Sure, it would be nice from Apple to create content that just works for the rest of the world too. But I don't see too much trouble for downloading and installing their software iTunes. After all, you are going to need it if you purchase music from Apple, I think. Its good if it works by installing the software. Many sites are so bad, that they have bad layout and things don't even work.

But can't Apple just use plain MP3s? Well, I wish that they had normal music that is not bound to a certain platform. They offer some kind of enhanced DRM free music too, I remember.

"Is there anything more anti-web than demanding users install custom software to display information that could have just as easily been delivered through the browser?"

Beautiful quote... and my exact argument against Flash or Silverlight. Sure it has uses, but most of the time it is not necessary for what it is used for.

One of the reasons why I don't buy anything Apple is because of this dependency on its other products...

I also don't understand all the hype around the iPhone (here in Belgium it's going to be the most expensive, and it's coming out later than anywhere else and the press are over it like flies on a pile of cow ****) Perhaps I'm just practical, but I use my cell for calling and texting people and that's it. I certainly wouldn't pay €525 for all that extra functionality that would bind me with chains to all other Apple products as well!

Don't get me started... why Apple couldn't design iPod to be usable as well as marketable is... well its quite understandable as it is incredibly cost effective... but its none the less annoying.

iTunes is horrible to use and imposes draconian rules about which files you can use for what computer... ugh, don't get me started. Suffice it to say I bought a PDA about 5 years ago, which still outperforms every iPod and iPhone and etc... on the market. It cost me ~ £170... which is about $300. /5 years ago/. Its just as usable, although the web browser isn't actually as good... the only problem is nobody markets them with b-list celebs, pretty colors and aesthetically pleasing design.

Certainly can't fault Apple's business strategy though... and forcing the user to install iTunes is a part of that. The problem with expecting non iPod/iPhone users to use iTunes store, in my opinion, is that it is easier and cheaper to steal the music...

Can you show me a music service other than Apple's iTunes that I can use as easily and trustfully? Plus tell what software and which music player to use? Are there really as practical overall solution alternatives to Apple? And take into account that I live in Europe, Finland. Illegal copying of music is not counted.

I received the equivalent of a drive-by download while visiting the Apple site today from my machine at work (which runs IE, my only option). Apparently my machine did not previously have Quicktime installed on it, and while viewing the iPod info pages Apple felt it necessary to:

1. Download the QuickTime installer
2. Install QuickTime
3. Prompt me to reboot my computer

...all without asking my permission, or indeed any questions at all! I was reasonably sure that the content security settings were set up on my work machine to ask me prior to doing stuff like that. I may have to review those.

Partly due to crap like this, I have disabled the Java, Flash, and now Quicktime plugins on my IE. My browsing experience is generally more peaceful, especially with fewer animated ads.

Interesting that you choose Amazon as a counter-example. They make you install software in order to download an album, but not a single track.

http://blog.ciarang.com/posts/amazon-just-sell-me-the-music/

Or at least they did - haven't been back since I found that out.

While I do think that iTMS has some issues, this generally isn't one of them. I think bigger complaints are the lack of tabs and the extremely narrow browsing that iTunes offers.

Since things are purchased through iTunes it generally seems to make some sense to browse through it as well and it also guarantees playback goes off without a hitch whether it be previewing it or purchasing it.

Additionally, the first thing I ever bought from Amazon actually *did* prompt me to install the Amazon download manager. I wasn't looking hard but there at least was no /blatantly/ obvious link to just download a Zip file of the album instead. Additionally, emusic also requires that I use custom software to download from it and is probably more annoying than iTMS when it comes to browsing content - you have to have some kind of login cookie left on your computer or it punts you to this giant trial screen with no apparent link (at least when I signed up) to actually view the library.

Additionally, the complaints about the draconian DRM are somewhat amusing. iTunes has long had the most liberal DRM (an oxymoron I know...) in terms of number of devices to play the tracks on, and there is a growing DRM free section but Apple is at the mercy of the label's terms and they haven't exactly had the customer in mind...

Is it ideal? Perhaps not, at least in terms of browsing which can certainly extend to your argument, but its not without parallels from the other larger services either. I don't think its something most customers notice however, as they are likely already using iTunes before they ever try the store.

I fully agree that it's user hostile what Apple are doing with their store. But that's hardly a surprise and just how they are. If you're a freetard or if you don't want to run Apple's software you're not welcome.

Ultimately this is an accessibility problem of the person linking to Apple's store, though. The store is known to be inaccessible, so if they cared for their non-Apple running readers they wouldn't link there (only). Hence putting the links up is another 'Not Welcome' notice. While one can blame Apple for pushing that attitude by giving people money to link to them, it's certainly the choice of the person putting the links there to do so.

iTunes (and due to their historically instable content and URLs, I'd also say the rest of Apple's web properties beyond the home page) simply cannot be linked to if you want a hope of providing accessible and reliable information. I think it's as simple as that. No surprises, no scandal. Just business as usual.

You almost got it, apple is just anti-anything not apple..

"Is there anything more anti-web than demanding users install custom software to display information that could have just as easily been delivered through the browser?"

So you don't have Flash or Adobe reader installed on your box?

The real problem comes when you accept iTunes and install it and start using it as a media player replacement. Then you realize that it has a lot of implementation problems.

I really don't mind having a 15Mb or so client software... but having a buggy, non-responsive, CPU-hunger software, ouch!

I don't think Apple really cares about other users though. I doubt their goal is universal usability/accessibility. They have software that all works nicely together with their own things and if you happen to be on a mac and encounter this page then it is no problem. I agree they should make it more friendly to other OSes and provide more info, but this is Apple; they don't care about anything but users of their own software (OS X / iTunes) because that's who they are providing the "it just works" experience to.

This is the paradigm Apple has choosen, like it or not. Its their culture. Just look at how closed their computer ecosystem is. Its like going into a candy store and complaining that you can't buy gas.

Buy somewhere else. Simple.

I'm all for the diversity. Let people that enjoy iTunes to use it, otherwise go for Emusic.com, Amazon, Allofmp3 (or whatever it is called now), bittorrents, whatever. The web is great for a lot of stuff but the ability to have a richer, full-featured client (iTunes, Flash, Silverlight) is also important.

Is there anything more anti-web than demanding users type "orange" to post a comment that could have just as easily been delivered through the browser?

As I read most of your posts I find myself nodding my head - not this time.

This post came across more as Apple-bashing than anything else. Amazon forces you to install Flash so does YouTube is that not anti-web too?

What is wrong between providing links between a web page and a desktop application.. especially when that application provides so much more convenience and functionality than any web-based solution could ever offer.

The AOL comparison is an extremely poor one. What convenience did that offer?

Using iTunes I can find something online, buy it and have it on my ipod in about three clicks.. you might not appreciate that, but I am sure there are plenty of novice computer users that will put up with the inconvenience of having to launch a desktop application for that convenience.

How is Apple forcing you to install a Flash Plugin like Amazon does any less anti-web?

My biggest problem is that the average user just clicks, "OK", and Apple is making tonnes of money off of this nonsense anyway. And those users will suggest I'm the moron for telling them how horribly wrong it is. And they'll use that exact phrase: "It just works". "No, do you even understand what's going on here?"

The answer is no, they don't. And they don't care.

That's really sad.

@Silvercode: There is problem with installing iTunes software when, for example, one is using Linux...

I'm no mac user but i don't think this is an itunes problem. If they were to link you directly to the content then you'd need some type of player to play it. This is true for any media online. A stop screen is certainly better than a browser window full of binary/hex characters.

Everyone has software installed to play media online... lets make a list: .net runtime, java jre, flash, pdf viewers, windows media player (or other), codecs for said media player, etc.

without installing flash a lot of sites don't work. there was also a time when IE stopped supplying java support and you had to download crap to make that work.

This is some pretty weak sauce. Apple sells music through a local app, just like tons of other services. You can hyperlink to items in that local app, just like you can link to email addresses, FTP addresses, and a million other things that aren't web pages or browser-based information. I suppose you should also be upset at everything here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URI_scheme#Official_IANA-registered_schemes

While the "lock out" from Apple can be annoying, I'm surprised people actually link to iTunes pages. From iTunes it isn't immediately obvious how to do this or that it is at all possible. But apparently there are several people that think this is useful and use it on the web.

What's even crappier is the fact that the iTunes store is an actual website, just hidden behind tonnes of Apple spackle. There's actually no reason they couldn't just expose the website outside of iTunes (well except the previews wouldn't work because they hook into iTunes itself).

Saying "iTunes is only available for Windows and OS X." is like saying "iTunes is only available for 99% of all computers".

Saying "iTunes is only available for Windows and OS X." is like saying "iTunes is only available for 99% of all computers".

As far as I can see, there are only two things missing from Safari to stop it from replacing iTunes - a) HTML5 audio and video elements, b) HTML5 offline cacheing.

Both will probably be complete in Safari 4 (and Firefox 3.1). So Jeff, you may get your wish soon!

What really bothers me is when people only post an iTunes link to their podcast. Way to immediately deter thousands of potential listeners. (I'm looking at you, jayandjack).

Someone needs to make a browser plugin that converts apple phobos links into a reasonable alternative.

Right on man!

Ciaran, you're just partially right. Amazon let's you browse, preview, buy and download music online just with a web browser, wherever you are with the only exception of albums. ITMS quite frankly does not. (Album downloads require Amazon software because it uses a custom compressed .amz archive format for distribution.)

> Using iTunes I can find something online, buy it and have it on my ipod in about three clicks.. you might not appreciate that, but I am sure there are plenty of novice computer users that will put up with the inconvenience of having to launch a desktop application for that convenience.

I believe Apple could do all this *AND* have a web storefront, too!

I am by no means anti-software to manage your preferred bit of multimedia hardware. I understand and appreciate the need; it's not like browsers alone can reach out start downloading MP3 files to your iPod, or sync your music library.

But how about software that's more in harmony with the rest of the web?

aren't you being as fascist as apple by saying they should do it 'your' way? what is the 'web way' anyway? bit of an inconsistent mess i would say. sharepoint anyone?

I've not had any problems with the later versions of iTunes. The earlier versions were horrible, but not these days. (on Windows at least.) From a programming perspective, I think the custom app was a great idea. Imagine writing such a feature-rich web platform that had to be consistent across all browsers.

The DRM in iTunes sourced music is not that bad, in fact... I've seen worse. I don't even have five machines that I want to have my tunes on. Only one PC at home is really needing it, my laptop at work, and my iPod. What's the point of having the ability to play my music on three machines at home?

Also, "This is the paradigm Apple has choosen, like it or not. Its their culture. Just look at how closed their computer ecosystem is. Its like going into a candy store and complaining that you can't buy gas."

Their computer ecosystem is nowhere near closed. Apple support a lot of open source solutions even right on their own website. There are countless links to tools and applications listed on their site.

Normally I agree with your comments, but not completely this time. You seem to be miffed that clicking a link takes you somewhere out of your control and you don't know what you are getting into; I would argue that you probably shouldn't click on any link, if you don't know what lies on the other side. Remember, just because you click a lick that ends in mp3, doesn't mean that that is what the server is going to serve up to you.

I agree with you, Jeff. I recently set up iTunes U at my school (their extension to iTMS for educational institutions) and was saddened when I realized how locked down the whole thing is. The fact that they feel the need to force every little bit of their software down users' throats just for market share is disturbing and disheartening.

How different is this from any other browser plugin? Like Flash. First time you hit some Flash content, you have to install the plug-in. Then you're done. With iTunes, once you install it, you're done. Is this SuperSite for Windows or Coding Horror?

Man I hate iTunes. It looks terrible on my Windows Vista PC (often loads with this wierd black shadow to it), is incredibly slow to sync songs to my iPod, and tends to screw up the nice organized song folder structure I had by moving songs all over the place. On my current PC, I have all the songs organized by artist and album, and it decided to move my files around for me into new, wrongly-named album folders AND make tons of duplicate songs! What the heck!?!?

Oh, and by the way, if you want to see a decent web-only music store, check out what www.Lala.com has. Truly beats the pants off of Apple, and its cheaper!

if you don't like it don't use it. simple.

but browsers can do it all. you just need proprietary plugins.

That's a great explanation of why the iTunes store is a failed e-commerce endeavour and will never shed any profits for Apple... Except that's not what happened, is it?

I also have some disklike for it, but rather because being in Argentina I'm not even able to get into the store (even with iTunes installed) and browse nor buy anything. But I think iTunes is one of those models of "how it can be done" rather than something to point and laugh about.

@Jakub Narębski I gave Linux a chance years ago before I got my XP machine. I admit that Linux has improved since then, but my experience was that web browser and basic applications and Java worked, but that was quite about it. Linux has more elaborate command line commands yes and stuff, but in general it was really horrible to use Linux. I never got even sounds working so that I could have heard something or music. When I tried to install games, it wanted me to update packages. I tried to update the packages, it was very difficult. Then I learned that some packages needed a newer version of Linux itself. New Linux version was not worth my time for few lousy games though. In some point the X-windowing system crashed so badly, it never started up again.

Even today there is not much other programs for Linux either. I support Linux and open source in general, but I am happy with Windows XP now. So, what comes to iTunes for me personally, I couldn't less care about that there is no iTunes for Linux. Of course it would be nice from Apple to provide it, but if you want luxury...

