When Apple opened their iTunes Music Store (iTMS) six months ago, pundits were skeptical.  Why would people pay for music that they could download for free with P2P (peer-to-peer) file distribution applications like Napster and Kazaa?  Plus, what impact would Apple’s online music store make, when only Mac users could access and buy from it?  Within a few months other online music stores opened, catering to the far greater numbers of Windows-based users, and many thought that Apple would suffer its usual fate.  That is, innovate, then be copied and overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the Windows hegemony.  Well, here we are, 13 million song purchases later, and the iTunes Music Store has stood its ground well.  With only Mac users having access, iTMS commands 70% of the overall online music market.  But all that is going to change.  It’s going to get even better.  Here’s why.

This week Apple introduced iTunes for Windows. Now, iTunes has been around for years on the Mac.  It’s a solid, full-featured digital music management tool, handling copying from CDs, playing, organizing, and burning to CDs, with Apple’s trademark ease-of-use and style.  It also provides the interface between the computer and the iPod, Apple’s wildly successful personal digital music player.  When Apple decided to get into online music sales, iTunes became the storefront (unlike most other online music stores that are accessed through a web browser).  Now, iTunes for Windows brings seamless integration to the “bazillion” (a technical term for “a whole bunch of”) Windows users.

Accompanying the much-awaited iTunes for Windows release, Apple has really revved up the iTMS.  ITMS opened up offering about 200,000 songs.  By October, Apple says it will offer over 400,000 songs, including many more offerings from independent music labels.  There are also over 5000 audiobooks available, from best-selling novels to public radio programs and foreign language lessons.  Both iTunes and the iPod can even keep track of where you stopped listening, and take you right back there the next time you listen.

Looking for the perfect holiday gift for a music lover?  How about an iTMS gift certificate, sent through email.  A counter in the iTMS will keep track of how many songs are left on their certificate.  The new iTMS also has an “Allowance” feature, where you can set up accounts for each of your kids, and set limits on how much they can spend.

Just to get the party started, Apple also announced a partnership with America Online (AOL).  AOL will provide instant, one-click registration to the iTMS to its 25 million members, as well as provide links to the iTMS through its popular AOL Music site.

Still want to download music for free?  Beginning February 1^st,  2004 (that’s right, Super Bowl Sunday) and continuing through March 2004, 100 million winning codes will be randomly seeded under the bottle caps of 20 ounce and one liter bottles of several Pepsi products.  Should you open a winner, you just enter that code into the iTMS and get a free song download.  What a deal.

iTunes for Windows shares all of the Mac version’s features, and runs on Windows 2000 or XP.  It’s a 19 MB download from www.apple.com.  The installer also installs Apple’s QuickTime digital media software, which is required to listen to music downloaded from the iTMS.  iTMS downloads are encoded in the new, great-sounding, small-file-size AAC format.  iTunes will also play and encode the traditional MP3 format.  It, however, will not play music encoded in either Windows Media Audio (.wma) or RealAudio (.ra and .rm) formats.

© 2003 Peter F. Zimowski