Napster vs. iTunes
FYI - the new (legal) Napster is out. I did the early sign up so I could get the 5 free tracks (an offer they had out a few weeks ago). As I said before, I’ve also signed up with iTunes and had been really happy with them - however I personally think Napster might have iTunes beat.
Buying music was certainly error free with iTunes, but the interface is a bit clunky (something I would expect better of Apple). I just had an easier time searching, buying etc. for songs on Napster. I could go into more depth, and I’d probably have to play with it a lot longer to pinpoint what it is I like more about Napster than I do iTunes, but those were my initial impressions. I just felt more comfortable in the Napster interface. One thing I WILL give you is that it MAY be because many of the GOOD things I liked about iTunes, I saw in Napster interface.
One thing I still have yet to do is BURN A CD with Napster. (This was accomplished, again error-free on Apple’s iTunes, and was only impeded by what I think was bad interface design). But based on the ease of purchase/download etc. I’m not expecting any issues with Napster’s burning ability. (Not like I did when I purchased/downloaded music from buymusic. With this much REALLY GOOD competition between iTunes and Napster, I don’t picture buymusic lasting too long)
October 30th, 2003 at 10:43 am
napster isn’t available for mac os (or various others including windows 95 & windows NT). go figure.
October 30th, 2003 at 10:55 am
Recording to CD is easy. Because of the partnership with Roxio, it makes it that much easier to burn to CD. I had no issues.
Because of the WMA content though, unfortunately it may never be on the Mac, which is a downer.
October 30th, 2003 at 11:09 am
I did my own review yesterday, it’s not professional, but I’m going to have to update it today.
Now personally, I have some serious problems with the iTunes interface. Jobs says it’s the best Windows App ever, well, I have some comments to make back to him about what he thinks a good Windows App is…
I burned my 5 free songs just after downloading them, the burn worked just fine. Minus the interface issues that Apple has, the two stores are pretty much the same.
Napster’s claim of 500,000 songs confuses me, however. I looked at Barenaked Ladies latest album Everthing for Everyone, and noticed that there were tracks missing from the album. 3 to be precise. One of which was Anohter Postcard, their hit song being played on the radio now. So I looked for the song specificially, and found it under the album Another Postcard. Not sure what the point of that was other than getting more money.
The “unlimited downloading” $9.95 a month option, sounds better than it really is. From what I can tell, you can download all the tracks you want, however, you are not going to be able to play them anywhere other than the Napster player, not even burn them. If you want to do that, you are still going to have to pay for them. So I’m not really sure what the benefit of this $10 a month service is, other than being able to “preview” the entire song before buying it. However, for $10 a month, I should get at least a couple of free tracks a month or something.
Now I’m a little biased since I own an iPod, so I’m going to be sticking with iTunes Music Store simply because converting WMA files to MP3 or AAC files requires burning the songs to a CD then re-ripping them into the format I want.
Also, even though they have been in beta testing for a while, the “preview” opening was having all kinds of problems staying connected to their servers. Yesterday there were still having problems, however so far today, they seem to be having less problems.
October 31st, 2003 at 5:31 pm
Based on the “The “unlimited downloading” for $9.95 a month option” - I may have to test this out and compare it to Listen.com - which I absolutely LOVE. I can listen to all the music I want on my PC for $9.95 a month, organized in to a nice library, and it rocks. However, to burn tracks is 80 cents a song, and I haven’t tested it yet. The Napster option may be a better deal because you can download them - you have to be online to use Listen.com.
When I test them out, I will write up a comparision of the two and post it, if that’s ok with you!
November 4th, 2003 at 10:53 am
The question is: what took them so long. MTV, arguably the single best music brand out there is getting into the music downloading business. Or as they say, it is crashing the party, now that its brand is being upstaged…
November 11th, 2003 at 11:01 am
I pretty much have all the options for music. Napster is a jack of all trades but a master of none. Rhapsody has better selection for streaming. iTunes has better selection for downloads and more complete albums. MusicMatch has the best music guides and because its radio can use compulsory licenses you can hear tunes for artists and labels who desire to be horses’ rear ends. My usage model is as follows:
1. Passive exploration: Music Match
2. Active exploration: Rhapsody
3. Purchase: iTunes
If you want all of the above in one place Napster is probably your best choice. I have found tunes that only exist on one of the four. Thus, Steve Jobs lack of support for WMF is distressing to me. See my comments on this here.
November 19th, 2003 at 9:21 am
iTunes is so much better. Clunky interface? What are you smoking?
December 7th, 2003 at 11:03 pm
I expect that you have the same issues with NAPSTER as you did with BuyMusic.com… at least in regards to the ROXIO plugin.
Napster and Buymusic.com both use Windows Media Player 9 to play/burn the
<a href=”http://www.CopyProtectedWMA.com”>copy protected WMA files<a>
to Audio CD. As I understand it, the only way to burn the music from WMP is via the Roxio components.
John