"But I don't see too much trouble for downloading and installing their software iTunes."

I have trouble with installing iTunes—it doesn't work on Linux. And even if I'm on Windows, I would never let a trashy program like iTunes onto my hard drive. It's a resource hog that, together with programs like Norton and the "official" IM clients, help bring the average computer user's digital experience to a grinding halt.

IMO, this is a big problem with Windows. The average Windows computer takes minute to start up, because it is infested with programs such as Norton, Yahoo Messenger, AIM Triton, iTunes, Quicktime, Internet Exploder and the like. But when I replace these programs with alternatives such as Pidgin, Trillian, Digsby, foobar2000, Winamp, VLC Media Player, MPlayer, Media Player Classic, Firefox etc. there aren't any problems.

I completely agree with you Jeff. How can anyone be comparing iTunes to flash? I own a macbook, I've used iTunes, it's a heavy, non-working, closed down, cpu-hogging behemoth. Worst application ever.

Flash on the other hand; so what if i have to install a small plugin to my browser, at least I can enable it and disable it whenever I want, and it doesn't take up space.

iTunes Music Store is really anti-web, more than flash. Something iTunes might actually be comparable to is Java, good lord, but it's worse. Why would anyone want to be forced to install a complete music player just to view some web-content?

And if you're an iTunes fanboy, well, you ain't got no say in the matter, you love your application and probably couldn't live with out it. I feel sorry for you, you'll never be able to experience Linux and the wonders of amaroK!

We have both an iPod and Zune in our household. We buy our music from Amazon and use the Amazon Downloader (desktop app) to download the music. I can download and browse for music at the same time. We have never had any connectivity issues.

> Amazon forces you to install Flash so does YouTube is that not anti-web too?

Flash is generally "progressive enhancement." If I don't have flash, *I still see the majority of the web page*, but I'll miss out on some zazz.

Websites built ENTIRELY in flash are equivalent to the iTunes Store experience. And those are distinctly unpopular for a reason..

http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/info/6qay4/comments/

I think Apple has a tendency to overdue their emphasis on the "Designer" paradigm (versus the "Developer" paradigm). While those in the Windows world often err in designing from the "Developer" perspective those in the Apple world often err in developing from the "Designer" perspective. Both paradigms can miss the most pragmatic solution. The iPod and iPhone have this beautiful case that has minimal seems but if you want to change the battery you have to ship it back to Apple and pay $100. IMO this is either a ridiculous compromise to make for the aesthetic appeal it buys you or, more cynically, a way to manipulate users into throwing away there old product to buy the new thing.

I have been trying to catch up on the StackOverflow podcasts and I recently listened to Joel praising his Mac Air blah-blah-blah PowerBook for it's lack of seams, vents, etc. and how crappy his Dell Latitude was in comparison, when viewed from the bottom (seriously). I also recently heard Joel complaining about how you could watch video on his PowerBook because it would overheat! I have great respect for Joel but IMO he is a little to far over into the Designer paradigm. "Sure my PowerBook overheats but LOOK how beautiful it is! The simplicity! It is a work of art!" I would say, "Yes, it is truly beautiful. But I need to get some work done so please give me that crappy Dell."

I think Apple wants this seamless, beautiful experience with iTunes that blends the desktop software with your browser in a way that hides the distinction because, hey, only "developers" care about that distinction. Having a browser-only version of that page doesn't fit that vision so you get that ridiculous form.

And of course Apple wants to leverage the dominance of the iPod in the digital music player market to steer people to iTunes. It is so much easier to buy music from iTunes and get it onto your iPod than to buy it elsewhere, so clearly that is part of the goal. The fact that you don't have iTunes installed indicates that you don't buy music from Apple so you are not are target market for iTunes.

I guess it is good business but it is also why I don't own an iPod :)

winamp is crap

Ironic how when Apple locks someone out of their closed-to-all-but-the-enlightened platform, the choice is viewed as a business decision, but when someone can't get Widget X developed by Company Y to work right with Microsoft platforms, it's considered a monopoly and an attack on free thought whatnot.

Go figure.

you guys need to worry about something important

If you are on Linux, and all you need is being able to sync files (not AAC though) between you're computer and iPod, then gtkPod http://www.gtkpod.org/about.html might be an option it certainly works for me on Ubuntu 8.04).

For downloading podcasts, try bashpodder or gpodder.

I really don't see what the big deal is. iTunes is an internet enabled application. It's not a "web application". I agree that it would be nice to simply browse the store from your browser, however, I don't really give it a second thought when I click on an iTunes link. From the standpoint of usability, I don't think the Amazon MP3 store comes close to iTunes. Lately, I find that I shop/browse on iTunes and purchase from Amazon.

I think the general public is spoiled by having the web browser be the front end to just about anything you want to do online.

do you guys know anything about flash? have you seen the flash sdk? it is a resource hog because it takes no hardware features into consideration.

Amen, from a GNU/Linux user. Last.fm is a great example of a music service that is all over that 'web' thing. You can actually link to artists or even songs and it - *gasp* - resolves to a web page.

Amazing! I don't own any Apple products, but decided to head to the iTunes store recently to see if I could purchase some DRM free songs. Because this screen flashed up so quickly it took me a while to read what it actually said. I could not believe my eyes either... I was really surprised and had the same thoughts too... And people claim that Microsoft do vendor lockin strategies!

It's unfortunate that there's no iTunes release for *nix systems. Even a limited version that let's you sync iPod's or something... But that doesn't change the fact that iTunes is an awesome music player/library application and everyone who's anyone has it installed! Hell, at _work_ where I don't even have anything in the library I still have it installed.

I'm also not sure where you're getting these links that take you to the iTunes store... If it's a link to buy music then... what were you expecting? If it's a link _about_ the music then the site you're going to are a bunch of idiots for not just linking to Amazon.

It's not anti-web just because it's an application. There is no web version at this time, so just don't click on those links if you don't want iTunes to launch.

@Ryan Montgomery: Can you supply your source for 99% of all computers running Windows or OSX?

On-topic, I'm not sure I've ever seen a link to itunes on a webpage - anyone have a good example?

I think its very different from Flash. They could show the info in a page. If the people liked it, then they could install iTunes. You cant show a video without installing a plugin (like Flash) first.

I think what Jeff is saying is something that could help Apple. Dont see any bashing there.

@Jeff
> For all the buzz about the Apple "it just works" mystique, the current iTunes Store design surely doesn't -- at least not the same way the rest of the web does. And I, for one, can't get behind that.

That may be because... I don't know... iTunes is not the web? And it doesn't claim to be either? The only direct relations between iTunes and the web are that you download iTunes via the web (unless you're on a mac where it's preinstalled) and you can create links to a place within the itunes store from the web.

That's it.

In fact, the later is analogous to e.g. Shoutcast streams which can also be linked from the web but do also require a third-party application to be useful.

> I believe Apple could do all this *AND* have a web storefront, too!

They probably could. They chose not to. They don't *want* a web front.

> But how about software that's more in harmony with the rest of the web?

That's irrelevant, *itms is not the web and neither is it on the web*. There is no "rest" to speak of here jeff

As much as I like and use iTunes, I agree with this one. When I'm not on the appropriate computer, I just want to see some more information - not this suddenly hostile, 'not invited' web page with NO information what I was linked to.

I agree here with Jeff that those pages are unnecessarily unfriendly - I don't give a darn if it's in Apple's interest to push more adoption of iTunes, I'm already a happy customer that doesn't want to be pushed to install it on every computer I touch.

Most often, when I hit that webpage I close it and close the page that linked me to it. No thanks.

There are lots of good points, above - but most of them miss what I see as this core point, that this 'get iTunes' page is unnecessarily unfriendly and is certainly anti-web.

I agree. They'd be much better off showing the information and only bugging the user about software if the user actually wants to buy. A lot of potential customers probably just leave this way.

> But how about software that's more in harmony with the rest of the web?

Apple wants to keep the 'iTunes experience' as simple as possible and for this reason there is some sense in keeping everything inside the 'walls' of iTunes. A second web store running parallel in a browser would confuse that experience for users that just want 'software that works' and for that reason they would be unlikely to do it.

A cool little widget that can play a track sample, show some iTunes data from their server and then jump to iTunes when your ready to buy could exist without muddying up the experience too much. The problem is Apple wont touch Flash, they would be more likely to use another plug-in based on an 'open technology'. I would expect to see more development from Apple in the future on this, eg SproutCore (JavasScript Framework), which Apple are using for their MobileMe service.

I have an iPhone. So I have iTunes, as well. Don't like iTunes at all - on the WinXP platform, it is a buggy POS which almost always fails to terminate when I tell it too (it leaves the iTunesHelper app running which sucks up 50% of processing cycles! You must either reboot or manually the app on your own.)
I really like the iPhone, so I'll deal with iTunes, but I absolutely would not if Apple did not force the issue.

You are right. They could have just as easily provided a way to browse the store, then when you purchase something, make the download an iTunes only delivery package whereby the download automatically launches iTunes and places it in your music list. A lot of software already does this and does it quite well.

It's also very search hostile. Do iTunes tracks ever come up on Google? Seems like they're throwing away money there.

I have to say that I pretty much hate everything about iTunes. It's slow, it silently fails loding mp3 fils that other players have no issues with and doesn't play most audio formats that I use.

And yet, even though I don't use it anymore, I can't escape it because of too many people putting phobos links up for their podcast feeds. This drives me nuts; it's just like MS smart quotes -- even if you don't use the product, the proliferation will still catch up with you. HATE.

On www.gomusic.ru, no special application is required, music isn't held hostage in DRM, and tracks are only about $0.15 each with a 10% discount off that if you buy the whole album. So @#$!% Apple. @#$!% them up their stupid @#$!%&*@ @$$#$.

amarok is better than iTunes.

for just playing music, rhythmbox is better also.

Why doesn't apple want *nix users to have iTunes???

iTunes is a bloated mess. It takes forever to install, load, and find my music. The biggest problem is that it doesn't autodetect new music. It's like living in the dark ages.

I agree with Jeff... I don't want iTunes to have to browse a website. I don't want iTunes when I install Quicktime either, but that's another story for another day...

Silvercode...that's the exacted problem. Proprietary bullsh*t. "After all, you are going to need it if you purchase music from Apple, I think." That's very opposed to the direction that internet media SHOULD be going. I'd consider buying music from iTunes (as I do from Amazon quite often really) if they'd unlock their exclusivity bullsh*t.

Ugh, who cares? Obviously not the millions of people who are using it. What's funny is that even though you hate Apple so much you are still trying to access content provided by them.

I have actually seen a trend where some of the more successful sites online these days require you to install a 3rd party application to get any sort of use out of them.

I'm not talking about flash either, it could easily be argued that these days having flash installed is just as important as having a web browser to browse the web.

I don't really think iTunes needs to be web friendly, the iTunes store was designed to be accessed and used from within itunes, in order to put music onto your ipod. I highly doubt many people without ipods and iphones use iTunes as their source of online music, in which case those people already have iTunes.

If you are using the iTunes store to buy music for your non-apple music device, you should be shot and killed.

"But how about software that's more in harmony with the rest of the web?"

iTunes isn't a web app/site though. It can accept links from the web, but the iTunes store isn't on the web. iTunes is a desktop app that connects to the internet for some features. The only point at which it interacts with the web is when you click on one of those links.

Now imagine that Microsoft had an online music store, and instead of iTunes doing this, it was Microsoft's store.

Do you think that ANY of that Apple ballwashers in here wouldn't be accusing Microsoft of being anti-web?

But it's okay in this case, because iTunes is the only "decent" online music store (except that it isn't) and it's really not that much trouble to download and install iTunes (except that it is).

@Geebs: What ever. I am using iTunes proprietary or not, anti-web or not.

And no one has yet come up with a better overall solution for me. Some alternative suggestions of separate things has been said, though, but I am not convinced enough to change. So Apple stays powerful.

It's not just about Linux, it's also about (Open)Solaris. Apple got some really cool thinks from Sun: ZFS, DTrace and will maybe even take it's kernel. However, Apple doesn't give anything back ;)

Admitted - very few people actually run on a non-Windows box, so Apple probably doesn't have to care about them from an economic view. But I really hate seeing how the web (based on ideas of freely accessible information for anyone) is misused for applications like those.

This wouldn't even be so bad if the iTunes sofware weren't such a bloated behemoth piece of software. There's a peavy duty "ipod helper service" running after installation, even if you don't have an iPod. On top of that, Apple engages in the worst type of installer-behaviour that made everybody hate RealNetworks (for good reason) by installing extra applications, such as the utterly useless Windows version of Safari.

Actually, I've long been of the opinion that all Apple software for Windows has a severe bloat problem. We tend to accuse MS of this, but Apple is a worse offender.

Simple solution. Don't buy Apple.

Jeff,
You obviously haven't bought mp3s from Amazon. You DO have to download and install software to download & purchanse music from Amazon. And the last time I was an emusic subscriber, they had a client I had to use to use for the same.

Sure, I can preview a track at those sites and not at iTunes, but I STILL need some media player or another to do so. Apple happens to use AAC audio for preview. The best AAC player is iTunes. So the other stores don't lock you into their downloader for preview. big deal. Hell, I didn't even know you could get to their store outside iTunes, and it hasn't affected my life up to this point.

