tech ronin

First take on Amazon DRM-free music downloads

I just downloaded my first Amazon download for 89 cents! I had to download a small downloader application first (a beta).

I had to quit Safari to complete the install. Luckily I didn't have my usual massive number of tabs open, but heads up on that. The downloader put the song right into iTunes for me. This is quick and easy!

I am glad to see Amazon making a credible entry into the music downloading business to provide competition to Apple's iTunes. I'm even happier to see they are doing a DRM-free, relatively high-quality offering. They have two labels, Universal and EMI, so far.

Like anyone, I prefer to skip DRM. Now I can get a lot of music without DRM at a reasonable price. I intend to buy single songs at 89 and 99 cents per song. This deal beats Apple's 1.29 cent price for their DRM-free songs.

Apple has the edge in two areas. First, the iTunes store is way better overall. But, Amazon has better search and I hope that means Apple will give us some decent search to augment their current strengths. Second, Apple uses AAC encoding and Amazon is using MP3. AAC gives you a notch better quality at the same size.

So, Apple's DRM-free music is a little bit better and that difference would probably be noticeable on high quality headphones or high-end speakers. There is one caveat, though, which is that MP3 is supported everywhere and AAC is only supported on some players. If you are an iPod user, you'll be able to take advantage of AAC.

I will continue to use the iTunes store and also check out the Amazon store in some detail. I will report back on my experiences. Right now I want to support the Amazon DRM-free offering, so when I find something I want on the Amazon store, I will purchase there.

When I find a single song on iTunes that I want, I will just buy the DRM-free version there and pay the extra 30 cents. It isn't worth the trouble to go back and buy it on Amazon and I get the small AAC quality advantage to boot.

If there is no DRM-free version on iTunes, I'll buy there only if I don't think the DRM-free version is available on Amazon. DRM-free takes precedence because the convenience later in moving the song to different machines will make up for the inconvenience now of having to find the song again on Amazon.

Keep in mind that Apple wins either way. More good DRM-free music will drive iPod and iPhone sales. Besides, the competition will inspire Apple to do better work.

Finally, we want legal DRM-free music. Amazon, by joining the DRM-free side of the argument, will pressure the other labels that are holding out to open up their music too. This is good!

Whoa iPod touch, $399 iPhone, phatty nanos

Rocking with the rhythm! I didn't dare hope for a trim and gorgeous iPhone-like iPod so soon. I see there's no email button or notes on the iPod touch. There's no stock quotes or weather either.

Lots of space for something but I don't know what. Now that OS X drives these little music machines, there's plenty of room for exciting possibilities. Who knows? Maybe Apple will open up the touch while guarding access to the iPhone for a while longer.

Keep in mind that you don't get a speaker or a camera in the iPod touch. But then, not having to pay for a 2 year service contract with AT&T has got to count for something. You get more iPod for your money here. The 8 gig touch is $100 cheaper than the iPhone's new $399 price.

Loving that Stevie Jay put wi-fi in the iPod touch (16 gig version is $399). Safari on an iPod. You can download direct to your iPod touch and iPhone from the iTunes store. Instant gratification. Direct downloads will play well in Asia where not everyone sees the need for a computer when they have a cell phone to take its place.

Trying to figure out what I do next when I buy my next iPod. Do I blow my money and get a 16 gb iPod touch as a compliment to my iPhone? Probably not the smartest move. Seems too redundant and bulky to have two iPhone-sized devices. The touch is slightly smaller but not by much.

How about a cute little 8 gig phatty nano ($199) as a sleek adjunct? All I have to do is divvy up the media storage in a logical way between the two. I'm liking that new green. I can't wait to see that 2" screen boasting an amazing 204 pixels per inch and delivering the same QVGA pixel count, 320x240, as its bigger brother.

My theory on the iPhone price cut: (1) Steve needed to make that cut to drive more sales to meet the Sept 30 deadline for selling a million iPhones. They are on sale right now at the online store for $399 and (2) now there is room to charge $499 for the impending 16 gig iPhone and $599 for the 16 gig with 3G?

The 4 gig iPhone is being phased out. Engadget says you can get them for $299 while they last. Also, if you just bought an iPhone in the last couple of weeks, you can ask for a refund of the difference less a 10% restocking fee. You go!

Stock market dropped AAPL with perhaps a panic that (1) sales must not be brisk if a 33% price cut was needed and (2) hey, the margins just got shot to hell!

And, one more thing. Free wi-fi at Starbucks for your touches and iPhones! A little wheeling and dealing there to get the free wi-fi with this button that will sell Starbucks tunes. Update: on further research, it is not clear that you can use the wi-fi for anything besides the iTunes store. That's weak if true.

Overall, these are awesome new iPods. OK, the shuffle is a disappointment. But, the nano and iPod touch are both extremely cool and you can't beat the iPod classics for storage space. They share the new OS X UI.

Critics were saying the iPod has peaked. Remember when Apple said 30 years and we are just getting started at the beginning of the year? They weren't kidding. With the drop of the iPhone price to a realistic level, who is going to stop Apple now?

See Gizmodo's iPod touch photo gallery.

