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?
Pete Mortensen is a design strategist for consulting firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete’s particular Apple avocations are both around design–interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!
