UPDATE: Guys, chill out. This problem wasn’t about my credit card or my ignorance of iTunes One Click. My problem was that the software didn’t notice the credit card issue until after I had entered my password three times. And, when I went to fix that problem, the store crashed.
And I say again: $13 on iTunes and $9 on Amazon. What possible incentive do I have to stand by iTunes? Amazon has no DRM, plays on all the devices I own and doesn’t demand that I agree to new terms of service every time I update its software. Apple is officially selling an inferior product at a higher price, and I’m not OK with that.
ORIGINAL POST: As I often do, I got a song stuck in my head just as I was getting ready for bed tonight – “Flux” by Bloc Party. Since I was updating my iPod shuffle anyway, I decided to pick up just the song from iTunes, never mind the album, “A Weekend in the City.” Popping over to the iTS, I tried to initiate a download. Apple had me log in to my AppleID, confirm my purchase, then sign off on new terms of services (which I didn’t read all the way through, but you’ll be shocked to learn that the music is more constrained than ever), log in again, confirm my purchase again, and only then announce that the credit card on file had expired, asking for another log in to change the information. I did so, and then the iTunes Store told me that an unexpected error.
I then went over to the Amazon MP3 store, entered my log-in once and got the whole Bloc Party album with one click. The album was not only totally DRM-free, it was $4 less than the iTunes price, and it downloaded incredibly fast, right into iTunes. And all it’s missing was a bonus music video that I don’t care about. There is a serious problem with the current iTunes user experience. Apple shouldn’t be offering me so many opportunities to stop my transactions. It’s a good way to lose business, as it did tonight. The current terms of service are tailored to record companies, not record fans. I’ve said it before, but I really believe it now: unless a song you’re looking for is iTunes-only, buy it from Amazon. You can use it on any device, and it’s totally seamless with Apple’s ecosystem, too. I’ll be very curious to see sales figures as Amazon’s library gets bigger over time…
One last thought: Is Apple planning to charge for most or all iPhone applications through the SDK? If legit freeware is kept off of the iPhone because Apple sees the opportunity to make more money, they’ve officially let the new content business get in the way of great software and hardware experiences. Fingers crossed, eh?
64 responses to “Why I’m Done With the iTunes Store for Music”
Dude. A word of advice. Don’t post when you’re on your period.
It took me all of 10 seconds to buy this in iTunes after I finished reading your post….
Maybe your experience was a little atypical? Just saying…
Never had any problems with iTunes or the iTunes store (like you did), but it can’t harm anyone to check out an other service. So i headed over to the Amazon MP3 store. And … this service is ‘currently’ only available in the States !! Looks like Amazon is also suffering from an Apple problem, forgetting the rest of the world !! In Europe we’re still awaiting the iPhone (in most European countries), movie downloads, movie rentals, … (the list goes on and on).
Not really worth commenting on. Your blogs are really starting to lose it.
Clearly you clicked on the button to update your iTunes
Then it was your credit card that had expired.
The warnings are there because some tool obviously had their little girl buy a song without checking and racked up a huge credit card bill so Apple put in the little extra steps to cover their arse from petty law suits.
Amazon have probably been sued too for not giving enough warnings that someone’s little girl was about to use a credit card and so confirm before purchase but who in the media cares when it happens to someone not Apple.
Well, it’s useful to know you can get it cheaper from Amazon.
Apart from that, did you really expect Apple to let you download the song when your credit card had expired?
I went through a similar experience. I started buying from Amazon because they had the same tracks available DRM free. As an added benefit the prices were cheaper across the board. Nowadays I generally buy all of my music from Amazon. It integrates with Itunes smoothly. I hope that Apple wakes up to the competition soon ’cause eventually even the fanboys are going to start secretly sneaking their purchases at Amazon.
You can turn many of the warnings off by checking the appropriate boxes on the warning messages. Amazon will do the same thing when your credit card expires, i imagine. The user experiance is not the reason to choose Amazon over iTunes. it’s the DRM free files that are the reason
Get over it. I’ve spent over $700 on iTunes last year without a single glitch or complaint. It’s the most convenient way for me. This year will be even more because of my Apple TV.
I have always found iTunes convenient and easy to use. If your card expired, you are required to give them the new info or update it. I am more in favor of what Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have been doing with is buying the music directly from the artist, DRM free with Creative Commons License. I got the new NIN album (a double set) for $5 in 320 kps MP3 format with a PDF booklet and extras.
Pete, I agree with you that the Amazon MP3 store is great. But as for your complaints about the iTMS… Jeez. I fail to see how the fact that your credit card has an expiration date is somehow iTunes’ fault. As for the logins and click-throughs, try enabling 1-Click shopping in iTunes (instead of using the “shopping cart”) if you want to get the same “1-click experience” you got with Amazon.