Ah well.

A little research, please.

Second Life is anti web because....

*sigh*

The only reason for Apple to serve their iTunes store over the web is if you could buy songs from there, and even they did that, you would need QuickTime installed to play any of these songs, and you would be lacking the authorization UI for managing the DRM (imposed by the music industry).

How well does Wine work with iTunes?

I tend to agree with the point that Apple's Windows software tends to feel bloated—with the possible exception of Safari.

Nazis...

OK, this is your lamest post so far.
Apple made purchasing music of ITMS users as simple as possible. If you don't like it - you can sure find
other places for shopping. Adding extra hassle just to please your strange ideas how ITMS should work - no thanks.
"it is most certainly against everything the web stands for and was built on." Wow, just wow. No, really? Against everything? ITMS must be a huge failure then. Oh, wait…
And I fail to see how ITMS is web. Clicking on irc:// link should bring you to the web page about given channel/user, right?

How about this: http://rimantas.com/misc/zune.png ? And I do not see version for OS X either…

Well, then.

Can't Jeff find his missing album artwork on some other site? Must he be mad at apple for making him install THEIR application just so he can download HIS missing album artwork?

My 2nd point is Jeff's being oblivious to the fact that Apple is pretty well known for not doing to much unless it's on their platform. That's apple, love it or hate it. I am still shocked that they created iTunes for Windows, but I guess they had to increase their market share. But then since you can only play their songs in their iTunes application, if you aren't running Mac or Windows, their is no point allowing you to view the songs if you can't download their application.

I _have_ iTunes installed on my computer, and I still always get that message. I don't think I've ever had a music link successfully open up the relevant page in the iTunes store without me having to hunt for it manually.

Its called forcing people to do something they dont want to do, and then locking them in.. Something that people have been bitching and sueing MS over for years.. Yet for some reason unknown to me, people don't seem to realise Apple are actually doing it too, and in many cases MUCH WORSE.

You shouldnt need software on your machine to visit a god damn website. What if (for sake of argument) I was CONSIDERING getting into the whole iTunes thing? I want to browse their site, OH WAIT, I *HAVE* TO BE INTO THE WHOLE ITUNES THING.

It really, really, really pisses me off! I first encountered the wonder that is iPod/iTunes interop a few years ago, and put simply. THERE IS NO INTEROP - If it aint Apple, it aint gonna work with Apple...

Funny how MS Zune seems to work with everything.. But hey ho..

Actually, this has never happened to me. I guess if these links are regular looking http://www.apple.com/... type links I'd be very disappointed that they resolved to something that my browser couldn't handle. But so what? Apple is a company that thinks form is more important than function. Their primary skills are in the marketing department.

iTunes is one of the worst media players I've used. And on a strict cost-benefit analysis basis, an iPod is a waste of money. The reason they win in the market is because it looks deceptively simple to operate and since very few of us can actually afford the money or time to buy and compare three or four similarly spec'ed mp3 players, people who get iPods are unlikely to criticize the player they are now forced to live with. It's how the brain works.

And of course, once you've bought an iPod, you can't escape easily because your iTunes collection is not in a portable format. So because of the heavy up-front cost of switching (via burn/rip) the iTunes/iPod user will probably never seriously consider a different system.

iTunes is anti-web browser*

*fixed that for you.

Considering the iTunes is the market leader and by all accounts a run away success you may want to consider what makes it so appealing to the majority of customers.

The web is much bigger and more pervasive than people sitting at a computer pushing a mouse around.

Jeff:

You asked "what about the rest of the world" [that doesn't run OS X or Windows]. The answer is, bluntly: they don't matter. Sorry.

I may not agree with that philosophy, but I understand it, and I think you do too. When 98+% of people can be reached by designing for those two operating systems, you simply disregard the chaff as unprofitable.

I agree that iTMS should have a web-based component to it, but I don't see iTunes going away any time soon.

Let's distill this further: "I want identical content in a web, desktop, and mobile experience."

"iTunes is necessary to sync media with Apple's iPods..."

I use Poddox for this. No crappy iTunes software for me! (I don't know of any other apps that work on iPhones, though.)

This is exactly the reason why I never buy anything from Apple. I use reTune to manage my iPod instead of iTunes.

I always think: Their loss if they don't want my money ;)

I'm not much into music and portable player devices, but once I needed iTunes to get music into my celullar phone. So, I installed Vmware, made a virtual image with windows XP then I installed iTunes, it's so easy to get iTunes...

Not to mention that you need an itunes Account, with a valid international credit card number, just to download the cover art!

I don't want this power-to-buy-at-your-fingerprint in the hands of my teenage daughter.

That's Good for Dopisp http://www.mgtek.com/dopisp/

Wow, 90% of the comments written here ridiculous and off-point.

1) Jeff is clearly not bashing Apple for iTunes or any other software they provide
2) The issue is about delivering descriptive content on a web-site to users
3) iTunes sells songs, metadata allows you to decide whether you want a song, they aren't delivering the metadata in a reasonable way
4) YouTube shows videos, videos can't be delivered via HTML/CSS/Javascript, they use flash to accomplish their goals
5) Comparing YouTube videos to iTunes song information is invalid, where as comparing videos to actual songs would be
6) YouTube displays metadata about videos is you don't have flash!!!!

Sorry to add insult to injury, but we're mostly programmers/IT/analysts, right? It's a valid point, and it's structured correctly so I ask you to please reconsider your logic.

Maddox once covered this topic and it says it all: iTunes is the new Real Player.
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=macs_cant

What's that itunes??

iTunes *shivers* One of the worst user experiences I have ever had. I am impressed people actually put up with this. But I guess that's the nice thing for Apple's about its fan boys, they are inherently very forgiving as long as they get a shiny interface.

You may see a virtual stop sign; I see a virtual velvet rope.

Apple and the i* brand have the "cool" cache, so people assume that whatever is behind the velvet rope *must* be worth it.

Installing applications worked for AOL until AOL became a cultural joke. And I think this will work for Apple so long as its brand is strong.

@Silvercode:
does emusic.com works for you in finland?

This is exactly the reason why I never buy anything from Apple. I use reTune to manage my iPod instead of iTunes.

So, you paid Apple money for their hardware, but refuse to use their free software to manage it...

Your little way of "sticking it to the Man?"

Wow. A story about how Apple could improve its iTunes store web presence brings out a Windows/*nix fanboy tag-team pile-up. Whee!

I'd agree, if I was under the belief that Apple/ITMS were actually a web store. But it's not, nor was it intended to be.

Look at the URLs and tell me that the whole web-link-to-iTunes-Music-Store thing wasn't a complete afterthought. It goes to "phobos.apple.com" for heaven's sake, instead of some easily memorable URL. I almost get the impression it wasn't even something Apple really advertised, just something somebody reverse-engineered and splattered all over the internet.

Apple's not selling music over the web. If they were, they'd have a web interface. They're certainly not strangers to such things. This looks and smells, for better or worse, like a calculated move on apple's part. You may not agree with it (I don't, certainly. I'd rather have a web interface) but this is intentional.

(also, why is it that anyone who says "I actually like [apple product x]" is immediately labelled as a drooling apple "fanboy?" My house has one mac, 3 Win machines and a Fedora server, and somehow I'm still an apple fanboy. I don't get it.)

I doono how ppl use Itunes ..Its is a piece of crap . Its heavy , unresponsive ,cannot run on linux/unix , the worst software that apple has produced and I hate that ipods and iphones need itunes for everything .

If it was not for Ipods Itunes would have long gone !

Got some good alternatives for Itunes from the comments Thanks

dont forget the apple store in you neighborhood mall
rudest, snobbiest fan boys are usually working there
did want to take back the ipod I bought from them said I had to ship to apple online store, which does not make any sence

Yaaaayyy! Finally someone with the nerve to holler that the Emperor is butt-naked. I really liked my little K.I.S.S. iPod shuffle, even with the occassional annoyance of iTunes. But I upgraded to a full-blown iPod. And the gilt really flaked off the proverbial gingerbread. Cover art's hit and miss at best. iTunes can't natively import DVDs (a big WTF moment, that). And I frankly find the whole iTunes/iPod experience to be lackluster and half-baked on a good day. IMO, anyone who raves about Apple's so-called design superiority has skipped past the "drinking the Kool-Aid" phase to snorting it straight from the packet.

And +1 to Vishal on the alternatives thanks.

Does this mean stackoverflow will no longer be available through iTunes?

People, he is not complaining about needing iTunes to BUY anything. HE IS NOT BUYING. He is BROWSING. As in, WEB browsing. Amazon does not require you to download sh!t to browse it's site to your hearts content. Nor, in fact, does YouTube! You can still read the comments and all, you just don't get the Video, which is the ONLY thing Flash is REQUIRED for.

He is complaining that he can't use Internet Explorer (or whatever) to browse iTunes, he is required to use iTunes for that.

I'm undecided on how bad this is as a concept - basically what you are saying is that the iTunes store should have a Web front-end with info that you can link from. I suppose so, if you are wanting a page with general music info. But the iTunes store doesn't really have that much info beyond links to the songs (ratings maybe?), so the reason to link to it is to go download songs, and that doesn't happen in a browser for iTunes (though the iPhone manages something similar). Which you can argue whether it's good or bad (a la the amazon example), but it's the setup Apple have been using and based all their deals with the record labels on. The fact that the labels have then done an end-run around Apple to the other stores and allowed them less stringent DRM/downloading rules is more symptomatic of the labels' dislike of the deals they originally made with Apple.

I would say it's more the fault of Apple-lovers who post the links to the songs. Rather than point to a general information page, they point to the iTunes link - maybe they get click-through profit? What I find worse is the fact that the iTunes Store is region-specific, so the links never work for me anyway (I am in the UK). When a blogger links to "Single of the Week" which I actually would want to pop to iTunes to see, I can't look at it because it's from the US Store.

Bah! I blame the record labels as much as anyone, and without iTunes we probably wouldn't have legal amazon downloads, and I certainly wouldn't want to be lumbered with PlaysForSure (except when it doesn't). But I wouldn't be surprised if a web-based Store appeared in the future (albeit with iTunes integration for syncing up the 'pod).

So, you prescribe that Apple maintain 2 storefronts, 1 web, and 1 software based? And since you can't manage your multimedia hardware from the web, you'll then have to use the desktop client anyway. You want Apple to build a neutered client that can't perform the tasks that are generally regarded as the successful, nice to use part of iTunes.

I'm sure they'll get right on that.

Hmm, I just thought that this might link in with the other "cloud" stuff Apple is doing, like MobileMe. There they are syncing the local apps (Mail, Calendar) with a web-based interface/server storage.

While I doubt they will be moving all your music to a server any time soon, you might be able to manage your playlists/purchased music/iTunes Store via a similar interface (again, they do something similar on the iPhone itself for the Store).

At the end of the day, iPod/iTunes/Store is a vertical integration, which Apple will leverage at every opportunity, like the new iPhone Apps, and there they can guarantee you have the "store browser" on the iPhone, and can make it very integrated. Which they probably care about more than random browsing from non-iPod owners.

You have a valid complaint, one that bothers me as well.

As a small suggestion, I would recommend writing an article about something you like about Apple for once. After the other articles you've written, I'm starting to think you are completely anti-Apple (which isn't a very balanced viewpoint.)

Daniel, browse the web as much as you will. ITMS (not iTunes) is not a web site, period.

I would tend to agree with you Jeff, if the website did not clearly mark the link and you were unknowingly taken to itunes.

But if the link is clearly marked, I don't see the problem. In fact if I used Itunes I think that it would be a nice feature.

my 2 cents.

What can you expect from a company that asks for substantial sums of money for a Unix-based operating system?

The criticisms of Jeff are ridiculous. What is wrong with asking, or expecting Apple, to do a better job with their software?

If you're a software developer then you should be promoting good software. If we left it up to the people who believe we should just accept it, or not use iTunes, we’d all still be using AOL.

iTunes isn't a web appilication, it is proprietary rubbish – let’s point that out so they improve it in the future.

Jeff is completely right here.

You know, I've never actually thought of the iTunes store as a web application. Sure, it's an "internet" application, but what is it that makes you associate it with "web?" Had I ever really stopped to think about the nature of the iTunes Music Store, I probably would have described it more as a "remote application that I connect to using a local interface." Yeah...I guess that pretty much describes most websites that you hit in a browser too, but I think it also has the potential to describe a lot more than just websites. In other words, I think "websites" is the sub-set here, and iTunes (and other apps like it, if there are any), are something "other." Wow...that probably got really garbled going from my brain to my keyboard, but I hope it makes some little bit of sense.

I don't need iTunes to sync an iPod. I sync my music and podcasts to my iPod nano in Ubuntu Linux with Gnome using RhythmBox (http://www.gnome.org/projects/rhythmbox/).. Works great. :)

"That's all well and good for people who own iPods and iPhones -- and happen to be running Windows or OS X, I suppose.

But what about the rest of the world?"

Seriously? If you're trying to sell music or movies, the rest of the world simply *doesn't* *matter* because Apple has all of the market share (or close enough as to count). Sure, it might be nice to link to Amazon, too, for some of it, but even they often require custom software, so what of it?

You've got a classic chicken-and-egg problem. It doesn't make sense for people to provide alternatives to these options becaue the other options don't have enough market share--but since no one supports the other options, they aren't used.