How about boycotting the other 3 major labels for a while?

I suppose I should bias my purchases in May, June and July or something to just EMI music. This sounds like a nice option for a huge number of people who have a strong opinion about DRM and buy from the iTunes store. This is the perfect opportunity to send a message to the music labels. I don't think we should pass it up. [Thanks: Screen grab from one of Apple's current iPod ads.]

Technorati Tags: DRM, EMI, iTunes, Music

Higher quality non-DRM music from iTunes Rocks

Yes! I don't know how many purchased tracks I have from EMI, but I plan to upgrade all that I still like when iTunes starts offering that option next month. I applaud EMI and Apple for taking this important step. I have to say that I am equally excited about the quality improvement as I am about the elimination of DRM.

Thirty cents is about the top of my range for that extra value, but I might pay even more just to encourage Apple to offer music at a higher quality. Doubling the bit rate from 128 AAC to 256 AAC moves it to about the level I use when I encode music for my iPod (320 kbps AAC).

I was a little disappointed that the quality was not Apple Lossless, but satisfied with the compromise of 256 AAC.

I personally expect to buy more music in this format than I have previously.

The introduction of Apple TV might have put more pressure on music quality. If you are playing your iTunes in the living room, you may be playing it on a fancy stereo or home theater audio system. You can hear quality differences there that wouldn't be apparent on the average iPod.

Hopefully, people will buy lots of this new EMI music and other record labels will follow! [Photo: New York Times]

Technorati Tags: DRM, EMI, iTunes, Music

iPhone Therefore I Am

Apple has gone and done it. Steve Jobs just announced the iPhone. Has a 3.5 inch touch screen. Runs OS X. Is 11.6 mm thin. Has a 2 mpx camera. Totally cool and amazing UI. They are reinventing the phone.

You can see your voice mails and listen to the ones you want with random access.

Uses Safari.

Double tap the New York Times webpage to zoom in. I'm an NYT fan, so this is going to be awesome!

[photo cropped from Engadget's live MacWorld coverage of Steve's Keynote].

Too bad we'll have to wait some more. It ships in June. They are shooting for 10 million units sold in year one. Priced at $499 with a 2 year contract for the 4 gig model and $599 with 2 yrs for the 8 gig model. This is a case where I would for sure get the 8 gig version.

More Evidence of OS X Lite

Now AppleInsider is saying Apple's forthcoming iTV will run a lite version of OS X. Previously we've heard multiple rumors of an iPhone running a lite version of OS X. This could be interesting.

AppleInsider said they expect the iTV to be delayed until late January or early February due to issues they need to resolve with the software.

...the additional time is necessary to fine-tune an embedded version of the Mac OS operating system that will reportedly run on the device...

...software fluidity will be achieved through the core foundations of Mac OS X, which will form the bedrock of iTV by sharing many of the same software assets that have returned the Mac to the forefront of the personal computer industry over the last five years...

I'm used to waiting until early February for things announced at the Expo, so this is pretty normal. I see this rumor of OS X lite strengthening the credibility of the OS X lite on the iPhone rumor. I admit that I'm an easy mark, but this looks awfully good.

Looking at iTV right now, I see it differently. I see it as a computer dedicated to home entertainment that can talk to and be controlled by any Mac running OS X. It's the bridge computer between TV, *stereo* and home computer.

Perhaps the iPhone will make nice with iTV and, of course, your home computer. Interesting might be an understatement.

[Book] The Perfect Thing - Great Read

This new book about the iPod by a favorite tech writer, Steven Levy, is a great read. I've previously read and adored Steven's Hackers in 1984. Much later, I liked his book about Macintosh, Insanely Great. I regularly take pleasure in reading Levy's The Technologist column in Newsweek.

The new book is entitled The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Culture, Commerce and Coolness. I love it. It is packed with stories and insider information that only a long-time, highly-respected technology journalist could provide. Steven knows his subject well and was able to dig up all sorts of fresh and interesting stories about the iPod.

We get to learn exactly how and by whom the iPod was created. Hint, it wasn't just Jonathan Ive. He was a key player for sure, but lots of other talented people were involved before Jony came in to make the iPod the extraordinary product it was on launch day in 2001. We hear from key players in their own words.

That's only one chapter that I especially enjoyed, but there are many more interesting subjects like the Pod People phenomenon which Levy links to its origins in portable cocooning with the walkman. I found Levy's in depth discussion of cool really well done. You've heard little smatterings about cool, and the iPod phenomenon over and over in the press. But, here you get taken deeper into these subjects by a really good writer. For me, this is a page-turner. Honestly. I bought the book last night and I'm 121 pages into it's 284 pages already.

If you are a Mac and iPod fan, make sure to check out this book. Apple is selling the book for $25.99 even though the list price is $25. I got it at Borders for $20 with my Rewards card. I would normally wait and buy at Amazon where it is selling for $16.50 but I started reading in the store and couldn't put it down.

A nice warm up for this book might be Steven Levy's interview with Steve Jobs at Newsweek Online. If you are anything like me, you'll want to read it.

