I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
But you can find me over at http://blog.xero.com.
I know, 3 posts in a row on iTunes. I know it hasn’t got the best range and I know it may have the worst DRM. But I’m addicted. It’s so convenient. I just love being able to pick the singles I want and not buy a whole album.
Just read that our songs are second cheapest in the world. Rock on. Another reason to live in NZ.
iTunes is a great example of a Installed App / Web blur - event though the iTunes interface is less than Apples best work. (Can someone tell me what happens to my paid songs if I fry my laptop?)
I may need to ration myself. I’d prefer to prepay say $50 than do a bunch of credit card transactions. Maybe it batches them, I’ll see next statement.
Imagine what the Apple books would look like if they had major prepaid revenue. There is a PrePay industry word call Breakage which refers to balances on cards that never get used. (Typical ‘breakage’ rates on the Starbucks prepay card, for instance, run at about 15 per cent.)
iTunes = instant gratification. love it.
blog
Best of all? If you work in an open office, you can officially have viral music wars. It works like this:
You’re in an open office, and you keep iTunes music store open.. Just when your buddy sits down and starts to compose code or a report - you quickly say, “hey, remember this one?” and then play the most assinine Air Supply or Vanilla Ice tune. Then wait.
If, sometime in the next 2 hours, he “hums” or sings the song you played - it’s a win!
WARNING: This can become very evil. The wealth of cheezy 80’s pop alone can destroy a psyche.
What happens if you fry your laptop? — you get to repurchase the tunes using fresh money. And if you complain to them about it you get a rude note about how you should be better about making backups.
It does batch, generally in blocks of 24 hours, rather than a monetary amount.
FWIW, I would not use iTMS if I had to prepay. To be honest, I’m this close to ditching them anyway due to the nonsense I’ve had to put up with from them. It’s as cheap to buy CDs now (at least here in the UK).
Still love the iTunes app itself though :)
In Australia, you can buy iTunes ‘gift packs’… efffectively, a pre-pay coupon.
I picked up a couple of $100 packs when I was over there, and since i was in .au at the time, I was able to associate my account with the .au store.
I imagine we’ll be seeing these same coupon things here… which worked really well, for me.
I sed the prepaid cards from the US - got some last week. Once they run out (I have about $13 left) I’ll use the NZ site….
You can back up the files like normal files. If you fry your laptop, you just unauthorize it (if you can) before you reinstall, and authorize it when you are back up. you can auth up to 5 machines at a time.
I imagine there is some way around the “it’s totally FRIED, please de-auth manually, apple!”, but I’ve never needed to.
BTW, to get around the DRM, if you want to: burn to CD, rip back to MP3. Pain in the butt, but it works. Personally, we only use itunes here (and ipods), so I’m not going to bother - I’ll just throw the files onto the server, point Leonie’s laptop at it, and authorize it….
I’m thinking the iTMS is going to chew up a fair bit of cash for a while for me - but there again, I’ve been holding off buying music for a while, ‘cos like you, I hate buying a CD for 1 good track….
Rob (hi),
Back it up; you can then move copies of your iTunes library to up to five other “authorised” Macs. Yes, it’s asinine that iTMS doesn’t allow you to re-download, but given your AfterMail experience you should understand the importance of backups.
Michael
Apple pre-paid revenue…
Rod Drury asks what if Apple had major pre-paid revenue. They do have some - from the iTunes music cards. The cards are great for gifts, and also if you want to get content not available here - such as TV shows and movies. Whenever I’m in the US …