There's really no use in complaining about the logical result of following market forces. If it bothers you so much, then take some time off from stackoverflow to create an iPod/iTunes killer

And good luck: no one else seems to have had much.

iTunes - this_crap + Open Web = Songbird.

>> Ever find yourself clicking on links to music or videos and getting blasted in the face with this delightful little number?

Actually, no. I'm not an iPod owner, nor do I have iTunes installed. What kind of link gets me to that stop sign?

> What can you expect from a company that asks for substantial sums of
> money for a Unix-based operating system?

Because all Unixes are free! Except for the fact that's NOT TRUE.

Seriously folks, keep up the FUD. It's highly amusing.

> But how about software that's more in harmony with the rest of the web?

I'm surprised somebody has a dream that there is some kind of harmony in the web! As a business entity anybody (including Apple) has the right to devise a method to entice money from the rest of population. Maybe that method does not work for you, but it clearly works for many others within the target market. To Apple, that's good enough.

Jeff,

you have to consider the target audience. Same people who bought into a sluggish OS shrink-wrapped in a colorful plastic shell have also bought into iTunes lockdown. Controlling the user experience makes a lot of sense, not just for Apple.

Look what mess Microsoft has to deal with because they are *not* controlling the user experience (by letting third parties sell bad hardware with Vista).

Web is one thing. The business of running a company and keeping customers coming back for more controlled experience, quite another.

Apple is a consumer-oriented company, not a geek-oriented company(although a lot of consumers pretend to be geeks by booting up OS X and criticizing Vista and Microsoft even though they have no clue what they are talking about).

Come to think of it, have you looked at Microsoft Update lately? Or the patches that mess up Outlook?

Great link to that Obasanjo blog about Web 2.0 annoyances. I stopped reading some news site because of all the flying widgets, ridiculous ads and slow performance. I even cancelled all online subscriptions to newspapers. Why? Even as a paying subscriber, I still have to look at dumb ads. I paid you once already, dude. Just give me the content.

Have you tried purchasing anything like the Spore Creature Creator at the EA store? You have to install a special app to download. That app REQUIRES IE and Flash in order to work.

Of course, guess what that fancy little download app also does... it prevents the game you downloaded, from actually running until you uninstall the downloader.

I hate Apple but...

> Tunes is required to browse or buy anything from the iTunes Store.

Well DUH!

You're completely the edge case here, man.

I hope you don't visit any pages, that requirue the use of Flash, or even worse Shockwave, or even much worse, MS Silverlight. Guess what, you will need to install "custom software" to use these pages - yup, unbelievable - and pages that require Flash to work properly exist since 19.. well, I'm not sure, but they exist for a very a long time.

@Bernard

Trust: I went to emusic-site, but it looks very amateurish site, so my first impression was, "no, I don't trust this crap". Then I noticed that there is "Europe"-text in it, so it might be quite ok. But then again there is big "free songs"-signs, which makes me think "its a trap!", because I know there is lots of spam and hoaxes moving in the internet.

Also, what is emusic anyway? I know Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft, but "emusic"? The site doesn't show me any company information at first page but a huge screen "free downloads!!" Hmm... maybe its just spam after all. Then I read the small text "just cancel before the trial period ends". And what if I just forget to cancel it? Are they going to bill me forever until I check my bills history? Maybe its a trap after all?

Alright, I don't trust the site. So I am happy with iTunes, which I trust.

I check the about-page of emusic and see that I need to be 25 years or older. Fine, I am, but not everyone is. Then, blaa blaa, biggest, best, blaa blaa.

Cost: Ah, the subscription based billing. I don't buy lots of music, I only listen the best songs there ever has been and I like. And I remember now that I might have checked emusic earlier too, but gave up just because it has the subscription based billing. The cost is not an issue, but I don't like to pay monthly and be force feeded songs through my ears. I would have to buy music worth of 14 euros, that is 14 songs a month. I don't buy that many, and because emusic is cheaper, I would get 30 songs a month. That is too much. I buy 1 to 12 songs a month, not 30.

Yes, it would be a good idea to subscribe anyway and just buy a little bit more, but I am not quite convinced yet.

Songs: Emusic has for example "Swords In the Wind" from Manowar, which I thought was not in iTunes, but it is after all.
A bit more difficult: Artist: Lee Jung Hyun. No, its not in emusic, though not in iTunes either. I had to order a CD for that from Amazon.

iTunes has browse-feature, that has subgenres, where trance is under dance. Clicking Dance opens subgenres, and clicking Trance opens artists in less than a second. iTunes browse feature is not yet perfect, though, but its good. I mostly use iTunes Power Search where I just input song name or artist.

emusic browsing is just fine maybe, though it looks a bit messier. And then when I went to electronic and trance, it listed some albums, but in the way a web site usually lists them, only a handful at a page at a time. Some 240 pages, how I select for example page 100 when there is no link to it? Good that it shows the album pictures though. I then selected artists-tab, but I found some rock instead of trance music, so that was somewhat confusing.

Looks: iTunes looks cooler and so also better so far. Prelistening works ok in emusic too, but it is still just some web site, not a cool application, like iTunes. I think iTunes is more like a browser, a music browser, itself though its also an application. Pretty advanced and neat, I would say.

Overall impression: emusic looks somewhat not so pro as iTunes, though I start to see emusic might have a chance.

But, why change? Emusic can't even play the songs. iTunes can. I have Winamp, but it has such a messed up user interface that I don't want to use it. I prefer iTunes. Is there any better player? Also I might as well buy the songs from iTunes, while I am using it.

I might be reasonable and buy my songs from emusic anyway to get cheaper and DRM free songs, but I am not some poor guy who needs to save few dollars to stay in food. I value practicality over going to some other service and buying from there. So no, I am not using emusic, even though I admit that it might be wiser to use it and I might, but I won't. So Apple wins this time here with quality and usability.

I totally agree with your thoughts on iTunes & apple. Although I only owned a iPod for a few weeks, it was such a mess to deal with. Everything they do requires me to change my style or habits... I hated the fact that I had to change my all my mp3's to mp4's just so they'd work, and what did that do? It doubled my hard drive space, and confused the hell out of the way I organized my music. The entire sync process blows, and really I don't understand how people find it is easy to use. I guess making controls in a circle improves usability? Screw iPods and it's iTune mother. It's all a big marketing plot that blinds people into thinking they got something extremely awesome. In all reality, Apple has the ability to make an AWESOME product, but would rather slowly implement 'new' functions to hose everyone out of their money... I'm not agreeing with the zune, I'm simply stating how horrible these top mp3 player providers blow, along with their gimicks and service.

I enjoy using iTunes, but it is a giant, bloated application. If I'm doing anything else on the computer, I generally open WinAmp to listen to music instead.

Of course, I can do this because I avoid DRM'd music. I buy CDs (to rip) or MP3s. I can use iTunes, or not - and I won't watch my music sink with the ship if iTunes/iPods ever go extinct.

To me, being locked IN to use iTunes is far scarier than being locked OUT.

The Retune site seems to be down, can anyone give me a link to a mirror so I can download?

Thanks

I have iTunes and I completely agree. Apple is really missing the boat on this one. If I want to buy some music at lunch why can't I use my comptuter at work (no iTunes) to buy the music, and then let my iTunes at home download it later when I get home, or at purchase time if it happens to be up and running and detects that I purchased some music? A lot of stores make money on impulse buys. It would seem that not only is this behavior anti-web, but it is not very innovative and is probably loosing Apple money.

The less-than-1% Linux desktop market share A) can't usually get their audio drivers working, and B) are all pirates, anyway. Linux users don't pay for software or music. There's zero value and a lot of work to get them brought into iTunes. Forget about that.

So, what might satisfy you here would be a web-page summary of the item, if it can't launch iTunes. That's a pretty useful addition, and you should suggest it as an enhancement at http://bugreport.apple.com/

I have an iPod Touch. I installed iTunes. I don't like to use iTunes. I've had a computer since the early '80s, starting with the old Atari 8 bit line. I don't like the iTunes business model. I don't like that Apple has DRM on what they sell you through iTunes.

I therefore go to Amazon if I want to get music for my iPod Touch. iTunes doesn't get my business.

What I find somewhat amusing is that if Apple had made the iTunes Store *exactly* like most Flash web sites, then this blog post probably wouldn't exist—because Apple wouldn't even *have* a mechanism to link to a specific spot in their store. They even went the extra mile and put up an explanatory page, instead of letting the browser give you an error message (as it would if they had create some custom scheme like itunes:\\).

I see your point—Apple should produce a full-fledged browser-based UI for those who just want to buy a song or two and who already have QuickTime—but it still amuses me.

The reason why Apple doesn't play nice with the web is because (they think) they don't have to. Their brand culture is that they are better, aesthetically superior to everyone else. They are in the fashion business as much as they are in the technology business. Anything they do that makes them like everyone else erodes the notion that Apple has something special and different and worth paying a premium for.

The AOL comparison is apt. When AOL first came out, the web was a scary place for novices. AOL said, "Don't worry about all that tech-geeky stuff -- just run the installation from our CD, and you'll be on the internet and getting e-mail!" It worked until people realized that there was a much bigger world out there that wasn't so scary after all, and we didn't need AOL to hold our hands. But even though AOL is a general punch-line now, and probably always was to us geeks, it was very successful with the strategy for long enough that the name of the merged company was *AOL*-Time-Warner.

Apple's doing the same thing. Your non-geeky sister doesn't want to have to deal with organizing MP3's, and putting them in a file system. Apple comes along and says, "don't worry, just by out beautiful machine with 3 buttons on it to play your music, and download our program for organizing and buying more music. We'll take care of all the messy details for you." And people continue to buy it until they realize they're being held back.

But I think it will take more to bring down the Apple brand than it did to bring down the AOL brand.

Most of the time I think Apple is ahead of the game, but you're absolutely right on this score. The real question is not about how they screwed up the web links (which are a pain) but why they don't want to show off their wares to everyone.

I get that they don't want to sell through the web so they can DRM everything, but at least give people who aren't using iTunes a reason to start. Before I downloaded iTunes, I know Apple missed out on a few sales simply because I didn't want to bother with the app... I just wanted to browse first.

"although I would argue syncing should really be a fundamental, built in function of the operating system."

I think it's called a file system. Or, at least it would be if they did use mp3s.

Really, c'mom?!
You're complaining about a link that some developer choose to link to.

This whole article is so childish.

codinghorror.com, deleted from bookmarks.

"IMO, anyone who raves about Apple's so-called design superiority has skipped past the 'drinking the Kool-Aid' phase to snorting it straight from the packet."

+1 to cubiclegrrl for that great quote.

Plenty of people have covered the amazon downloader thing so I'll just add that as a rabid mac/apple user going back to system 6, this "iTunes as a platform" thing apple is doing is currently one of my top complaints about OS X and apple. Adding a store to my media player was bad enough, but now I have to use my media player to update my portable phone? Wha?

Ditto on the podcast comment. I wanted to subscribe to someone's podcast and was presented with that lovely screen. I own a Zune - I have no desire to install iTunes for any reason and don't need it. I contacted the site owners and went back and forth several times before they finally understood that I just wanted the link to the Podcast so I could subscribe in something other than iTunes. I finally got it, but it took a while to communicate.

Just give us the link - don't make us go through iTunes to get the details.

Have to agree with ssp... It's the "fault" of the website that linked to iTMS.

Apple does not cater to everyone (call it arrogance or niche-market targeting or whatever); so if you don't belong to their quite narrow target audience, they won't want you to buy a Mac, and they won't want you to buy at iTMS.

In the end, the website that linked to iTMS either didn't understand that philosophy, or they did understand it and followed it themselves. In the latter case that would be a sign that you were visiting a page that didn't want you as visitor :-)

If you want to look at the Olympic games in yout PC you'll need Silverlight:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Microsoft-Takes-the-Silverlight-Adobe-Flash-Race-to-the-2008-Olympic-Games-75544.shtml

I don't need silverlight to watch videos over the net so I don't understand why I'll need it this time

"I have Winamp, but it has such a messed up user interface that I don't want to use it."

That's subjective. I think Winamp's interface is much better than iTunes, as it allows you to have a "playlist" as well as a media library, rather than iTunes's one big playlist. Though I do have to say that foobar2000 is better than Winamp, as you can customize it to look like anything you want. On all OS's though, Amarok is the best. I don't think I could use Winamp or even foobar2000 regularly after being spoiled by Amarok ;)

The windows iTunes is the suk of suk. For the longest time iTunes wasn't supported on x64 windows. Want to know why? http://www.hanselman.com/blog/InstallingITunes7On64bitWindowsVista.aspx

Hardcoded paths looking for Quicktime in c:\Program Files

My opinion is they could care less.

@ Silverlight :
"I don't need silverlight to watch videos over the net so I don't understand why I'll need it this time"

You need it for live video streaming. Good luck streaming live HD video with anything else.

@Jeff
iTunes is a content delivery system. Not a web browser and not a media player(as it's primary function). Since the media needs to be delivered in a manner that the music industry (as of 7 years ago) is ok with, it couldn't be "web friendly". At some point you would need to leave the web and use the client.

