iTunes version 4.5 released as Apple celebrated the anniversary of its iTunes Music Store. As part of the anniversary festivities, Apple is releasing a free song every day for a week.
Good idea, if it actually worked. I've tried to download two of the three free songs and have encountered nothing but error messages. I return later to find the free songs are $0.99 each just a day later. Good one, Apple.
iTunes is a slick application, no doubt the best of the software music jukeboxes. But is the iTunes Music Store all that revolutionary? No, it isn't. Like the iPod, it took an idea that had been done many times by others and simply executed it better. Nothing wrong with that, there are plenty of successful businesses built on that mantra. Just don't call it a revolution.
The songs are still locked up by DRM, the songs aren't all that cheap at $0.99 each (given that most used CDs can be purchased off of Amazon for a few bucks, you pay a steep premium for immediacy), the library is still missing a ton of titles, and the encoding is still low fidelity. I play iTunes Music Store downloads over regular-sized speakers and they sound like crap. Good luck if somehow you lose the song off of your hard drive: you'll have to pay $0.99 for another copy.
In contrast, AllofMP3.com is a true step function forward, if it works. I paid for a GB or two of downloads but the site is going through technical difficulties right now, probably scaling problems considering what a sweet value proposition the site launched with. The option to encode in all sorts of formats, DRM-free, is awesome. With disk space so cheap and broadband so prevalent among the technorati, why not offer to let customers download songs at true CD-quality? Once you've purchased a song, you're allowed to download it at anytime from their servers. Since you're paying for bandwidth, AllofMP3.com doesn't care if you download a song once or a hundred times.
I, for one, hope they succeed.