click a song and almost instantly (on broadband anyway) a clear 30 second long clip of the song starts playing.

Click a little button to the right of any of the information, and you’ll see an Amazon-style list telling you what the top tracks also purchased by people who bought this track were, allowing you to find out about other artists you might enjoy but haven’t heard of. I’ve always liked that feature — it’s kind of like sitting around with a bunch of friends listening to and talking about music in that it’s one of the best ways to hear about stuff you aren’t going to find on the radio or MTV. Of course, my thoughts on MTV could be the subject of a separate rant, so I’ll leave that alone for now.

Anyway, if you like the song, you click the “buy now” button and you own it. Simple as that. I like this, because as it sits now, if I like at least 3 songs on a CD I buy the entire CD. I do this so I have a clear conscience, and because I like to vote with my wallet. If I can do those two things for just 99 cents a song, I’m all for it.

I hope this takes off for Apple — they struck a good balance here.