So a couple of days on since Apple’s big music announcement – what’s the reaction been like? Here’s some of the most interesting hardcore commentary:
- CNet News
Full of interesting insights about how Apple may be pushing Microsoft towards non-proprietary standards (and how record companies are resistant to being beholden to one company’s technology) as well as the demographic information of the MP3-playing market. Particularly terrifying is this quote: “At retail, one-third of the people buying portable music players have annual incomes of $100,000 or more, according to NPDTechworld. By contrast, 55 percent of people buying Apple’s iPod have incomes in that bracket. The group also is more likely to embrace a music service and buy additional ancillary products or services than many other income brackets.” - The Mac Observer on Apple’s DRM
Some very good points: (1) 3-person licenses on DRM means a family of four can’t take all of their music with them (but then they’re not really supposed to, are they?) (2) 128 bit encoding on AAC might be better than MP3, but is it good enough for the dedicated audiophile? (Of course it’s possible that the Mac itself might not have good enough sound equipment to make this an issue) (3) To get your music onto another MP3 player you have to burn to a CD and then re-rip it. This is apparently annoying (although also patently missing the whole point). (4) Managing the computers you can play a song on isn’t a simple process. (5) To authorise a song you need to be connected to the internet. 6 Will Apple AAC be the future equivalent of the 8-track tape? - Washington Times
An easy problem to spot, but a bugger to solve – the Washington Times points out that the Apple Music service has no Beatles and no Rolling Stones. - MacRumurs on DRM
This is a very very thorough article on exactly Apple’s AAC DRM works in practice. Particularly useful if you’re unclear on the basics – what happens with bought songs and shared Libraries, will iTunes play other AAC’s, how many times can a playlist be burnt to CD? - PCTS.net
… and it turns out that you can even link to specific artists and / or songs in the Apple store by a simple link in your browser. Whether or not that will take off or not is another matter, of course…