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The amount of companies and people that don't understand why the iTMS is successful never ceases to amaze me.

It's sad really.

If there is one area where I can't quite grasp is just what effect opening up the iPod would have. I, personally, would love it if WMA DRM were supported on the iPod. Just think of the market that opens up. Yeah, there is a certain amount of people out there that will not buy an iPod because they don't buy into DRM as a whole, but then there are others that won't buy an iPod because its locked into a single source for purchased music - the iTMS.

Now, if it were open to the other major source, WMA DRM wouldn't that in effect make buying anything but an iPod stupid? If the only way to get all major DRM sources was on an iPod it would further solidify its position as the dominant player in the market. That is, to say, if they could negotiate a deal where they wouldn't have to in turn license FairPlay to the rest of the world.

At the same time, though, it would take emphasis away from the iTMS and spread more revenue around to the other music services. iTMS would lose some of its market dominance, but sales of iPods would almost be guaranteed. I guess it would also hand more bargaining chips over to the labels to try and get their tiered pricing model in place... who knows.

I just don't know - I get the feeling trying to make the iPod the omnipotent player could be a good thing for Apple 'cause I think we're gonna see a big fight between WMA DRM and FairPlay.

But then again, I'm no expert. I'm just thinking out loud.

Don't make me time line you.
http://www.applegeeks.com/comic_archive … ?issue=241 From 1/9/06

Write them a letter.

resedit wrote:

MacBoy4139 wrote:

Write them a letter.

I did - and told them that if they take my suggestion, they owe me 25% of every sale

//That's actually why they don't take unsolicited suggestions

Actually I really did though - through the iTMS feedback thing - way back when they first made iTMS available to Windows users.

A lot of my music is live bootlegs, and it sucks to not have gapless - because when listening to the bootleg in order, there is always an annoying gap between each track.

I've noticed the same problem and I also find it irritating. There are some albums that I've ripped with songs batched together as a single file just to avoid the gapping.

I've always wondered whether Apple fixes this problem for files sold via the ITMS: anyone here bought Dark Side of the Moon on ITMS? or a concert album? How does it sound?

henebry wrote:

I've always wondered whether Apple fixes this problem for files sold via the ITMS: anyone here bought Dark Side of the Moon on ITMS? or a concert album? How does it sound?

It's the processor in the iPod that's the problem, not the files.  I have a concert album from iTMS, and you still hear the gaps when you listen to it on the iPod.

You also get gaps if you burn the CD from iTunes, because iTunes doesn't support disc-at-once burning.

The same album burned through Toast, however, is gapless.  Unfortunatley, I don't think recent versions of Toast will burn iTMS tracks.

Have you tried enabling cross-fading and setting the duration of the fade to 0 or 0.1 seconds? Only helps in iTunes, but its better than nothing.

Gipetto wrote:

If there is one area where I can't quite grasp is just what effect opening up the iPod would have. I, personally, would love it if WMA DRM were supported on the iPod. Just think of the market that opens up. Yeah, there is a certain amount of people out there that will not buy an iPod because they don't buy into DRM as a whole, but then there are others that won't buy an iPod because its locked into a single source for purchased music - the iTMS.

Now, if it were open to the other major source, WMA DRM wouldn't that in effect make buying anything but an iPod stupid? If the only way to get all major DRM sources was on an iPod it would further solidify its position as the dominant player in the market. That is, to say, if they could negotiate a deal where they wouldn't have to in turn license FairPlay to the rest of the world.

At the same time, though, it would take emphasis away from the iTMS and spread more revenue around to the other music services. iTMS would lose some of its market dominance, but sales of iPods would almost be guaranteed. I guess it would also hand more bargaining chips over to the labels to try and get their tiered pricing model in place... who knows.

I just don't know - I get the feeling trying to make the iPod the omnipotent player could be a good thing for Apple 'cause I think we're gonna see a big fight between WMA DRM and FairPlay.

But then again, I'm no expert. I'm just thinking out loud.

I might point out the central flaw in this is that WMP9 DRM has not been ported to Macs at all.

Even if Apple wanted to be WMP compatible it would require Microsoft to reverse their decision to drop Mac development.

mudogramx wrote:

DevoDoc wrote:

henebry wrote:

I've always wondered whether Apple fixes this problem for files sold via the ITMS: anyone here bought Dark Side of the Moon on ITMS? or a concert album? How does it sound?

It's the processor in the iPod that's the problem, not the files.  I have a concert album from iTMS, and you still hear the gaps when you listen to it on the iPod.

You also get gaps if you burn the CD from iTunes, because iTunes doesn't support disc-at-once burning.

The same album burned through Toast, however, is gapless.  Unfortunatley, I don't think recent versions of Toast will burn iTMS tracks.

Theres an option in iTunes to eliminate gaps between songs.  Under the burning tab in preferences, you can change the gap between songs to 0 sec.  It works great.

I'm more worried about gaps on the iPod and in iTunes - I don't care about burning, I never burn audio CDs.

DevoDoc wrote:

Well, Apple did recently announce that they are dumping PortalPlayer's processor for the next generation of iPods, so maybe they will support gapless playback with the next revision.

...along with widescreen high definition video, 802.11n, and a gesture-language interface.

Got a link for that?

Last I knew they had turned down using the latest and greatest upcoming chip from portalplayer, not that they were going to stop using the current model from portalplayer.

Article wrote:

“Microsoft believes that if it can match, or even better, the iPod/iTunes experience, compatibility will no longer matter,” said Wilcox. “The company is betting choice is more important, with respect to devices and music stores.

First, MS believes "if" it can match/exceed and Apple user experience.  GFL with that MS.  Secondly, MS is betting on choice.  Ohhhh - how convenient for them.  Oh, I see - it is just "with respect to devices and music stores", but not with respect to anything else, huh.  Nice.  Greedy bastards.

Article wrote:

“It’s not about trying to get people away from iTunes, for us it’s about talking to the 95 percent of people that aren’t buying online music yet.”

They just had to find a way to get a jab that 95% of peope are not using the Apple product in every market.

I've not purchased one CD in a store since itms came out.  I have however purchased 400+ tracks online.  Even in the rare event that I do want an entire album, its cheaper, I don't have to drive to the store and hope they have it.  Even if I did get a CD, I'd rip just it and never look at it again anyway.  I can't imagine going back to buying real CDs.