This entry was published at least two years ago (originally posted on April 28, 2003). Since that time the information may have become outdated or my beliefs may have changed (in general, assume a more open and liberal current viewpoint). A fuller disclaimer is available.
Just some initial thoughts after playing around with iTunes 4.0 and the iTunes Music Store for a bit.
- AAC: I’m sold. Through some very non-scientific, non-mathematical experimenting, I seem to be getting about a 40% reduction in file size with 128kbps AAC .m4a’s as opposed to 160kbps VBR .mp3’s. With a \~14,000 song, 75GB music collection, a 40% reduction in size is beautiful. Plus, they do sound at least the same, if not better.
- iTunes 4.0: Basic functionality is still the same as previous versions of iTunes, which I was already quite happy with. They’ve obviously done some under-the-hood work, though — where I used to get “spinning beach balls” almost anytime I clicked around in iTunes, now the only time I get a wait cursor is when I’m getting info on multiple tracks at once. Much snappier performance — and on an aging 350Mhz blue-and-white G3, that’s pretty impressive.
- iTunes Music Store: Again, I’m sold. Very nicely and simply integrated directly into iTunes, finding stuff in the store is a breeze. I’ve already purchased one track to replace a corrupted .mp3 file created from a scratched CD, and once the iTMS is tied to my .mac account, single-click purchasing works flawlessly. Could be dangerous, though — talk about instant gratification! The selection of music available could use a little work, though I suffer a bit in having more esoteric music tastes — the majority of the “big artists” seem to be pretty well represented, and Apple says that they’re constantly working on expanding their library. Can’t complain too much, though — I’ve even found some pleasant surprises that I’m thinking about picking up (lots of Bill Cosby, and even a fair chunk of Spike Jones albums!).
Excellent work, all around. As far as I’m concerned, all of the whiners at MeFi and /. can jump off a cliff — Apple’s got a good thing going here. The only downside I can see is that to take advantage of AAC’s smaller file sizes, I’ve got about 1500 CD’s to rip all over again…