While I’m a big fan of Macs and spend a lot of money with Apple, I’ve never purchased music on iTunes. I have an old second generation iPod, but I usually play music on my LG phone or using the Phatbox music player or from one of two archives of music (home and office) and the DRM on iTunes prevents me from using it easily on all of these platforms. Since I’ve discovered the Amazon service (http://blogs.opennms.org/?p=15… I’ve purchase quite a bit of music. Since all I do with CDs is rip them anyway, it is much easier to buy a high quality rip of, say, Herbie Hancock’s Grammy winning album, get it immediately and for less cost than a CD.
Look like your readers would be much better bloggers than you are. Seriously, you had virtually nothing valid to say. I’m sick of the worthless drivel coming from this site. Going now to delete you from Google Reader.
Just yesterday I told my wife that it was *too* easy to buy music on iTunes. I’m always looking up a song and see that very tempting BUY ALBUM button…and usually click it….then presto, moments later I have a whole new album’s worth of music to listen to. The only time I’ve ever had extra steps was when a credit card expired and had to go update that information- which I didn’t think was that intrusive.
I can definitely vouch for “multiple-login-hell” from iTMS.
It’s a shame Amazon is still only available in the US.
I’ve had zero problems with iTunes.
So you had an updated credit card with Amazon and not iTunes. DUH, it will need you to go to more screens.
So you’re mad at iTunes for not accepting your expired credit card. Congratulations, you’re retarded.
itunes vs amazon. both are simple and easy. i always go where it’s cheaper — and often amazon has things that apple only has at 128 and w/drm. no brainer.
the only problem i have is amazon’s downloader never works on my mac. i don’t know why. i have to download things through parallels which is annoying.
Look at my post again, ende. I wasn’t mad at iTunes for not accepting my expired card. I’m mad at iTunes because it didn’t let me know that it didn’t accept my card until after having me log in, confirm purchase, accept new terms of service, log in again, confirm purchase again, and then tell me it had expired info, and then it crashed when I confirmed I wanted to update info.
If I have an expired credit card on file? Let me know about it on first log in. Simple. Or better yet, let me keep more than one card on file. This is basic usability stuff. Apple should know better.
I was looking for a nature sounds track to sleep to, Itunes wanted $10 for one 60 minute track, and I got it at Amazon for $.99 :)
So, basically…you would like for Itunes to be psychic and obtrusive and go through your information at a tedious rate every single time in order to find out your information is expired JUST to avoid an experience like this? There is not a site in the world that can tell you that your information is expired until it’s sent it and it’s bounced back. However, if YOU’D like for a software to contact your credit card company every time you use it to ask if you’re still good, by all means, I’m sure you can find the number for Big Brother somewhere. And as far as it giving you an error…did you just intend/try to update the year information and not the card? A lot of services will give you an error every time you do that because…come on, any idiot can change the year a few times and make it work.
I’ve never had to agree to new terms of service for anything Itunes related so I’m interested in why it made you do it but beside that, you’re not discussing a real problem. You’re upset you had to spend under two minutes typing a few extra letters and clicking? I’m sorry the internet has made you so lazy. Good thing Amazon has saved you that extra minute–I hope you cure cancer with all the free time you’ve made.
It’s nice that we have a choice. I will be looking into Amazon’s store. So thanks for the heads up. But, really, your complaints against iTunes are nonsensical in this context. My only complaint about iTunes has been that it is far too easy to buy stuff there.
If only Amazon MP3 shop would be available in Europe. I’m all for cheaper, DRM free music. So far, there has nothing wrong with the service of the iTunes store, i’d choose on price though.
Pete,
HOW DARE you have an opinion that isn’t completely positive about an Apple product. You should be ashamed, sir!! Down with this sort of thing!!
Accepting the terms of service on an upgrade is nothing new. Having an ecommerce site check your stored credit card information only when it absolutely needs to is also nothing new and it adds to the level of security. Crashing sucks. Paying more for something can suck too. DRM is something that I simply do not care about. It seems to me you simply hit a series of bumps that would, individually experienced, not be that big a deal. i know you have a big megaphone/soap box here and it’s tempting to just use it whenever something pisses you off but this is an a typical series of events. I don’t see this as truly blog-worthy.
I have very few songs from iTunes. I don’t like DRM infused with my music and never have. I’ll be buying more music online now that places like Amazon offer it as MP3. I’d still like to see higher quality rips perhaps with a bit more cost for offset as a music buying option.
