I thought being able to purchase and preview music from iTunes rather than a web page used to be a real advantage.

It still is, but I hear more and more people, particularly Windows users, remarking on the number of updates of iTunes and Quicktime and both. Apple should probably start considering a browser-based front end to the iTunes store, in addition to the desktop client.

Glaser can't get any press coverage for his products, since they don't sell, so he has to resort to name calling... Meanwhile, the only coverage he gets makes him look more and more like the buffoon he is.

I have 3 iPods, but I don't buy virtual music, for different reasons: 1) I like having a cd with booklet 2) I am a gothic-wave-EBM fan, so I do NOT find so much in digital form 3) DRM sucks, not that I like copying

cheese to go with that whine, Rob?

I'd call Rob Glazer pig-brained, but I suspect pigs are smarter than he is.

Actually pigs are very smart animals.

A more suitable epithet would be to call Glazer Republican-brained.

I think Apple would be more than willing to allow the iPod to play music from other services, but I think they are waiting for WMA-protected to be compatible with the Mac. I would imagine the last thing Apple wants to do is tout some capability of the iPod as being Windows only. All Apple really wants is high iPod sales, they aren't making a lot of money off of the music store anyway. So instead of blaming Apple for not making the iPod compatible with WMA-protected, we should be asking Microsoft why they don't mac it Mac compatible.

It's OK if you're #1 to call someone else's closed-system a no no. But the Windows-based WMA system is more restrictive than Apples, and customers don't buy nor trust the Big M anymore. I know more folks who use recording tactics to get out an MP3 and stick it on an iPod than buy or lease music period. I am constatly asked if my iPod plays regular MP3s because so many people say the iPod will only work with Apple's iTunes Music. People are ignorant, and Apple showed them a not so criminal way of doing something much better. NOw everyone else is upset because they missed the boat on being able to restrict, restrict, restrict.

Yanking ATI cards out of iMacs moments before announcing the new units at MacWorld: That's pigheaded and vengeful, saying you refuse to support a DRM that does not even play on the computers the same company who makes the #1 MP3 player in the world makes... that's just smart business sense. Why support it? You don't have or need to.

Hear, hear! One has to wonder what people think of Apple's so-called better software when they release more updates then MS does. Can't Apple plan ahead, or make more of it server based, so people don't have to keep updating their software just to get simple podcast support or the like. It would also avoid the inevitable whining/complaining from the "How dare apple call this iTunes 5, its more like itunes 4.9 and a half!" c*** you hear everytime they renumber the app in a way people don't agree to.

BTW, just to point out that Apple is as lame as MS and Real when it comes to their viral software (yes, its true). You can't get Quicktime for windows anymore. Nope. Go to download quicktime 7 for windows, and it turns out its the iTunes installer. Yep, can't get Quicktime without iTunes anymore. Add that to "Let's stick our icons everywhere", "Hey, let's keep nagging you about updating to Quicktime pro", "Hey, let's get our software running at startup and put an icon in the system tray, just to make windows startup times longer and people will come to the mac!" And then there's the buffering when trying to view video or listen to some audio (more of a connection thing, but it so reminds me of Real...).

(Well, it could be worse. on my work PC, Windows Media Player icons seem to just magically show up in my start menu and quick launch bar out of the blue).

As if Real networks weren't going to have some form of proprietary system itself, not to mention the fact that their format sucks anyways. I've always like Apple...I have to admit, but then again who can't...systems that works 99% of the time, and I don't have to s**** around for hours just to get the 'system' up and running...Gabe & gates can go s**** themselves...face it Apple did something right and Real Networks just can't live it down. :-D

If Rhapsody goes out of business tomorrow all the money people threw into renting there music will be wasted. All there music will stop. Why pay for something that you can't really own or use when and where you want too? Browser front end for iTunes,Why? All the others use that and it is a pain in the you know what to use. Also they all use everyone's favorite virus infected browser IE which is an even better case to use iTunes. At least Apple is trying to improve there service and add more features rather than just through up some music for rent.

No!!!! We must work to stop the proliferation of web-based user interfaces!

Web browsers are being used by lazy programmers to write cross-platform interfaces without the bother of actually considering the user experience. Web apps are evil. Better to provide web services and small, agile, thin client-side applications.

Steve Jobs called him a "sore loser".

apple products work so well because apple controls the hardware and software and are responsible to make sure both work. If apple were to start adding 3rd party functionality, the integrity of their products would be compromised and would become like the lame and weak pc market.

Being a musician, I don't want to seem overly obsessed with making some scratch, but the subscription model screws musicians.

Has anyone thought of how people that create your entertainment get paid through the subscription model? The answer is they don't. Record companies get paid a fee for the subscription service to access their inventories, but the musicians composers and arrangers are not paid. They can't be. If each song carries with it a copyright roayalty of 5 cents that the composer and publishing company are supposed to split, and mechanical rights for the song being distributed, in this case via the internet are also 5 cents, that makes 10 cents minimum that is owed to the people who actually made the song.

Do the math. If you download more than 100 songs in a month, there wouldn't be any money at all for every song after that. And corporate recod companies do not come up out of the pocket to pay artists. Ever.

To get around this, the record companies don't pay the artist at all and claim that all copies of the artists songs distributed through subscription are promotional copies at the artist's own expense.

The record companies get paid for doing literally nothing and the musician's who provide you with cool tunes get nothing.

I'd rather have XM Radio than a subscription model. It goes anywhere and I get a larger variety of programs and music.

what services are out there. I prefer my iPod, I prefer iTunes and I just buy from iTunes. If I can get a song on iTunes why go somewhere else to buy it? even if it is 10-15 cents less who cares! I don't. Suck it up Real

I have hated Real ever since 1997, when I got my first computer.

I refuse to have any of their software installed on any machine I own, and any website that uses RealAudio/Video is S.O.L. when it comes to me viewing their content.

I will continue to hate Real until the day they go under. And when they do I will have a special celebration, rocking out with my little white wonder.

Hi all,

There's a free party being thrown by Rob Glaser . . . you know what they'll be serving:

http://imet.csus.edu/imet6/bundy/realcheesy/realcheesy.html

1. Web-based stores have some REAL merit including improved interoperability and showing respect for the consumer's hardddrive by not forcing apps when someone just wants to browse. 2. I think renting music is stupid, BUT subscribing to Smart Radio stations isn't. I'd love Apple to blow subscriptions out of the water by creating a new parallel "broadcast" product. I like what someone above said about the ability to hear new music without buying it first. This could be made into a service for cell phones (and future wifi iPods?) which makes more sense than holdiing on to only 100 songs on yer phone. 3. With this scenario there might be ways of entering into the world of pay-per-hear podcasts and maybe even get some Serius stations, etc. Fight subscriptions with a NEW business model...Music on demand.