I should warn you that my iPod technolust was markedly increased by reading this book. The just released [project] red 8 gig Nano and the 80 gig iPod 5G are both tugging at me right now. It's a good thing I already have a wonderful 30 gig black iPod 5G in an amazing red and black Vaja leather case already. That gorgeous, expensive leather is the one thing standing between me and those new iPods. I think I will fall over the edge if Apple releases a [red] 5G iPod though (and there's a rumor...).

If you've had a love affair with Mac and the iPod, you will find all the reasons why in this book. I've owned all 5 generations of the iPod. I'm a heavy-user, you could say. This book helped me understand my experience - my passionate fascination - better than any other iPod book to date.

Using my iPod: Fall 06 Update

I've got my hundreds of CDs in a storage locker, but recently brought out a box to update my digital versions. Here's what I'm doing with my music, iTunes and my iPod.

My latest thing is to encode my whole collection in two formats. I'm recording my master database of music in the Apple Lossless format. That should hold me for a while and I'm putting all that music on my 200 gig internal hard drive on my PowerMac G5. That gives me plenty of room. If need be, I can always relocate the iTunes Music folder to my even bigger external drives (500 gb and 320gb).

Now that we are living in a world where music is best played digitally for the convenience if nothing else, it makes sense to copy all my CDs to digital in the highest possible quality and then file away my CDs in a dry storage locker somewhere for future reference.

I've got one of my three big boxes of CDs in my home office right now. That's where my PowerMac resides and that is where I can listen to music with 4 Klipsch speakers surrounding me and a subwoofer at my feet under the desk. Apple Lossless encoding is as fast as lower quality encoding and that is fast on a G5 2ghz machine. When I first encoded my CDs about 6 years ago, I encoded them at a bit rate of 160 or 192 so I could fit a lot of music on a small MP3 player.

I'm not quite ready to go Apple Lossless on my iPod. My current in-ear headphones are fairly basic Sony's (the cost about $50) so I doubt I could detect much difference between lossless and 256 AAC. On my iPod, I'm dialing in AAC at a 256 bit rate with VBR (variable bit-rate). That's almost twice the size of the 128 AAC format. And that's OK. I've got a 30 gig iPod and it can handle that. And, I'm not trying to put every single song I own on my iPod. I am looking to eventually upgrade to an 80 gig iPod one of these days but I really like the slim 30 gig and it's only about half full right now.

That said, I want to have the highest possible quality on my iPod and on my hard drives. My iPod music collection resides on my MacBook which has a 120 gig drive. I upgraded from the 80 just recently and now have room for both my work and the best albums from my music collection.

Unlike some people, I like to record albums in their entirety. Even if I only like 2 or 3 songs. It's partly because it is an archive. It's the original context. And, you never know, someone I know might refer me to one or more of the cuts I never took to and they'll be there when I need them. A lot of really good music takes several listens to really appreciate and sometimes, I quit early on an album and only discover the most accessible tracks. Some of the less accessible gems are still awaiting my discovery in my music collection.

I had no idea that encoding with Apple Lossless would feel so great. I certainly love my music enough to want it in the best condition possible. So I guess that's it. I'm re-appreciating my music while I'm re-encoding it. There are some good songs. Like Still the Same by Bob Seger, for example. I'm going to be whiling away some time with my collection and I'll be enjoying it. Re-encoding is an excuse to hang out and listen to my collection.

One last thing before I go. Even though I like the instant gratification of the iTunes music store, I often choose to buy a CD. I like knowing that I've got a really high quality recording that isn't copy-protected. I can share it with my friend if I want. And I can encode it at a VERY high quality. After encoding with Lossless, the 128 AAC quality I get from the iTunes store seems OK but not great. Instant gratification, but not as satisfying in the long run.

If only the record companies and artists could get what they need without the user having to be so limited in the quality of recordings that are available digitally. I would love for an iTunes download to have full album cover art, liner notes and lyrics. Meanwhile, I'll compromise and take the CDs and burn them. I'm glad iTunes 7 has the two new formats and displays bigger cover art. That really works for me.

OK. Back to work (play). I've got two more big boxes of CDs to go...

New Aggressive Pricing on Shuffles and 1 gig Nano

This is most excellent. Now you can get an iPod shuffle for $69. And the 1 gig is $99. Plus there's a new 1 gig nano for $149. That should blow a hole in the low-end!

Recent talk in the rumor mill speculated that the shuffle might go away. That, I thought, would be a bad move. Even though I would strongly prefer a 1 gig nano to a shuffle, the shuffle has its place as a rugged device for exercise and for those who love random shuffle which is quite popular.

This is the perfect pricing. Again, aggressive. Not merely close to the right prices but the perfect aggressive pricing. I haven't checked Apple's stock today but I'm guessing the street will like this move.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPod, nano, shuffle

Best iPod cases Post

Playlist just released an excellent iPod cases gift guide. I was really impressed. Typically, you'll see information about a few cases from various sites and most are given mixed reviews. Here you get the best of and this is an impressive collection of cases with photos and commentary. If you are ready to make a purchase, this is your place to start.

Technorati Tags: iPod