Did Ruckus Kill Schoolkids?
Chris Welbon
ctw at neophi.com
Wed Mar 5 14:18:06 EST 2008
On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 11:59 AM, <chapelhillguitarist at hotmail.com>
wrote:
> So to sum up, Bill Gates is a genius who made BILLIONS off of morons
> who have no clue that they are morons.
...said the guy with a Hotmail account.
> I keep my digital media library organized using the tools provided
> with the OS. Either Linux or Windoze or Mac allow you to create and
> name folders. What is so hard about that? I don't need an online
> store keeping tabs of what I like to listen to in exchange for help in
> organizing my digital media library. Not a good trade... unless of
> course you are a willing consumer.
You're misunderstanding (and certainly misrepresenting) how different
iTunes the software is from iTunes the online music store. iTunes the
store knows *nothing* about what I'm listening to in iTunes the app
(gigabytes upon gigabytes of 44KHz AIF files I imported myself from
CDs). That "feature" can be turned off with with a single click (and
after Apple got raked over the privacy coals when the MiniStore was
introduced, is no longer enabled by default). So if you have an
online store keeping tabs on what you like to listen to, you goofed.
Not Apple. Same goes for using iTunes the app to import music with
"inferior" codecs and crappy bitrates.
I find iTunes the application to be a much quicker way for me to add
to, organize, classify and access my collection. It copies stuff from
the CDs I buy nearly instantaneously (uncompressed, remember?) so I
can put the CD away. Rooting through 1200+ (I just checked) folders
containing 20K+ subfolders and songs on the filesystem to find an
album isn't my idea of a good time. It's not that it's "hard", per
se, it's just that it's comparatively a pain. I spend enough time
unavoidably doing that as it is. YMMV.
Relatedly, I never have understood the complaints about iTunes and
iPod lock-in. Yes, buying music from the iTunes *store* locks you
into Apple SW and devices. But there are so many online distribution
channels and business models (Amazon, eMusic, physical CDs, Eastern
European pirate sites) that this is really only a "problem" for the
lazy, unimaginative or uninformed. And it means people can get
whatever player they want and not be locked to a particular vendor or
format. Even if they have the temerity to consider an iPod to be a
reasonable mix of features, usability and cost.
Fandango
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