Apple Unveils New Music Service and New iPods

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Sorry PC users, you'll have to wait for the end of the year. But, I'm using it now and it's great! :)

Apple describes the new service as "an online music store that lets customers quickly find, purchase and download over 200,000 songs from music companies including BMG, EMI, Sony Music, Universal and Warner Bros. For just 99 cents per song, without subscription fees, the iTunes Music Store allows burning songs onto an unlimited number of CDs for personal use, listening to songs on an unlimited number of iPods, playing songs on up to three Macintosh computers, and using songs in any application on the Mac, including iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD."

In addition new iPods were released. "Apple’s third-generation iPods — 10GB model for $299 (US), 15GB for $399 and 30GB for $499 — hold up to 7,500 songs. They feature solid-state navigation wheel and buttons; new dock with audio out; “On-The-Go” playlist; customizable main menu; and Auto-Sync for automatically syncing your computer’s music library with iPod."

The new iPod software update is currently only available for Mac users, and apparen't doesn't offer the neato new features like solitaire, an alarm clock, and menu customization. The updater for the iPod, along with iTunes are available for download right now. The Apple Music Store requires Quicktime 6.2, which is available for download as well.

View: Apple Music Store

View: The new iPods

View: iTunes 4.0

Download: iPod Updater 1.3 (Mac-only)

Download: iTunes 4.0 Download

Download: Quicktime 6.2

#1 Dazzla on 28 Apr 2003 - 19:04

This god damn rocks, sheer simplicity. The way it integrates with iTunes is ingenius as well, one click from Apple to your hard drive, all within iTunes 4. If anyone can pull this off it's Apple. AAC is superb as well, I used to encode music in this when I had my Mac with Quicktime. The quality was fantastic with a 128Kbit AAC file easily on par with a 192Kbit MP3, if not superior. Absolutely fantastic. Free 30 second streaming, so no more buying albums only to find a load of songs are crap, free music videos as well. Freaking sweet. Go Apple!

(2 replies) #2 on 01 Jan 1970 - 00:00

#2.1 malebolgia on 28 Apr 2003 - 19:06

I agree

#2.2 timdorr on 28 Apr 2003 - 19:18

Um AAC 128K ~= 192-256K MP3 it's like mpeg4 for audio...

(2 replies) #3 on 01 Jan 1970 - 00:00

#3.1 malebolgia on 28 Apr 2003 - 19:07

Looks that way, though I have my doubts.

#3.2 timdorr on 28 Apr 2003 - 19:19

the 1.3 update, and the service for PC. i doubt that means itunes for pc, probably just integration into music match...

(1 reply) #4 on 01 Jan 1970 - 00:00

#4.1 timdorr on 28 Apr 2003 - 19:18

yeah, it's getting bogged down right now, but I'm sure it'll be better later tonight...

(3 replies) #5 on 01 Jan 1970 - 00:00

#5.1 timdorr on 28 Apr 2003 - 19:28

[neoquote=#7.0 by me101]shame on Apple for not getting the "Windows" and "Mac" version off the ground at the same time... They have known about this "venture" for quite some time, so could have been making in-roads to including the Windows users in on this... I recently read that close over 60% of the iPod's out there are for Windows users, yet again Apple is shunning the Windows community, by delaying the Windows version... Come on Apple, produce a version of iTunes for Windows, it's the only decent thing to do... [/neoquote] Well, they'er looking to draw people to their market share. This is a reasonable way to do it, and it's not going to be *just* iPod owners that can use this. You can burn the tracks to CD as well. So, they'll be hitting a TON of users already, in a bracket of the market that's willing to actually pay. PC users are generally more cheap and less willing to pay, so it makes more sense to get it out there and get it successful with this market segment. They'll get it to the PC soon enough, it's just their doing it to their advantage to wait...

#5.2 Dazzla on 28 Apr 2003 - 20:05

[neoquote=#7.3 by macrosslover]you say Mac users are more willing to pay?? what is the amount of Mac users that have adopted .mac?? i'm curious to know.[/neoquote] A few hundred thousand.

#5.3 timdorr on 28 Apr 2003 - 21:20

[neoquote=#7.3 by macrosslover]you say Mac users are more willing to pay?? what is the amount of Mac users that have adopted .mac?? i'm curious to know. [/neoquote] This a group of people that are willing to pay more for computers and more for mp3 players. Being likely to spend money on a few music tracks at 99 cents is quite reasonable to assume

(3 replies) #6 on 01 Jan 1970 - 00:00

#6.1 malebolgia on 28 Apr 2003 - 20:28

Nor does Windows want it

#6.2 malebolgia on 29 Apr 2003 - 06:15

[neoquote=#8.4 by insurgent]Yeah, god knows WMP 9 and Musimatch Jukebox are just *awesome*...that is, if you're idea of awesome is eating a moldy turd on wheat bread.[/neoquote] Some people probably would eat that.

#6.3 Toxicfume on 29 Apr 2003 - 16:54

[neoquote=#8.6 by Jiles]wma = teh sux. :n:[/neoquote] and bleh to aac too, ogg all the way

(2 replies) #7 on 01 Jan 1970 - 00:00

#7.1 timdorr on 28 Apr 2003 - 21:22

Full albums are $9.99. Considering "shipping" is free, that's INCREDIBLY cheap compared to the 18.99 you'll end up paying in store..

#7.2 timdorr on 29 Apr 2003 - 14:20

http://www.bestbuy.com/mandm/default.asp?m=254&prodtype=music I'm seeing mostly $12.99 or $13.99 for the newer cd's. Plus, you have to go to the store, *and* you have to buy all the tracks you might not want...

(2 replies) #8 on 01 Jan 1970 - 00:00

#8.1 timdorr on 28 Apr 2003 - 21:30

It's probably not their choice. The record companies run a lot of this behind the scenes and probably have some restriction on that. You *know* they don't want to limit revenue, but there's some things they have to live with...

#8.2 Dazzla on 28 Apr 2003 - 21:35

[neoquote=#13.0 by rastachops]I think most people forgot that the new music service -- SUCKS !!! -- its only available to people in the USA!!! its horrific. Im so appauled about how they've just shunned the rest of the world in what could have been a great service. iTunes 4 looks better than iTunes 3 though and the newer iPods are better too... :deaad: [/neoquote] Worldwide service "soon" according to Steve Jobs.

(1 reply) #9 on 01 Jan 1970 - 00:00

#9.1 timdorr on 29 Apr 2003 - 02:39

a) TCPA != Microsoft. They aren't even the lead platyer in it. They just get the most heat because of they monopoly proceedings, b) It is an OPTIONAL techonology. You can turn it off. It's not gonig to stop anything you can run today from running, nor is it going to do that in the future. It is just a hardware-backed way to validate certain programs as authetic. It keeps people from pirating and releasing trojans, THAT'S ALL. c) Watch the flaming and trolling (note: i'm a mod...). If you at least backed yourself up with facts, what you said wouldn't be as bad as it is...

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