That Apple requires it's own application instead of using say flash on a web page, is Apple norm. From their perspective there is no need to create multiple ways to view the media, just use the desktop version, whats the issue? See in Apple land and on Mac OSx, there aren't the same security and trust issues with Desktop applications. In their environment it's a non issue to use a specific client.

Its not like the windows environment where there are a million crappy little media players all over the wild, some are spyware some just buggy. And installing one puts itself in startup, establishes itself as the app to handle a million file types(breaking other associations you want to keep), messes up the registry, and overwrites drivers.

Of COURSE as a windows users we don't want to "install" a client that we don't trust and has the power during installation to mess up EVERYTHING on the machine. But that is a windows problem.

From a mac user, "who cares".

I don't see your problem with iTunes. IMO, it seems logical that if you're on the iTunes store (as in the STORE for *ITUNES*), you need the software to actually buy anything.

This is no different from Steam, Vuze, BitTorrent etc.

What is wrong with having a all in one application that does its job really well rather than having this omg-i-need-a-browser-to-do-my-laundry-online-or-else-it-is-crap mentality.

"I don't need silverlight to watch videos over the net so I don't understand why I'll need it this time"

Silverlight is a Flash competitor. Usually you need Flash to watch videos online, but you probably installed it so long ago you forgot about it.

It's not like video is native to html, dude.

@anon: I went to Amarok site, but looks like its for Linux only. Then I noticed its for Windows too in version 2.0. I downloaded it, but its just the source. I don't want to start fiddling around with makefiles and compilers, can't they just have 1 exe file? And its only an alpha version, its not even ready. Apple wins.

Boo frickin' hoo.

iTunes is a client app, not a web app. One reason I suspect Apple designed it this way is to have one place where you can buy music AND sync it with your Apple devices. You can't do that from a web page, period. You may want the option to browse tracks from your browser, or iTunes, or maybe even a web services API, but most people just want their music to show up on their iPod. The less thought required, the better. This approach to design is precisely why Apple owns the digital music market.

"Is it so unreasonable to expect links in your browser to resolve to, oh, I don't know, web pages containing information about the thing you just clicked on?"

Them's fighting words, coming from a guy with a mailto: link on his webpage.

I could not agree more Jeff. If Apple can build a MobileMe rich web front-end for mails, contacts, etc., they certainly can build a web store frontend for iTunes. It's like Steve is doing what Bill Gates did with PCs. Create a closed ecosystem.

I actually don't know why you are surprised about this. Apple is one of the most closed sourced companies ever in the IT industry and if they could, they would make you buy any kind of Apple Hardware/Software so that you can use your computer. Let's see when they gain more market share...

It's part of their business model.

I'm sorry to see so many people who disagree with you on this point, Jeff. Apple is definitely shooting themselves in the foot doing this sort of thing--they should at the very least put up some info about the song and allow you to play a sample without downloading iTunes, then if you decide it's compelling enough to download, have them install it. And it's not like they couldn't still support the direct link to the iTMS doing things that way--iTunes users would still get the link loaded in iTunes.

Me? I've pretty much switched to Amazon MP3 for just about all of my downloads lately. I can see and hear samples right on the web page and download music that I don't have to later burn to a CD and rip just to play on my non-iPod player. Apple just can't match the Amazon experience for me, and probably never will, since I refuse to buy into locked-down platforms.

iTunes is nothing without the app only features of local cataloging and playback of music. your assertion that this breaks the web is rediculous.

The Market will sort this out.

Next topic.

iTunes is the worst software I have ever used. Vista + iTunes seems like the absolute worst combination of software I can imagine... how depressing after 25 years of software development that this is where we are at now... ;(

"I don't need silverlight to watch videos over the net so I don't understand why I'll need it this time"
Because it's currently the best at handling video. For a new site who's main role is for streaming video it's arguably a smart choice.

"This is no different from Steam, Vuze, BitTorrent etc."
Except it is. With Steam I can go to http://storefront.steampowered.com/ from any browser, navigate it how I'm used to (rather than a thin veil over IE), see what games Steam has and whether I'd want to download and install Steam. I can link my friend to a cool game which she can then look at, assess and decide whether she wants it before having to invest in Steam.

I can go to http://www.vuze.com/content/FeaturedContent.html and browse what they have to offer, find related content and even watch low quality previews. Again, in the manner that I'm used to, with all the webberisms of being able to give anyone a link, being able to bookmark, scale the text, use my favourite screen reader, use greasemonkey to inject html, use adblock if Im so inclined, content protect against pornographic or violent content for my children etc.

And indeed with bittorrent I can use a whole multitude of browser friendly front-ends.

There is nothing about the *browsing* side of the iTunes store which is intrinsicly tied to having a rich client. The interface would only be marginally different on the web (it wouldn't have the split pane) and I could browse it in a way that is more comfortable to me (with my funky Firefox navigation plugins etc.), link people to it more easily and they can assess whether they want to invest their time or not, have it crawled by search engines etc.

Of course it's up to them what business model they chose, and if it works they win and if it doesn't they lose. But AOL won for a long time, yet we all feel sorry for the poor saps that got sucked into it. Using the browser to display your content gives you so many benefits, more than you can possibly think of let alone implement in your custom client. Yes, it's more profitable for Apple to close it off and have more control over it but it doesn't mean it should necessarily be followed and it certainly doesn't mean it can't be criticised for not giving the user the benefits of the browser.

>Ironic how when Apple locks someone out of their closed-to-all-but-the-enlightened platform, the choice is viewed as a business decision, but when someone can't get Widget X developed by Company Y to work right with Microsoft platforms, it's considered a monopoly and an attack on free thought whatnot.

Agreed. People hop on the "let's hate microsoft" bandwagon without realizing that, while they definitely are a company trying to make money and aren't perfect by any means, Apple is the one entirely built around encasing their users in their products. Besides the tired iTunes/iPod argument, there's the requirement to run Mac OS only on hardware purchased from Apple. By this I mean you can't buy the Mac OS separately to install on your custom built computer.

LOL, classic! I've been waiting for a good post from you lately, and boy did you deliver.

I just love it how these Apple addicts diss Microsoft for allegedly attempting to "monopolize the industry", whilst they become digitally enslaved by Steve Jobs. Hence the term "Mactard"; too slow to see the light. Oh, and have you ever used iTunes? What a flaming pile of shit that "software" is!

Get a grip, Apple fanboys, you are part of the problem.

Great post, Jeff!

@ People equating this to Flash, Silverlight, etc...

Flash, Silverlight, etc, are nothing like what is being discussed here...

This is the same idea as a website that requires you download their custom Web Browser before you can look at any of their content.

I've even seen it before with some sites that take their love of FireFox a little too far and refuse to serve up content unless you are using the FireFox browser.

The web has become successful because you don't need to download a custom viewer or special software to view a site. That's all he's suggesting here is iTunes goes against the "spirit of the web".

You have flash player installed, or do you not go to youtube? As for Amazon, go ahead and disable javascript on your machine and see how far you get.

Click on Todays Deal. What do you get...
In order to view Lightning Deals, you need to enable javascript on your browser

This is no defense of having to have an application (aside from a browser) installed to go to a site, but it is not without precedence.

Ah, more ammo for my anti-Apple hate. Though there is one thing to keep in mind (and if it's mentioned in prior comments... well I didn't read them) If you are on a Mac, you have iTunes installed from the factory. Not that it's an excuse, because the last time I checked, the web was for everyone!

omg! apple is stealing the interwebs! oh noes!

"I own a macbook, I've used iTunes, it's a heavy, non-working, closed down, cpu-hogging behemoth. Worst application ever."

Hmm.. Must have been a long time since you last used iTunes. Right now, iTunes 7.7 is using around 126 MB of memory on my Macbook. That's about half of Firefox. And as for CPU usage playing a full-screen mp4 movie uses around 20% CPU on my 2.2 GHz Intel Macbook.

Maybe an update of iTunes is due on your machine?

I do like this post, one of your best rants yet!

Though it does break down in the "if you happen to be running windows or mac os x" because well, most people will be. For us "freetards" as one lovely poster calls me, there's basically little options other than just torrenting stuff anyway, since DRM is so pervasive as to make it impossible to get to the content.

I mostly buy cds and rip them myself, but this being the 21st century and all I wish I didn't have to run to the record store to get a hold of what is basically digital information on a shiny plastic disk. Not to mention having to check carefully if you're not dealing with DRM on the disk as well.

I usually like the subject matter posted here, but not this time. Is it really an issue that one must download software to use iTunes? I don't know ... maybe it is a Windows' users thing.
I guess as many people pointed out, iTunes is making apple a good bit of money despite being so anti-web.

ah, this topic is not at all interesting.

What is happening here Jeff?

Wow. Anti-MS rants don't hold a candle to the incoherent ravings of the anti-Apple crowd here. Jeff, please stick to programming issues rather than starting another holy war. Hint: the iTunes store works with iTunes. Always has, (likely) always will. It was never meant to cater to people who don't want iTunes.

If you don't mind being locked in to Apple and/or Windows then drink the kool-aide. Otherwise, be like the rest of us and use Linux and shop in places that support the level of openness you desire.

It is pointless to single out Apple because in one way or another ALL commercial operating systems do what ever they can to lock you in to their product. I've used OS X and Windows, but now I choose Linux (when I'm not at work. Find what works for you and leave everyone else to their own devices (no pun intended).

And what's worse is that once you've installed iTunes, every time it does an update, Safari is ticked by default as a program to update (i.e. install) even if you don't have it installed! Even Microsoft Update isn't that bad!

This is what you're all missing: DRM.

I believe this may have been the Apple team's thinking:

1) Browse songs
2) Purchase from web
3) Force download of itunes to listen

= SUPPORT NIGHTMARE + ANGRY CUSTOMERS when it doesn't work

Downloading iTunes first means that tech issues are sorted out well before someone buys something.

Anyone who's ever worked in customer service knows that anger comes only AFTER money has been spent.

Just a thought.

I honestly understand why Apple wants you to have iTunes. They want you to by an iPod and preferably an Apple computer. Apple wants to appear selling luxury and discrimination is one way to do that.

What I can't understand is why iTunes Music Store functions almost like a web site, but SUCKS IN EVERY CONCEIVABLE WAY. It's like a 90's web site in Nescape's first beta browser used with 1200 baud dial-up connection. Only slower and harder to use.

Why, Apple? Why? Why do you hate your music buying customers so much?

I thought this was relevant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxQS_3A7_Fc

"I honestly understand why Apple wants you to have iTunes. They want you to by an iPod and preferably an Apple computer. Apple wants to appear selling luxury and discrimination is one way to do that."

It saddens me that most 'normal' computer users think Apple macs are the coolest thing. The reason they 'just work' is because the apple hardware doesn't vary as much as a PC. This makes them better than a PC but so much worse.

The integrated-store idea may have seemed great at the time (both from a marketing and from an ease of use point of view), but as far as I am concerned, they'd have a more usable and successful store (think of all the search engine referrals Amazon must be getting) had they set up a normal web store (downloads could still have been handled in iTunes).

Jeff,

You're absolutely correct, of course.

OTOH another way to look at this is: Apple is treating the rest of the world the way Apple users have been treated since the dawn of the User-Agent string. If I had a nickel for every bank that wanted me to switch to Windows just so I could use their online banking ... well, I'd have 15 or 20 cents anyway.

http://axoplasm.blogspot.com/2007/11/and-now-brief-message-from-netflix.html

FWIW, and I'm speaking here as a pretty big Apple fan, I've switched to Amazon mp3 for pretty much all my online music purchases, but I still listen to them in iTunes.

"@anon: I went to Amarok site, but looks like its for Linux only. Then I noticed its for Windows too in version 2.0. I downloaded it, but its just the source. I don't want to start fiddling around with makefiles and compilers, can't they just have 1 exe file? And its only an alpha version, its not even ready. Apple wins."

I don't see you trying to use beta versions of iTunes, so why are you trying to use a beta version of Amarok? That's completely idiotic. Amarok 2.0 is nowhere near ready for regular usage by Linux users, let alone Windows or Mac users. Try foobar2000.

"Using iTunes I can find something online, buy it and have it on my ipod in about three clicks.. "

My Zune does it in just two clicks..

@Non sequitur

"The Market will sort this out"

mod+1

Use what you like & let capitalism pick the winner. The gummint's not forcing me to use my OS, and Apple's not forcing me to buy from iTMS. (They do, however, make it very very easy.)

The problem I have with the "One Moment Please." dialog, is that it doesn't give an option to not install iTunes; either you already have it or want to download it.

Of course, you can cancel by clicking back on the browser, but not making it an explicit option seems coercive.

WOW. That AOL screenshot really brings me back.
Aah.. nostalgia :)

the problem with the whole having to install itunes thing, as stupid as it is, is that i have it installed on a computer, and still get blasted with that garbage because it cant find itunes.

if you are going to force users to your will, at least make sure it works first

ITunes (and Apples in general) are for people who don't know anything about computers. People like us shouldn't concern ourselves with it.

yep, Amarok is awesome.
I love hooking it into last.fm for radio play by artist or category groupings.

with Wine and Amarok, no one should have any need for windows or mac.

:)

weird, I've just been trying to buy gift vouchers for a birthday pressie , refused to install the software as it reminded me of AOL & then I saw this article :) Apple have just lost out on £25 of my hard earned cash! lol :p

Add me to the "Happily own a Zune and don't have to put up with all that crap" list.

