Natala la la la ... ... ...

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Wednesday, February 23, 2005

i heart itunes 

it really bothers me how much i love itunes. i don't think it is healthy, but it provides such joy. *sigh*

i've just spent the last few hours perusing the apple itunes essentials collection. damn them. they've done a great job of pulling good music together AND exposing me to new music i probably wouldn't have come across otherwise. The new itunes essentials mix is really three mixes under one concept-theme (i.e. 90's indie rock). The three mix sets are categorized as (note: text is from apple unless in parens):

The Basics:
The biggest, best, and most important songs. (these are the songs you probably already know and love.)

Next Steps:
When you're ready to move beyond the hits.

Deep Cuts:
Criminally ignored. Unjustly under-appreciated. Until now.

And they deliver on their promise. Deep cuts, in the few "essential" sets that i looked at, truly held gems. Ex. "you never knew" by Hieroglyphics under "alternative hip hop"...and "the truth" by handsome boy modelling school (also under "alt hip hop").

so why does it bother me? because, at the end of the day, i can't take my music with me. I love the discovery part of itunes, and i love my ipod and my shuffle, but, at the end of the day i'm stuck on the apple platform (which i do enthusiastically use) ...but that unfortunately means my freedom is limited and that means the liberterian inside of me starts to get nervous. Yes, i understand that I bought the music under a very, VERY limited license. but still! $1 a song! i should be able to play this music on more devices. through more players and it just irks me that a product i truly enjoy essentially traps me. and i'm further trapped because i love the commercials. i love the packaging. i go "ooooh" "ahhhh" and i smile....and really i'd rather believe that there's something unique about me and that apple has the best technology and that's why i picked them and that i'm not just easily convinced by white and black boxes that contain sleek toys. but then, i look at my toys, and my friend's toys and realize...i'm just an apple-eating sheep. *sigh*

¤ posted by Natala : 2/23/2005 01:18:00 AM


Comments:
so why does it bother me? because, at the end of the day, i can't take my music with me. I love the discovery part of itunes, and i love my ipod and my shuffle, but, at the end of the day i'm stuck on the apple platform (which i do enthusiastically use) ...but that unfortunately means my freedom is limited and that means the liberterian inside of me starts to get nervous. Yes, i understand that I bought the music under a very, VERY limited license. but still! $1 a song! i should be able to play this music on more devices. through more players and it just irks me that a product i truly enjoy essentially traps me.It's not that restrictive. You can still burn CDs, etc.

If it bugs you that much, find a copy of JHymn, which will take out the DRM. Just make sure to read the site for special instructions to make it work with iTunes 4.7.

After using that, you can convert it to mp3 or whatever.
# posted by Blogger Josh Centers : 9:37 PM, February 23, 2005
 
You can also burn to a CD, which is a pain because you need a physical disc, but once burned, it's yours to copy and carry with you as you like.

If you really wanted to, you could then re-encode your CD to non-restricted AAC (or MP3, etc.), but you'd suffer some quality loss due to recompression.
# posted by Blogger Mike Bostock : 5:31 PM, February 24, 2005
 
Something else to think about, if you tried to fill a 40G Hard drive with itunes it would cost you 10k at the present .99 per tune rate.Non related item Steve Jobs was once upon a time a phone phreaker. Finally DRM sucks, along with patents for genes, software,and prescription drugs. My opinion and like everyone else I have one
# posted by Blogger Robert Nelson : 10:20 AM, March 08, 2005
 
Ah, someone's been watching the Napster Ads... You've got an iPod and a Shuffle, what other devices do you want it on? Compared to a normal CD (one that doesn't have copy protection built in) iTunes licensing is restrictive, but not as bad as the various other downloadable options. The prices start to add up, but it does when you buy CDs too.
# posted by Blogger Unknown : 3:49 AM, March 12, 2005
 
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