After using iTunes 4 and Apple's new online music store for an hour I will likely never purchase another physical CD again.
Never, ever.
Why? Well for starters the price is just too good. At $9.99 per album (or lower) why should I ever bother pushing away from my Mac to buy music?
Sampling or browsing songs with Apple Music is so fast! Clicking on a track produces a sample within (what seems like) nanoseconds and every track has a sample vs. Amazon's new technique of sampling only the first 5 tracks.
It's extremely easy to use. I thought for sure this was going to be a drag and drop process but that has all been replaced with Amazon's 1Click. And once I chose to purchase a CD it only took minutes to download the 23 tracks.
Interestingly enough, during the download process (very similar in appearance to downloading songs to the iPod) my connection timed out. I canceled the download and was greeted with a message telling me to try again through an Advanced menu option. After choosing Check for Purchased Music, iTunes picked up right from where it crashed and finished the download.
Throughout the day I have had a few problems browsing the store — continually receiving 'Error -403' messages. Not sure what that error message means but it became a source of frustration until I visited applemusic.com via Safari. When I did this it seemed to help the connection in iTunes. I don't know why this helped but it worked every time.
The whole experience is so positive and easy to use that it could become very dangerous. Purchasing an album has been reduced to opening iTunes and clicking around for a few seconds, whereas before it actually involved driving, walking, and paying tax.
Why just a few minutes ago I purchased the Violent Femmes Add It Up without leaving my desk at work.
Yes, this is very dangerous indeed.
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
I was gonna ask which album you bought -- this thing really is great, huh? I think I had a lot of the errors you were getting... they felt like timeout errors due to so many users on the system. It's died down a little now and I'm having no problem zooming through the whole catalog. It's fun.
By the way, under preferences you do have the option to switch from 1-click to a shopping cart model if you are not able to exercise self-control. I might do that before I go any further.
I have got to get a new Mac.
I had flawless response --- bought the Massive Attack exclusive remixes and 'Know Your Rights' as a single track off of The Clash's "Combat Rock" for $.99 --- which beats buying the CD just to get that song. Rock n Roll indeed.
My wallet is scared. VERY scared.
Leave it to Apple to show the rest of the world the right way to use the 'net in the music industry.
I love it too, but I know there will always be some albums I want to buy on CD. I'm not sure why, something about the tactile response to the object itself, I think.
I will continue to use the emusic.com service though, as is seems to complement the apple service really well, and fills the gap in the Apple catalog nicely. The majority of my listening habits run toward the indie/electronic genres, so the combination hits just about all my needs.
Wonder if Apple will strike a deal with Amazon to have Amazon send it digital music buyers. And Apple could provide song clips to Amazon. That would increase Amazon margins quite a bit.