I was talking about this just today over coffee.
I truly despise iTunes, and Apple's snobbish stance of not letting anyone access anything on ipods. It is by far, the worst software app written by Apple, and trust me, I really like the way it works.

The answer to itunes freedom, is freedom from drm. Until Apple's drm is around, we will have to suffer itunes. I sure hope they atleast try to fix performance issues when managing any decent sized collection (4/5 G of music).

> Now imagine that Microsoft had an online music store, and instead of iTunes doing this, it was Microsoft's store.

> Do you think that ANY of that Apple ballwashers in here wouldn't be accusing Microsoft of being anti-web?

LOL! Yeah, it appears this comment thread has attracted the ire of the I-digg-stories-about-AT&T-being-evil-but-I-was-waiting-in-line-on-release-day-for-an-iPhone Apple fandom.

Flash and Acrobat aren't the same as what TFA is saying. Flash is properly used on public websites as value-added content. Sites which require Flash deserve and get this same criticism, except in very particular instances (such as intranets) where decrees about requiring software are acceptable. An exception to this is Flash's being hijacked as a video delivery platform, which is mostly due to H.264 (aka a non-sucking universally supported video format) being WAAAY late to the party.

The long, protracted user-hostile pissing contest between Microsoft, Apple, and Real Networks that occurred before it produced three media players that were extremely noisy, invasive, irritating to use, and notoriously bloated. Not to mention, none of the content for one would ever work in either of the other two. Flash succeeded in this space because A) it always works, and B) when you close your browser, Flash GOES AWAY.

PDF, on the other hand, is a file format, and Acrobat is the application you use it with. It's like linking to a ZIP file or something; a downloadable format. The fact that you often get PDF files from the web, and that Acrobat installs a browser plugin to make PDFs more "web-like" on most platforms is completely orthogonal. You can still *actually get the content* without Acrobat, potentially to transport it somewhere else or open it later, perhaps even with a different program.

ITMS doesn't have either of these "graceful degradation" characteristics: the site is not even trivially unusable for it's intended purposes without iTunes.

So how about it Jeff, is netflix anti-web?

http://axoplasm.blogspot.com/2007/11/and-now-brief-message-from-netflix.html

Will we be reading about this?

@John,

"the problem with the whole having to install itunes thing, as stupid as it is, is that i have it installed on a computer, and still get blasted with that garbage because it cant find itunes."

This is odd.
Are you sure it is not your OS? No! It could not be? What am I thinking? Vista? No. No way. ..... no, it could not.

Download iTunes & quit your bitchin!

Don't totally agree. Although Apple makes us install iTunes to do pretty much everything, it is one of the main reasons they have been able to accelerate the growth of their product. Sure it's a little unfair, but Apple balances it out with an amazing user experience once its products are installed. This is why you don't see so many people complaining about what their monopolizing strategies.

Just go to Bittorrent, download what you want and upload it to your laptop/phone/blackberry.

that's MyTune :) anyway.

To all the imbeciles crying about the Netflix not working without Windows, please do us a favor by shutting the hell up. You should be used to not being able to use the best software on your Macs. Sure the web is for everyone, but if they create wonderful plugins that function amazingly on Windows but can't work on other systems, they've decided to target the largest user-base (which is easier to develop for). Windows always has and always will have better software, undoubtedly. While this great software can and often is ported to be functional on a Mac (eg. Microsoft Office), the experience is not the same. It sucks. I know, I've used it all. Windows software does more than "just work", it slaves. Linux is fine, but you have to be hardcore for that. Mac is just lame. Bottom line. And my first three years of computer experience was on a Mac. Things have changed.

@Josh Stodola: nice troll. The bad news is - either your computer experience is less than 8 years or you have no idea what OS X is and how it works.
Things have changed, no doubt.

The past few years I have been irritated to no end by Microsoft apologists justifying Microsoft's behavior to great extent. Today I am seeing Apple apologists and extremists, where while the apologists say that "that's just how Apple is", extremists are plotting to burn Jeff at the stake.

All of this software-as-religion crap is just making me puke.

Yeah its terrible companies making you install applications...

like
Mozilla plug ins
adobe
flash
google toolbar
any torrent site

Its part of web life... some things have a better experience or require a client side install

It's annoying, but hardly surprising, that Apple carries over its proprietary walled-garden mindset into anything it can. They have always been about locking you into their software using their hardware and their hardware using their software. They'll even sue your ass in a trice if you try to do anything about it.

In retrospect, it's a little surprising they allow third parties to write Mac applications without at least being "certified" a la Nintendo cartridges.

This has NOTHING to do with Apple. The iTunes links in of themselves are not a bad thing when they are used appropriately, aka when you want to specifically link someone to a media item WITHIN the iTunes client (and let them know that)

The problem here is the idiot who is linking to an "launch iTunes store" link instead of any of the hundreds of websites that have album/movie/etc information pages. Obviously they could easily link to a media product on Amazon.com's webstore.

I don't agree that Apple should republish all of their iTunes store content to the web just so you can link to it.

Jeff, you are absolutely right. But >>Hey, "it just works". Except when it doesn't.<< is a bit over the top. I mean, there are also PDF links and Word (DOC) links, but they don't degrade gracefully as iTunes links...

About this blog: there are too much comments. Can't you make an option like "show comments of Jeff only"? Now I have too scroll and scan for comments with a distinct colored background.

I *hate* the iTunes store and the lack of Paypal support for anywhere that isn't in the US.

It's also a really bloated program on Windows and it's annoying to have to be thrown one of these stop signs - it's happened too many times and all it does is make me navigate away and give up on the product.

@Rhywun - logic not your strong point?

No where in the following statement -

"What can you expect from a company that asks for substantial sums of money for a Unix-based operating system"

- does it state or imply that all Unix-based operating systems are free.

I was pointing out that a company willing to charge its customers $129 for a unix-based operating system is clearly not the benign IT company that some would have us believe.

You’ve clearly illustrated that there are too many people out there lapping up the FUD from Apple.

@Silvercode:

Oh, yeah. The only two ways one can get music for a portable replayer is by buying it online, or by stealing it (did I say steal? Oh my god! It wasn't on purpose!) Of course, it is out of question to rip the music from an old CD, cassette tape or vynil that you legitimately purchased in the past. Also, you can't upload self-created content (I used to compose some music with my MSX computer in the past, for example). And, oh, well, maybe you don't believe it, but there is free music on the Internet (yes: free, gratis).

BTW you should take a trip to Spain. Here, donwloading music is legal as long as it is for personal use and you don't try to sell it again. Yes, even commercial music.

And, well, I think that I don't need to mention Linux already.

I believe there is a growing resentment against apple, too many walled gardens and apple taxes, essentially they are too greedy. I was all set to get an apple laptop, but the more I looked into it the more I decided screw them, too many constraints and lock-ins.

@mickewans

I dont't agree with all the points. Let me show:

Mozilla plug ins - use Opera and you won't have to install plugins
PDF - there is plenty of software to read them, not just Adobe Reader
Google toolbar - why would I need it?
Any torrent site - again, use Opera and you'll be able to do without a standalone client

The only thing you have to install anyway is probably Flash. But at least you understand the reason.

iTunes is the only reason not ot buy iPod. I've used Nexx, Creative, Sony Ericsson devices, they all have drawbacks, of course, but all of them work with WMP. Unless Apple stops forcing me to use iTunes, I will do my best not to buy iPod. I dont't like being forced to do something .

I don't really see the issue, I guess. If I click on an FTP link, I expect my FTP client to run. If I click on a mailto: link, I expect my mail client to run. If I click on an iTunes link, I expect iTunes to start. If I don't want to start iTunes, I don't click on the link; it's just a link, after all.

Flash is much worse. There are web sites which don't work at all without Flash. I've never seen a web site that did not work without iTunes.

"I have trouble with installing iTunes—it doesn't work on Linux."

http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iAppId=1347 suggests it does work on Linux (via Wine), but, it's a bit buggy. If Apple's Windows port had been a little more attentive to the standard Windows API, it might have had performed better.

Okay, so to get back to the real point of your post Jeff (which unfortunately many people have strayed away from), which is that you would have to get another program to follow some links that some people put on the web (and thus "exit" the web). I find your reaction a bit short-sighted, but not wrong.

Indeed you have not problem with the mere existence of iTunes as a desktop app, and that one can access the iTunes store through it. Surely you have no problem with the mere existence of an url scheme (itms://) to directly be able to access some place in that system, that is why $DEITY invented the protocol part of the URL. The equivalent http:// urls that get you the "unable to find iTunes on your computer" are perhaps less nice, but let's remember that this message itself is a massive improvement over the wonderful "The webpage cannot be displayed" that you get with an unknown URL scheme, such as itms:// if iTunes isn't installed. So your problem would be that people all around the web blindingly post links to iTunes content with the misguided assumption that everyone obviously has iTunes, and if they don't, that they just will install it, right? That is indeed a problem, and I wish people would indicate iTunes links a bit better, a good way I've seen some people do is to have the link be this image: http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/images/iTunes.gif (or a variant thereof). Though I have iTunes installed, I prefer not to switch to iTunes during my web browsing unless I want to, so this annoys me too; I spot these links by watching out for the "phobos" at the start of the URL. The worst of these are people who link to iTunes for a podcast, when they could just as well link to the rss directly, as the iTunes listing of podcasts is just a (convenient, if you want to browse them) proxy for the real thing.

But, you say, since many people are using it, since it's so great that people are using it for reference, then it ought to be acessible with a browser, at least to, precisely, browse it, and perhaps listen to samples, right? Well, I think they should indeed try to make it acessible from the web. But providing the rich experience of the iTunes store in a browser (even minus a few features) is hard (imagine the maintenance and support nightmare with the different browsers and their varying level of support for dynamic stuff), and five years ago it was simply impossible. Remember: just like computers all suck (and different computers suck differently), the web experience sucks (differently depending on browser and site), it's a step down from a desktop app interface, offset by the huge amount of content available (e.g. Google Maps). So for now Apple has decided to offer an option that sucks differently. That's called a tradeoff. It's not because they're evil monopolists. I hope it will change eventually and the iTunes store will be available from the web so that it can be seamlessly browsed, and so that you can stop feeling offended as if Apple personally hated you when you click a link on the iTunes store.

Even as a mac user I don't want to see iTunes or iTMS in cases where it's absolutely not needed. Take a look at those Podcasts where many can be only subscribed to via iTunes.
I don't use iTunes for my podcasting needs, there are other applications you can use. For Podcasting I like Miro, for example.
Yes, OS X is great, and iTunes is a great application. I like using it for my MP3 collection. But when it comes down to making information available on the web, it's just a no go.

I mean, using iTunes to download some freely available peace of music/podcast transfers your iTMS account information, thus connecting your personal identity to the download. In the end Apple knows about your interests.

Does anyone remember when Microsoft was all the latest, greatest and oh so innovative and the most greatest IT company ever? So now it starts to look like it is all just a little history repeating for Apple...

And to all you people crying about how you have to, heaven forbid, use separate applications in order to download torrents... Do you even understand how torrents work and why you cannot "just simply" be given a direct link to the file?
It is perfectly OK that you need certain software to handle specific protocols or file formats. It would, however, be great if you had a little more choice over which software that is.
Too bad that in case of iTunes and podcasts, well, you do not have the choice. The very definition of a podcast would be that it is a much hyped RSS feed working together with iTunes. This is what the codinghorror rant is about and not about "oh noes i needs xchat to chat on IRC and svn to check into subversion".
There are lots of protocols and file formats, some open some proprietary, and that is a good thing. Just imagine, in most cases nowadays you are given a choice so stop whining.
You get over it.

Needing iTunes to browse the store is a huge loss for Apple.

I have an iPod and iTunes on my PC, but if I am out I have my Nokia phone and my Nokia N810 tablet. Both have fine web-browsers on them. The N810 is basically Firefox and it beats the iPhone hands down. Using them I can buy DVDs online while standing in a shop browsing the latest releases. I can easily buy music from Amazon store while out. But I can't check if iTunes has the iTunes Plus version of a song while I'm looking at the CD in the shop. Therefore Apple loses that sale.

It's as simple as that. Not everyone is sitting glued to their PC/Mac all the time.

Some of you seem to be forgetting the primary purpose behind any public, profit-making business, which is to make money for your shareholders.

Everything else is just a means to that end.

@ Kahawe: "Does anyone remember when Microsoft was all the latest, greatest and oh so innovative and the most greatest IT company ever?"

I'd be worried if someone couldn't remember... they still are. :)

Good point though. People are extremely intolerant when big multi-million software developers are making "mistakes". After all they can afford to get it right...

iTunes might be anti web, but aren't they one of the largest music retailers in the world?

Dunno about you Jeff, but that suggests to me that they might be on to something.

You are absolutely right these Anti-Web elements really BUG a lot.

@ JohnMcG (little late reply)

I paid for the hardware because it's of good quality. I bought an iPod Nano because it's quite nice to listen to music when running.

It's only the software aspect I dislike. iTunes didn't even bother to follow the windows themes, but just enforced it chrome look. And I find it bloated for what it's supposed to do.

