Apple Debuts iTunes
for Windows
Can iTunes’ generous policies beat “free” music?
Hello Kitty!
You know the story. Napster came and conquered. The
RIAA came and conquered Napster. Attempts to remake
the service a legal one were unsuccessful. Well, the
cat is back. After buying up the remains of the defunct
service, Roxio launched Napster 2.0 on October 29,- The new online music service
(www.napster.com) boasts a catalog
of more than 500,000 songs from five
major record labels. Each track is.
cents or $9.95 per album. There’s no
charge for the standard service, but for
$9.95 a month, members can access
“unlimited listening and downloading,”
as well as Internet radio stations and playlist sharing.
We’re performing a physical on the new kitty now—check
back next month for the results.
Longhorn Slips to 2006
At a partner conference in October 2003, a number of
Microsoft executives casually mentioned that Longhorn,
the next iteration of the Windows OS,
wouldn’t ship for another three years.
Naturally, the revelation also suggests
that products and features Microsoft
intended to debut with Longhorn,
including Longhorn Server, Windows
File System (WFS) and the next iteration of Internet
Explorer , won’t be seen until that time as well. Until then,
users are encouraged to help themselves to service packs.We Call It Maize
Take one “free” AOL CD, multiply it by 10
million, throw ‘em all in the trash, and you’ve
got an environmental debacle. Sanyo Electric Co. may have
the answer—the company has developed a biodegradable
compact disc made of corn. We
are not making this up. Eighty-
five kernels of corn are needed
to produce a single 12cm
compact disc that’s compatible
with current optical drives and
CD players, and is expected
to break down into water and
carbon dioxide after 50 to 100 years. Mass production
of the so-called “MildDisc” for prerecorded use is
expected to begin at the end of this year, with recordable,
rewriteable, and DVD versions to follow soon thereafter.Airbags For Your Notebook
Bump. Crash. Those are the last sounds your notebook
hears before it dies (that, and a string of obscenities
coming from its owner). Well, IBM knows what a klutz
you are, and has developed what it calls the IBM Active
Protection System. A microchip on the mobo detects
system acceleration (like
when the laptop falls off a
lap) and immediately parks
the hard drive’s read/write
heads until the portable is
stabilized—in other words,
when it lands. IBM hopes
this new technology will reduce incidences of hard drive
failure following such unfortunate mishaps.FUN-SIZE NEWS
DECEMBER 2003 MAXIMUMPC
!
t a San Francisco media fete that
included a live performance by
singer Sarah McLachlan, Steve
Jobs introduced Apple’s formerly Mac-
only iTunes jukebox for Windows. Jobs
used the slogan “Hell Froze Over,” to
proudly illustrate the unexpectedness
of the Windows port. And according to
Jobs, the PC and Mac versions of iTunes
are identical.
Available for free at WWWITUNESCOM ,
Apple’s media jukebox offers unlimited,
free MP3 encoding up to 320Kbps
(variable bit rate encoding is also
an option). You can also encode to
Apple’s preferred AAC format, as
well as AIFF and WAV. Other features
offered by iTunes include cross-platform
music sharing on a local network,
visualizations, support for streaming
radio over the Internet, and auto-sync
with PC iPods, of course.
Make no mistake: This free
application wasn’t developed as just
a good-will gesture— iTunes the app
facilitates iTunes the online music
downloading service. The iTunes
service has no subscription fee, and the
price (99 cents per song) and policy
(unlimited burning to CD, unlimited
downloading to portables) are the same
for every track, be it by Beyoncé or Los
Baby’s.
Apple also took the opportunity to
tout a few new fancy iTunes features,
such as an “allowance” system, which
automatically charges your credit card
every month for a predetermined
amount that you can then use to buy
music. Jobs explained that this strategy
would help parents wean their little
ones off file-sharing without actually
giving them the credit card number.
The service also offers gift certificates
that can be e-mailed or sent by post.
iTunes now also stocks audio books,
with a catalogue of more than 5,
already available online. (In classic
Apple style, audio books will always
resume playback where you left off,
regardless of how many times the same
book has been transferred from your PC
to your iPod, and vice versa).
Despite the line-up of rock-star
spokespersons who joined Apple’s
event via satellite, and the appearance
by Sarah McLachlan, we’re going to
curb our enthusiasm for iTunes while
we compare it with other PC-centric
services like Rhapsody and Napster
2.0. Stay tuned for the results next
month. In the meantime, go ahead and
download iTunes for Windows—it’s a
pretty slick number./ne-stop
shopping
iTunes is your
juKeboX, your
i0od manager,
and your ticKet
to downloading
music with a
single clicK.