What I don’t get is how the record companies are quick to get in bed with Amazon and remove the DRM they have been fighting for all this time. Wasn’t it Jobs who had to strike a deal with them to get their music catalogs on iTunes in the first place? And work with them to create DRM restrictions so they didn’t feel like they would be magnets for music pirates? But lo and behold, now they are giving the cold shoulder to Apple and the iTunes store that saved their miserable a__es and helped to resurrect them. The same store that worked with them to sell music at an reasonable price and with incredible convenience, albeit with DRM as part of the record companies paranoid demands. Talk about conspiracy, unfair and irony rolled into one. Sure, go save some money with your DRM free songs at Amazon, but as you download and count your change, don’t forget to thank that terrible Apple iTunes store for helping to make it possible.
Thank you!
Using Amazon was a great experience, I’m a convert after one purchase. Cheaper (by $3), much better bit rate (256kbps), no DRM, .mp3 file format, and it did ‘magically’ add it right to iTunes on my MBP. It doesnt have the video, aw shucks. (I stopped watching music videos a loooong time ago. And if I wanted to, I would find one using one of the many video channels I don’t watch but pay for :^) from Comcast)
I have avoided iTunes downloads for the most part, still stuck buying CDs and ripping MP3s. I like me some high bitrate mp3s.
I am glad your whining led to me discovering this. I would argue that is the best part about your post: opening up some eyes to Amazon’s service. It was easy as pie.
As for your post: I think you could have taken 10 more minutes to make it worthwhile, focusing on how nicely Amazon’s service works in comparison, how its payment system is easier and how Apple could spend some time studying its competitors in this rare case.
Lets remember something here: Amazon is the BEST at customer user experience for ecommerce. Apple does it out of necessity.
Don’t you realise that you’re playing into the hands of the music companies by going with Amazon?
Think it through.
Why do the record companies side with Amazon, giving them better terms? It’s nothing to do with giving you cheaper music, it’s to do with the record companies working with a company such as Amazon who won’t be as stringent in keeping future price rises at bay, as Steve Jobs has.
Once the majority of people (such as yourself) go with Amazon, Apple will not be able to dictate terms, which I might add, have your interests at heart in keeping prices down.
Once this tipping point happens, the record companies will announce price rises and Amazon will simply agree, and you will be out of pocket.
Rubbish you may say? Then answer me this, if it’s all about giving you cheaper music, and not about the record companies self-interest, then why don’t they offer the same terms to Apple?
Why don’t they let Apple sell cheaper music without DRM?
It’s because they want to side with a corporate zombie like Amazon who couldn’t care less about keeping the record companies and their pricing under control, and only cares about making as much money as possible.
“$13 on iTunes and $9 on Amazon. What possible incentive do I have to stand by iTunes?”
In a couple of years time, when people like you have crippled iTunes’ dominance, it won’t be $9 you’re spending, it’ll be whatever the record companies feel like charging, because there’ll be nobody (like Apple) left to fight your corner in keeping music costs down.
Pete, I’m still not using Amazon MP3, primarily because their terms are just as bad as any DRM’d service. They place significant legal restrictions on the sale, even if they aren’t enforcing those terms through DRM. I’ll wait for a download store where the terms are “won’t violoate copyright.”
And, as much as I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt, my experience with the iTunes Store has never been like you describe and others seem to feel that way, too. So I’m going to have to accept the possibility that the problem lies with you, and the problem was PEBKAC.
What the heck!?! Your recent posts are a bit cantankerous. I am all for a better deal for the same product. But I just did a search on both Amazon and iTunes for “The Essential Bruce Springsteen” and guess what iTunes is 3 bucks cheaper. Just thought I’d say something. Ps. I have never had a problem with iTunes– I am sure that will change, but up to today its been hassle free.
i read an article about the new app store with the SDK. there will be some apps that apple will release that will cost money, however, for third-party and independent developers there is not set price. that is, they can charge whatever they want for their apps (including free) and apple gets a cut (i think 10-20% of the cost?) and the developer gets the rest. it’s actually a really cool idea, because developers that just want to experiment with writing apps for the iphone can give their experiments away for people to play with, and the more legit software can be sold.
what’s really a shame is that STILL some new albums, SEAL’s SYSTEM for instance, are not iTunes Plus. Why should I pay $10 for 128kbps with DRM when Amazon has it for the same????
Personally, I feel like EVERY new release should be in iTunes+.
what’s really a shame is that STILL some new albums, SEAL’s SYSTEM for instance, are not iTunes Plus. Why should I pay $10 for 128kbps with DRM when Amazon has it for the same????
Personally, I feel like EVERY new release should be in iTunes+, not just a selective few.