Google Music and Apple iTunes

Google could be a powerful ally. I don't however think they be a threat or even a big splash on web-music in the long run.

AoWolf said:

Google could be a powerful ally.

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Very true. In fact, a Google/Apple alliance would likely have the strength to outdo the MS empire... though the dark side is strong with its leader...

Looks pretty good. I like that they've done it like the other specialized services. Have a link to the special search at the top, but list the web search below.

Macrumors said:

This confirms a Google and Apple rumor from August 2005 that claimed that "Google is going to offer iTunes somehow on their platform".

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Can't go wrong partnering with Apple. Google will benefit greatly from this partnership.

But could it backfire for iTMS?

Finally Apple has teamed up with someone else, and gotten off their high-horse.

License Fairplay, Apple!!!

Lacero said:

Can't go wrong partnering with Apple. Google will benefit greatly from this partnership.

But could it backfire for iTMS?

Here's to the Crazy Ones ​

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The method of showing relative album cost may push more users to cheaper (albiet crappier) download sources such as walmart.com

Rantipole said:

Finally Apple has teamed up with someone else, and gotten off their high-horse.

License Fairplay, Apple!!!

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It's really in the best interest of Apple's consumers for Fairplay to remain in Apple's hands. Letting iPod users use software other than iTunes will only make their life more difficult. For the record, I think people who have iPods and don't use iTunes (of whom I know a couple) are either ignorant or crazy.

There's a lot more stores then those that can be listed. I got CDuniverse.com and artistdirect.com along with iTMS, Real and MSN Music.

Chaszmyr said:

It's really in the best interest of Apple's consumers for Fairplay to remain in Apple's hands. Letting iPod users use software other than iTunes will only make their life more difficult. For the record, I think people who have iPods and don't use iTunes (of whom I know a couple) are either ignorant or crazy.

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Exactly. The closed system is a benifit, as it ensures perfect interoperability. I can only imagine the havoc crappy third-party Fairplay implementations could cause....

I'll be curious to see if Pandora ends up jumping in with this.

Chaszmyr said:

It's really in the best interest of Apple's consumers for Fairplay to remain in Apple's hands. Letting iPod users use software other than iTunes will only make their life more difficult. For the record, I think people who have iPods and don't use iTunes (of whom I know a couple) are either ignorant or crazy.

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I disagree. Don't get me wrong, I love iTunes but I don't always have access to iTunes and I don't want Apple to effectively dictate HOW I can listen to the music that I have bought. To give one particular example, the Roku SoundBridge can't play music purchased from the iTunes Music Store so the only way that I can stream music to my hifi is to buy an AirPort Express, even if I am using iTunes as the media player anyway.

Basically, it's my music and I want to decide how I listen to it, not have to buy an Apple product or (worse) wait for them to get around to releasing something.

Chaszmyr said:

It's really in the best interest of Apple's consumers for Fairplay to remain in Apple's hands. Letting iPod users use software other than iTunes will only make their life more difficult. For the record, I think people who have iPods and don't use iTunes (of whom I know a couple) are either ignorant or crazy.

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Thank you for treating the consumer as a 5 year old child. Can you get any more arrogant? I use iTunes but I've dabbled in other media players and I fully understand why other do not want to use iTunes. Its a choice you should at the minimum respect.

Macrumors said:

The new system appears to be in place (samples: Tanya Donelly)

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Someone has excellent taste in music.

This is very cool. There are many times I have just wanted to search for music without opening itunes.

I wonder if we will be able to search for directors or actors to find videos. That would be very cool.

I haven't noticed any adwords ads on any of the artist I went searching for. Might be time to start looking into artist keywords. ie: search for Bob Marley and you get an ad for rolling paper, search for Courtney Love and get detox ads.

I wish Apple and Amazon would team up in a similar fashion... Buy this album from Amazon on CD for $14.99 or download it now from iTMS for $9.99. Nah, I guess that's never work...

For me, iTunes is what sold me the iPod, and my iBook and some purchases on iTMS. I had tried other media library apps and found them to do many counter-intuitive things. Of course, what I find intuitive and others do may be different. Third parties have already found ways to get their DRMed content on to the iPod by mimicking FairPlay, such as Real's Rhapsody, but if I can't manage it with iTunes it becomes of little use to me.

Kelmon said:

Basically, it's my music and I want to decide how I listen to it, not have to buy an Apple product or (worse) wait for them to get around to releasing something.

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So make use of the rights you have under FairPlay, and burn those tracks to CD-R and re-rip them using the codec and bitrate of your choice for the Soundbridge. If the transcoding loss bothers you, don't buy from iTMS, but it is actually very fair DRM.

Why no price?

I wonder why no price for iTunes results?

Chaszmyr said:

It's really in the best interest of Apple's consumers for Fairplay to remain in Apple's hands. Letting iPod users use software other than iTunes will only make their life more difficult. For the record, I think people who have iPods and don't use iTunes (of whom I know a couple) are either ignorant or crazy.

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Some people like choice... its not black and white and wrong just to say 'ignorant or crazy'.

All people are not the same - some like iTunes, some do not like iTunes - being crazy or otherwise has nothing to do with it.

As for the ease of anything else other than iTunes depends how the software is implemented. Other companies could certainly come up with something better than iTunes. Apple is NOT the final word.

As for google - i hope apple integrate this search into iTunes so to automatically copy the lyrics back to the song.

Can you imagine the affiliate scheme earnings Google could rack up with people buying songs from clickthrus in their search? Add on AdSense and they've got huge earnings potential.

This has to be a massive money earner for Google. Did they partner with Apple or just do it anyway? Is there an announcement?

Note: So far this is only Google.com. Google.co.uk isn't showing music search yet.

Thanks for the Crash Test Dummies plug

It was great to see Crash Test Dummies as a sample.

Jerry
http://www.crashtestdummies.net

Sunrunner said:

Exactly. The closed system is a benifit, as it ensures perfect interoperability. I can only imagine the havoc crappy third-party Fairplay implementations could cause....

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Current State of iPod:
iTunes music works
No one elses does
=perfect interoperability

Possible future of iPod
itunes music works
Others work
= not perfect interoperability?!

Is this based on monopolies are cool as long as its Apple? I mean really how can you assume others having access to sell music is going to hurt interoperability? It's not like other people are going to be rewriting the bios with every song dl.

This is no "partnership" between Google and Apple.It's merely Apple and other online music services paying Google for top tiered linking.The same thing a lot of companies do..

Peace said:

This is no "partnership" between Google and Apple.It's merely Apple and other online music services paying Google for top tiered linking.The same thing a lot of companies do..

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Exactly. This is the first post that I've seen that actually seems to understand the situation. Apple wants to make sure that when someone does a music search on Google, that they appear as a convenient link in order to buy said music. End of story.