Using winamp as long as I can remember, as a simple player hidden in a tray icon, and Windows Explorer to manage my iPod. Dragging and dropping music, that's how easy it should be :)

Guess that's my way of being immune for branding and hypes and just getting/doing whatever I prefer ;)

You said: "Let's imagine, for a moment, how utterly ridiculous it would be if I had to install the Amazon application to browse and purchase media from Amazon."

On my recent purchase at Amazon MP3 I was greeted with this: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/artlung/2573959341/sizes/o/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/artlung/2573959341/sizes/o/</a>:

Here's the text from that dialog: "We recommend installing the Amazon MP3 Downloader before your first purchase. It is required for album purchases, and makes downloading songs fast and easy.

I was impressed that they had 4 different Linux downloads for me. Installed easily and the amazon application was also in Synaptic Package Manager.

I've heard tell that folks can run iTunes inside WINE, but I've not tried that.

You also say "iTunes is necessary to sync media with Apple's iPods and iPhones."

As many have pointed out, iTunes is necessary to sync media from /iTunes/ to Apple's iPods and iPhones. Other software can indeed manage media on iPods, and perhaps iPhones.

I agree with you about the way links to iTunes music store are "anti-web" -- but the same can be said of links to mailto: or skype: or ftp: or other non-web protocols. If you don't like being confronted with them I suppose you could hide them with a greasemonkey script that set all links that start with the itms:// protocol to display:none.

Like your blog.

Oh, no HTML means no links. Sorry.
Here's the link to that screenshot of the Amazon MP3 store prompt I mentioned:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/artlung/2573959341/sizes/o/

"Ever find yourself clicking on links to music or videos..."

Where did you click on those links? Maybe you should blame the author of those links for linking to non-web content. They linked to an iTMS dependent resource, just as if they had linked to a Word document, PDF file, EPS file, etc. I'm sure Apple has plenty of links to the iTMS, and I'm sure they suck. But if they're not the links you're complaining about, I think some of your complaint is misdirected.

Agree with the simple point that it would be nice to browse the itunes store from a humble browser, but surely the success of iTunes is partly down to the fact that it's a specialised browser made for music (and movies). You can't mess it the experience by using a rubbish browser.

If you want a lovely example of a web based mp3 store check out bleep.com, created by The Designer's Republic (same dudes as WipeOut).

It's been said before, by others more eloquant than I, but Apple is not native to the web - http://antimega.textdriven.com/antimega/2007/08/07/apple-is-not-native-to-the-web

Like the AOL comparison, Apple remind me of a pre-IE Microsoft. Apples's contribution to the internet and openness is thus-far shameful.

Apple has always been big on having proprietary hardware, software and networks. As much as I hate virtually everything Apple stands for, it's a business model that has worked for them - and continues to work for them. They have always been an overpriced and elitist shop. With the standardized and open architecture PCs run on, we've been able to get a lot more bang for our buck. I think the world of PC users expects interoperability and standardization. In the case of iTunes, having proprietary software gives them full and complete control over the user experience, security, etc. It's actually very smart in a lot of ways. I can see pluses and minuses on both sides to the argument.

> I was pointing out that a company willing to charge its
> customers $129 for a unix-based operating system is clearly
> not the benign IT company that some would have us believe.

So, in your wisdom, what do YOU think they should charge? I think the price is quite reasonable, considering you have to purchase "Ultimate Vista" to get equivalent Windows functionality at more than twice the price. You're clearly implying that the fact that it's Unix means it should be "cheaper", which shows you have (a) no understanding of Mac OS and/or (b) no understanding of economics.

> You’ve clearly illustrated that there are too many people
> out there lapping up the FUD from Apple.

Actually, no, I'm merely trying to counter the anti-Apple FUD - including absurdities like "Oh noes! I'm locked into iTunes and iPod!" and "they're losing money despite being the #1 music retailer!". I own both a Mac and a Vista machine, and I am quite capable of seeing the pluses and minuses of each, without resorting to meaningless inanities like "Apple suxx!!!1!!".

This reminds me of Seinfeld's Soup Nazi - if you don't "behave", no soup for you.

I don't see the big deal. The link lets you know where it's taking you. "You need iTunes to use this link. Here's how to get it." While I don't like every aspect of it it works as specified. The same as if you bought music with Zune, MSN, or Coradirect(WMA DRM derivative). I do think the memory/resource whiners are blowing it out of proportion. According to Activity Monitor my iTunes app is using 49MB of Ram/230MB Virtual. and that's after watching to videocasts, some albums, and browsing the store. If you are using Windows you'll probably need something like process explorer to get a real sense of what applications are doing, taskmanager is really poor at reporting details.

The one advantage that clearly favors iTunes for me is the fact that I can buy US music using my US credit card, music from the french store using my french credit card. Amazon and just about every web based music store still won't allow me this basic transaction. Stupid IP lookups. For most people this won't be a problem but if you are stationed/studying/working abroad you feel my pain.

And if you aren't convinced of Apple's contribution to opensource you should download webkit and give it a try (look at that...it's based on Safari).

Dude,

It's very simple: Don't visit Apple. Don't buy their products. If Amazon did this, I know that I would shop elsewhere.

@Konamiman: iTunes has the ability to import music from CDs. Also iTunes allows to burn songs to CDs for backup purposes. iTunes plays normal MP3s too. I download free MP3s where I find them, if they are free legally and if I like the music. But if someone doesn't want to distribute freely music that they have done, so be it. I either buy or won't buy. Yes, Linux is mentioned already. I don't like to use Linux currently on my home computer at least, so for me its not an option. And not an option for many others. I have said that it would be nice if Apple made iTunes for Linux too, but if it won't, then its not my problem, though it isn't nice to Linux users, I admit that.

@anon: I tried Amarok because someone suggested to try it.

I downloaded foobar2000 and at least it works. Looks more user friendly than Winamp, because foobar2000 has only one window. But I am still not going to subscribe to buy music by monthly fee, so I think iTunes is still the best place to buy music. But I might use foobar2000 now and then.

iTunes will also *try* to activate your iPhone!

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080711-launch-woes-turn-iphone-parousia-into-activation-apocalypse.html

I can see it know...Apple's next operating system will be iTunes OSX.

IMO, everything about itunes sucks. I'd been using plain mp3 players for awhile (simply dragging mp3 files to the device in windows with no proprietary software) when I needed to load up an itunes player. It forces a massive install that includes 3 constantly running services. If that weren't bad enough, it took me *forever* to figure out how to "synch". Simply dragging and dropping files onto the device isn't allowed.

now

... and I guess foobar2000 doesn't support my iPod, so I might need some other tool for that. On the other hand, I still have iTunes. Also I have used to iTunes' playlists and organization of songs, and I have used to see what iTunes store has to offer based on my existing songs. And I have many songs in iTunes already, but I am not buying that many more that I would panic about getting locked into iTunes. It has some DRM free songs, too, even.

There is no visualization in iTunes, but foobar2000 has only lame ones. Winamp has great visualization, but I am not using Winamp - not at least when I just listen to music, which is almost all the time.

The reason I installed iTunes into my machine in the first place was, because I bought iPod. I think iPod is very good portable music player.

Though I admit that I would like my songs totally DRM free. They are my purchases after all and I am not copying the songs for my friends. Maybe the music player manufactures can put up a standard where people can play the songs in all the players but not copy to their friends' players?

correction: iTunes has visualizations too, now that I started to look for it. Also there is a nice album flow feature where the album pictures can be browsed smoothly like in a Flash-animation, and category search of songs that I have, etc. Plus I can get help in Apple forums, if I have something to ask.

Yet again, no coding, only horror.

I quote (5th May): "Don't worry, I have some hardcore software development posts coming up. I swear!"

(MVP, XML; c'mon)

Change the name, change the content, change something as this is fast becoming lame.

for all the people saying iTunes is bloated, I really don't see where this is coming from. Sure it's a lot bigger than Winamp, but it provides quite a bit more functionality. If you think iTunes is bloated, be happy you never bought a NetMD player and got stuck with SonicStage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SonicStage). Now there is bloatware if I ever saw it. It had almost less functionality than winamp, but somehow ran at 1/100 the speed of iTunes.

i just listen to music on my garmin nuvi. it shows up as a removable hard drive on my pc so i just drag & drop and i'm on my way.

I was going to buy an iPod for the gym and for running. However, since the device FORCES you to install iTunes to put media on it, I opted for a SanDisk Sansa. You plug it in via USB and it is recongized like any other portable media storage. No software required. If the iPod had *GASP* an OPTION to use iTunes if you want, or just act like a USB drive, then Apple would have had my money.

P.S. Jeff, why did I get the same captcha two out of two times I posted here? Improbable event that happened or captcha issue?

Okay, hate to double post, but I have the same captcha again, and want to test it.

How is this more anti-web than sites that insist on using Active X or being coded to work only with Internet Explorer?

@Kibbee: iTunes runs just fine, though very rarely I have to reboot it because it starts to lag when I browse the net. But the visualization view is a resource hogger and nothing else seems to work while it runs.

But in general, I don't think that the web is nor should be limited only to a traditional browser. There should be Awesome Super Browser 5000 application, that can do weird things. For example Second Life, it is said to be the 3D web. I have played Second Life a year ago, but got bored because its the slowest thing I know.

Anyway, there are some skin possibilities in browsers, but I would like to have some Uber Cool Application Over Net software that enlarges your mind with pure cool looks. The cool application would be like a newsreader or rss reader, but _million_ times cooler with psychedelic layouts of _my_ choice. It could also browse everything in the web: normal pages, web stores, news sites, blogs, rss, games etc. But all the content would be shown to me through the Uber Cool App 5000 super cool user interface(s).

Our personal debt loads, our waistlines and our economy are heading for disaster ... driven by our gluttonous overconsumption ... fueled by our culture which is defined (programmed) by our entermainment industry including music, vidoes, TV, etc ... driving our need to be sheep with all these "necessities" like plasma TVs, ipods, iphone, itunes, etc

get a bike or go for a hike.

...And then I install iTunes even tho I have no intention of using it, and my DVD drive stops working: http://wizardcreations.wordpress.com/2008/01/27/itunes-makes-my-cddvd-drive-disappear/

I have to then go into the registry and delete a couple of keys before it works again. One for the dailyWTF?

Most of the comments here are pretty much ridiculous. It just reaffirms my feeling that the Internet is where people go to be idiots.

I'm a Mac freak. After using Wintel for years, I was fortunate enough to make the switch. There are very few Apple products that I dislike, and I very much like iTunes.

That being said, despite some of Jeff's dramatization in the post, I tend to agree with his core point--that clicking on a link in the browser is best handled by serving up content in the browser. I won't go so far as to call this iTunes approach anti-web, but it is a bit aggravating, and proof that (GHASP) even the boys at Apple can get things wrong, too. Maybe it isn't wrong for their profitability, but to a user, it is definitely not the optimal situation.

And to most of you jackalopes engaged in this "iTunes/Apple sucks or it doesn't" war, try growing up. You can like the products you use, but getting ignorantly patriotic about them is just stupid. That goes for the anti-Applers, too. Try investing all of that energy into building something up instead of tearing something down. At least your energy will have a chance of going unwasted.

how many of you are programmers? how many of you are over 18 years old?

Mac is good for some things, just as windows is good for others.

grow up and get a life.

I don't get it. You seem like a smart guy; I presume your readers are smart guys. So, how do you get yourselves worked into such a frenzy and fail so utterly to diagnose the actual source?

iTunes isn't a "web application." They use web-related technologies to develop it, but it was neither designed nor implemented to be part of the general internet. As far as I know, the "itms://" protocol was created for the sole purpose of linking content WITHIN the iTunes Music Store environment. I did a lazy search on Apple's Developer site, but didn't turn up anything about how to deep link into iTMS using the "itms://" protocol - because that wasn't the intent.

OK, then someone-not-Apple (1) figured out the protocol iTunes uses and (2) unscrambled Apple's URL-form algorithms, which lead to a proliferation of links using itms:// on web pages.

And this is APPLE'S problem... how? The page you were visiting had an author and that author chose to use the itms:// link format that Apple never intended anything other than iTunes to use. Go beat up on the author and reserve your criticism of Apple for those times when they actually DESERVE it. This isn't one of those times.

I don't get it. You seem like a smart guy; I presume your readers are smart guys. So, how do you get yourselves worked into such a frenzy and fail so utterly to diagnose the actual source?

iTunes isn't a "web application." They use web-related technologies to develop it, but it was neither designed nor implemented to be part of the general internet. As far as I know, the "itms://" protocol was created for the sole purpose of linking content WITHIN the iTunes Music Store environment. I did a lazy search on Apple's Developer site, but didn't turn up anything about how to deep link into iTMS using the "itms://" protocol - because that wasn't the intent.

OK, then someone-not-Apple (1) figured out the protocol iTunes uses and (2) unscrambled Apple's URL-form algorithms, which lead to a proliferation of links using itms:// on web pages.

And this is APPLE'S problem... how? The page you were visiting had an author and that author chose to use the itms:// link format that Apple never intended anything other than iTunes to use. Go beat up on the author and reserve your criticism of Apple for those times when they actually DESERVE it. This isn't one of those times.

Your website requires that I have a javascript capable browser, and is enabled, just to have the comment fields prepopulate and also highlight the authors posts with a peachy background.

Sure, that's not exactly a direct comparison to the likes of one's music library, but all the same, you're "forcing" users to have to have something in order to receive functionality.

Besides. The problem here is that the authors of these websites containing iTunes links did not choose to link the the Amazon version of said musical composition. You've made a mountain out of a mole-hill really, quite something.

What Jeff meant to say here, is that since he hates iTunes, that everyone should hate iTunes and therefore should automatically link to music on Amazon or the likes.

@Kevin Creechan:
Your mother is also your aunt?, I have disabled JavaScript and I can use the site just fine.
I think I understand Joel now, there is a point in time where the comments are noise, the ratio between good posts and flaming posts it's just terrible.

The store is a part of the program, and is intended for use by people with ipods. They assume if you're wanting to browse the store, you have an ipod and thus, itunes.

You missed the point. Disabling Javascript does not disable posting to the site, merely missing some functionality (i.e. it no longer highlights Jeff's posts, nor does it pre-populate the fields Name or Website) If you want the full experience that Jeff intended here, Javascript must be enabled.

What is comes down to, is that developers use whatever they want. If someone wants to link directly to an iTunes source then so be it, thats not Apples fault really. How many developers used transparent PNG's on their sites before IE fully supported it? Sure you could blame Microsoft for being so slow in providing support, but what about the developer whom went ahead with using it in the first place?

I agree with you. You should be able to browse the store without the itunes software and without an ipod.

We wanted to buy a itunes gift card for a relative when we didn't have any of our own. It would have been nice to have seen what was available and what they may be able to purchase. You may want to see what's offered before you buy an ipod - how do you know they have the music you like avalable.

I put this in the same bad design as the social network sites (or any website) that you have to sign up for an account before you can read what it is you are signing up for.

My wife once upon a time worked for Musicmatch before they were acquired and castrated by Yahoo (in 2004). Prior to the acquisition, Apple worked with Musicmatch to provide a choice in terms of computer software to work with the iPod, but after several months of collaboration (including access to Musicmatch's source code) Apple suddenly pulled out of the deal, released a Windows version of iTunes, and even went so far as to delete files from the Musicmatch product when iTunes was installed onto machines that already had Musicmatch:

http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/05/1730257

Now, I was of the opinion that Musicmatch's software at the time had become hideously bloated, but Apple's approach to the situation was highly unethical at best.

The whole purpose of iTunes on the PC is to support the iPod. Apple makes very little money off of iTunes itself. The iTunesHelper software is there to automatically start iTunes when you plug in your iPod. As far as being bloated, all actual media playback is done using Quicktime, either Apple has to provide their own framework or be reliant on MS technology.

But your opinion is in the minority...Apple has 80% of the market for online music and the number one music seller in the US (on and offline). Apple must be doing something that the customer wants for millions of people to voluntarily install iTunes and for Apple to sell 5 billion songs -- one billion of those in the past four months.

As far as MS, MS does require you to use Zune Software to manage the player. They tried and failed at licensing Plays4Sure to all comers.

I'm fairly sure that you have to have an affiliate account to create links to content in iTunes, that not just anyone can do it. People might earn a small commission, not sure. But the purpose of the links is to download, not to browse music or meet a new artist.

As said above, this is clearly the fault of the person who put an iTMS link in their post. From the timing, I'm wondering if you were intrigued by the apps just released for the iPhone, and wanted to browse those, and got frustrated, because I don't see very many people linking to music in iTMS.

But yeah, it's anti-web. Cause it's not a web application. Apple believes that the best way to *expand the market* for mp3 players and smartphones is to present people with a walled garden that promises security and ease of use. Nothing has proved them wrong yet. Losing a few sales through iTMS isn't going to do it.

While the iTunes Store certainly looks like a website it's actually somewhat different. They do use webkit but they don't use HTML, they have a custom tag format that they apparently build directly into a tree to pass to the webkit, bypassing the bit that parses HTML.

Not really sure what the point of it is, based on the size of the app I'd say they have to include their own internal copy of webkit to do this and using regular HTML would make it possible to share a webkit install and view online. Or, barring that, they could spend a bit of time writing a custom renderer that doesn't do a bunch of stuff they don't need.

Anyway, just a bit of info on how the store works so you can see why they currently force you to use the iTunes app.

Music is like sex, it is better when is free.

Purchases can be made only through the iTunes interface. iTunes is a basic requirement if you want to use the iTunes Music Store. The trailers are available on Apple's website itself. But the top movies and music that they display is based on purchases made on the store. So them being anti-web is quite justified.

>> They tried and failed at licensing Plays4Sure to all comers

And even that required Microsoft software to be able to purchase anything. Sure, that software was wrapped under a UI of varying degrees of ugliness, but underneat there was the same old, "anti-web" Microsoft DRM.

Sorry if this was already mentioned, but hear me out:

Not only do you have to install their own application, but what if you want to update itunes? Well you are prompted to install iTunes, Quicktime, and SAFARI! I dont want iTunes in the first place, let alone a new web browser...Why the bombardment?

Just something else about Apple to bitch about. This reminds me of the whiners who bitch that Apple isn't successful enough.

iTunes and iPods support mp3s. Just rip your cds, download your music (if you are so inclined to do so; no moral judgements from me), and quit your damn whining.

And if you hate iTunes, there are various programs available for Macs and Windows that allow you to bypass it altogether.

Any more Apple whiners?

Netflicks is also anti-web, not showing you the full selection of Movies, got to be a member to see our selection.

Its amazing. I saw that exact same itunes message for the first time only five minutes ago. I have an iTunes account, and I'm using OS X, only my default browser is Firefox. It wanted to load the page in iTunes, and I didn't allow it, thinking "Hey, if you got something to say to me, say here in my browser!". Anyhow, after getting that error message my interest waned and I decided to see what was happening at codinghorror. Uncanny.

I have heard that Apple will soon be launching products with a new slogan:

"It just works most of the time. when it doesn't you're screwed"

A lot of folks here missed the basic point of Jeff's post - iTunes is great for syncing, but when you click a link on the web, it doesn't have to open iTunes rightaway, because people who do not own iPods, or have iTunes on their computers might want to see what the link contains too, (and it is in Apple's interest to make them want to install iTunes by giving them a preview of the content, instead of forcing them to install iTunes first)

Also, even if I might have iTunes, I don't want to startup a new application (and waste all those seconds waiting for it to load up, and eat my cpu/memory) just to see what a link contains. Give me a preview with some basic information in the browser, and then if I choose to, I will click a link that says 'open this in iTunes'.

Even if iTunes is the world's greatest application, don't make me open it just to see some album info when my web browser can do it perfectly well.

iTunes is not Web at all, so it is not anit-web, and it just uses Web service to construct communication with the store.

I'm an happy (but recent) mac user and I think that Itunes simply sucks; I completely agree with Jeff about this "anti-web" pattern and the "it usually just works, but if it doesn't you' re sc***ed" attitude, which is the true apple trademark.
I'm waiting for amarok native on mac os x, then I think I will trash that DRM-buyer where it deserves; and of course I will probably never buy an iPod (luckyly I don't have any at present)!

Have to agree with Taras on this about anti-web. I don't even recall the number of sites relying on some crappy ActiveX control...oh, sorry mac / linux / firefox users, no web for you. Not going to enter a debate about iTunes, each to their own.

Well, looks like you a lot of feed-back on this matter, and this comment that I'm posting probably is already mentioned before. In the case of the iTunes store, at least to me, it doesn't make sense to look at something that you know you are not buying, so why should I have desire in look through a web page with info about stuff that I know I wouldn't be interested on and could not use it. It's like going to the Ferrari shop to a test-drive and knowing they are not going to have one at all!
About web applications that need propertary software to run it, let's open the discussion then to macromedia flash or java applets, if you don't have this pieces of software installed in your pc they just don't work. Wrong ? Good ? I belive it's a matter of value added that you might get from the particular piece of software. In the case of iTunes perhaps there is none, just the fact that you can't buy any media from iTunes!

Totally agree, and even if you do load iTunes (I need it for my iPhone), it runs like a dog on XP, everything else (even MS office) runs fine.

A while ago I mentioned this phenomenon -- anti-usability from the purported #1 user-friendly computer company -- to the president of a major usability/design firm where they all use Macs. His response: "Ah, deal with it."

Let's not forget that Apple is a religion, and religion has been making otherwise rational people people say irrational things for a long time.

I think there is the highly user friendly app i-tunes that uses internet to connect to the i-tunes store. Its an app. And by commerce its adverticed on the www.

"the web way" always reminds me of these kids in south America walking over garbage piles looking for pieces of stuff they can use.

Apples music store steers away from this pile of junk to the city and says: Look, IF you have cash to go to the city (osx) and not the village (win) or barracks (linux) THEN visit our easy shop in town. Less smelly, clean, no junk, works always in the same way. Functionality boxed by own programmers, not some W3C protocol.
( any reason there is no <MUSIC SRC="" /> in 2008 ? )

"Why can't it be for everyone" Well frankly: Because you are poor.

Poor? I own a Macbook, G5 Powerbook and a Pismo but appear to have avoided the religious mindset brought about by such ownership. Its not "blasphemy" to say that iTunes has gone from great to garbage via its obsession with $$$. This is exactly the same level of "big brother DRM" Sony was crucified for but I'm quite sure any Mac zealots having seen such rushed to their aid foreseeing the beloved Apple following suit in the near future... yeah right.

All you have to do is watch a kid purchase a song then watch his sister making the same purchase as its not available when she's on her desktop. "We're sorry but that song was purchased solely for use by user 1, user 2 must purchase its own." People are not looking for "free" as much as they are looking to not get screwed.

Oh and I do have one insight that 99.9999% of those posting do not. I owned a music franchise back at the advent of CD's and can confirm indeed that the rest of you were indeed getting bent over. The game is the same kids, its just the venue that's changed.

see what you want to do is go ahead and hoist them with their own petard.

create a remedy, like this guy did: http://userscripts.org/scripts/review/6587

also, commenter above says that you have to have an affiliate link code to create links. You don't.

Jeff - I agree with you about iTunes, however, I've never used it for my iPod... i found floola (www.floola.com) before i bought my first iPod, and love it - it works with linux, mac and windows, and allows you to get music on and off your iPod with _any_ computer... but that's just my gripe with iTunes.

I feel I should point out that you can't rent/buy a digital movie from Amazon without their special unbox software, but they did get it right by allowing you to NOT use their special music downloader when you buy mp3s from them. However, I think when you're the biggest, you sure get a long run, even from annoying software - the same thing that killed AOL made them "the AOL" in the 90s...

Jeff - I agree with you about iTunes, however, I've never used it for my iPod... i found floola (www.floola.com) before i bought my first iPod, and love it - it works with linux, mac and windows, and allows you to get music on and off your iPod with _any_ computer... but that's just my gripe with iTunes.

I feel I should point out that you can't rent/buy a digital movie from Amazon without their special unbox software, but they did get it right by allowing you to NOT use their special music downloader when you buy mp3s from them. However, I think when you're the biggest, you sure get a long run, even from annoying software - the same thing that killed AOL made them "the AOL" in the 90s...

Haha. Looking at the mactards eager to polish jobs' knob amuses me to no end.

I just think iTunes is a very poor piece of software for the reasons you mention plus many more. However, the quality of the iPod/iTouch is awesome!

What developer is content with good enough?

iTunes is good enough for use with a fabulous piece of hardware despite its obvious design flaws?

I love my iPhone, and iPod as much as the next gal, but for christ's sake, I guess I missed the KoolAid at the Apple Store.

"iTunes is anti-web". Duh. It's a desktop application, not a web application. That's like saying, "Word is not for making web sites". It's obvious.

It sucks even more if you are on Linux. Sucks!...
I wanted to see what's new in the podcast world and had to find a PC to get to the iTunes Music Store..

Isn't the real problem here someone linking to an iTunes track in a webpage instead of to a real webpage? Are you going to complain that when someone links to an application it *gasp* tries to download an application?

itunes. that program needs to be bludgeoned

Yeah, the iTunes music store should have a web-based version. It's not that special. Sometimes they tag an album "Clean" or "Explicit", when such a tag is not necessary. Sometimes they have a DRM version and an iTunes Plus version. It's hard to distinguish both, without the fine "iTunes Plus" print.

iTunes Store is simply a CD browing and buying store. You can already do that in Amazon.com without a big, bloaty app like iTunes (note that AmazonMP3 digital downloads are only available in USA). This reminds me of the "walled gardens" concept: iTunes Store is a "walled garden", but there's barely anything special in there.

Hear hear I have been waiting for someone to blog about this for a while, I couldn't believe I was the only person that despised the way that you need to install itunes (and quicktime!) just to browse and purchase music from the store (note I am speaking of the DRM-free music here). I think it is utterly ridiculous and annoying in equal measures, and your Amazon and AOL examples illustrate the point very well! I for one refuse to install itunes for this very reason. I hope one day they will provide a simple browser based html front end for their music store....

Ok, so I have an iPhone, and I need to purchase an App over the web. The credit card I have attached doesn't have enough money. And I'm not at home... So I have to download iTunes on someone elses computer, login with my account, change my CC, uninstall itunes. Then download the app... Y really.
No place on apple's website or through iphone to service your account at all... (Yea currently downloading itunes for this purpose, on a slow slow DSL)

Web applications sucks... I do prefer use a native application accessing remote contents using web service than all those poorly design web sites....