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WiFi Store Impressions

S

sanford

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 5, 2003
1,265
0
Dallas, USA
Okay, throw stones: But I really like the WiFi Store. I wish the genre browsing was more robust, and songs linked to their top iMixes, etc. It was very cool to sit on the sofa and browse/buy music with a device I can hold in one hand, not balancing a MacBook on one knee.

As for podcasts, I'd rather manager those on iTunes, but that's because I tend to subscribe, not download here and there.

Streamed song samples sound great.

Also, they did a good job still allowing you to buy albums with digital booklets and/or videos included, and auto-download those to your iTunes next time you sync.

Sure, it's just another way for Apple generate revenue. But for me it's a very nice, convenient way to do that.
 
I purchased the Pearl Jam: Live At Lollapalooza album to check it out. I think it is well done. Easy to navigate, easy to purchase and download and easy to sync music to your computer.

The one downside is I see myself buying a lot more music from iTunes because of this.
 
tsvb said:
I purchased the Pearl Jam: Live At Lollapalooza album to check it out. I think it is well done. Easy to navigate, easy to purchase and download and easy to sync music to your computer.

The one downside is I see myself buying a lot more music from iTunes because of this.
Click to expand...

Yes. My 13-year-old daughter cruised through the living room last night and asked what I looked so excited about. I told her the WiFi Music Store for my iPhone had just been released today. She said something about, Oh good, I know you wanted that. I said, Yeah, but there goes your college fund.
 
How does it work with Itunes

sanford said:
Yes. My 13-year-old daughter cruised through the living room last night and asked what I looked so excited about. I told her the WiFi Music Store for my iPhone had just been released today. She said something about, Oh good, I know you wanted that. I said, Yeah, but there goes your college fund.
Click to expand...

So does it sync those purchases into itunes?
 
I wish there was a way to sort by Artist, instead of having to show Album results for a search of the artist name.
 
I posted this in the iTunes forum...basically the wifi store helped me make my first Amazon mp3 purchase. :)

I previewed a newish album of demos and unreleased tracks by a certain artist my gf and I both like, via the iPhone iTunes store (aka wallet.opener.app).

(Side note: my gf and I have shared some iTunes music in the past, but at some point her computer was deauthorized for my account. She hasn't really missed my music much, and I like to authorize computers at multiple places I freelance at, so we don't share DRM tracks any more.)

So I thought I might give the iTunes iPhone store a shot, when my gf points out that we won't get to share the music. I do a Google search for the album, and lo and behold, who's selling it, without DRM, for a dollar less than iTunes? Amazon.

Installing the Amazon downloader was a painless 2 second affair, and the album itself downloaded in under a minute (100mb). And of course, I own the files.

The Amazon interface, if you can call it that, leaves much to be desired, but I will definitely be doing business with them whenever possible.
 
sanford said:
Okay, throw stones: But I really like the WiFi Store.

...

Streamed song samples sound great.

Also, they did a good job still allowing you to buy albums with digital booklets and/or videos included, and auto-download those to your iTunes next time you sync.

Sure, it's just another way for Apple generate revenue. But for me it's a very nice, convenient way to do that.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I love my iPhone, but I wasn't all that excited about the Wifi iTunes store. Still, I tried it out and I am now very impressed by how well it works. The streams start playing almost immediately (and sound great), and the live search function is very useful. Apple really knows what they're doing - I can't wait to see what's next!
 
Starfall said:
Agreed. I love my iPhone, but I wasn't all that excited about the Wifi iTunes store. Still, I tried it out and I am now very impressed by how well it works. The streams start playing almost immediately (and sound great), and the live search function is very useful. Apple really knows what they're doing - I can't wait to see what's next!
Click to expand...

I wish there was a way to tell it ONLY to show itunes plus tracks. I refuse to buy the DRM'd stuff, so I have no interesst in even seeing the 99 cents stuff.
 
I bought several singles and a CD last night using the music store. Very easy and allot of fun to use! I was waiting for this feature to be added but I wasn't sure I would actually get allot of use out of it. Boy was I wrong!

I have noticed that with everything I have bought on the store, the volume on these songs is LOUD! I mean they show that the iPhones volume has been fixed! They can be heard in any room in my house no matter if the TV is on or not. I am really loving my iPhone. For me, it is an iPod first and a phone second.

I was one to get all my music in alternate ways but the way I used, it was hard to find what I was looking for and somtimes it would take months to find an album.
 
I like the wi-fi store, but i'm a bit confused on something.... According to this apple doc http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306441 it says that you can't use a credit you have from a gift card, however the receipt from one of the songs I purchased from the wi-fi store says billed to store credit? I'm a bit confused by all of this... Anyone have any ideas?
 
Podcasts

Love iTunes wifi, but would love it a whole lot more if it would download podcasts I subscribe to. I travel for business almost weekly and don't have my computer with iTunes with me. Makes for a lot of catch up when I get home.
 
camarobh said:
Love iTunes wifi, but would love it a whole lot more if it would download podcasts I subscribe to. I travel for business almost weekly and don't have my computer with iTunes with me. Makes for a lot of catch up when I get home.
Click to expand...

Ditto....and how about audio books...I live by them on the road....not much of a music hound here....I'd rather have a good book on a 8 hour ride/flight.
 
macrlz9 said:
I like the wi-fi store, but i'm a bit confused on something.... According to this apple doc http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306441 it says that you can't use a credit you have from a gift card, however the receipt from one of the songs I purchased from the wi-fi store says billed to store credit? I'm a bit confused by all of this... Anyone have any ideas?
Click to expand...

Guy at the Apple Store today told me as long as I load the gift card onto my iTunes on my computer, it would deduct from that credit.
 
The only fault is that your can't buy on Edge. So it takes a bit longer for the songs to come down. I think AT&T told Apple not to do it over edge to try to save bandwith on their network...
 
ghall said:
The WiFi store is pretty good, but it needs work. It needs podcasts and videos.
Click to expand...

Podcasts require a mechanism for managing subscriptions, which may mean your iPhone automatically doing things in a low-battery state, if you merely pop into the WiFi Store to look something up. Likewise, video, start a movie download without enough battery power to finish it, what happens? They can address all this, but best to restrict to small files (songs) and collections of small files (albums) to start.

EDGE is out of the question as it would beat down AT&T's whole network.
 
I miss the feature from desktop itunes where i can see what the songs frequently played by a particular FM radio station are. On the iphone it would be a killer app; they could tell you what song is currently playing on the radio station you are listening to, and let you buy it right then and there (if you are on wi-fi, i guess - should at least let you browse and mark songs for purchase on edge, even if it downloads them when you get on wi-fi).
 
While there are features that would be nice, such as movies and podcasts... and I'm sure they'll come with time, the basic concept and implementation of the features that ARE there is simply brilliant.

Navigation is very easily, logical, and convenient... designed intuitively and harmoniously with the touchscreen input. And people often forget the immediacy and response factor. Example... on my car's navigation system, the conventional touchscreen is very slow to respond and requires deliberate and labored input. The iPhone UI by comparison is very snappy and effortless... the software intelligently guides contextual response and mitigates the potential for unintentional input.

I like the double-tap to take you to the album... the preview controls. And the purchase button. If you really think about it, the actionable buttons in the interface are snappier than hyperlinks because all the UI language is in the Phone and not on a remote server... i.e. the front end resides on your phone, and talks to a database on Apple's end. Apple has been using software optimizations to speed up functionality for a long time, going right back to executing the mouse cursor redraw on the Mac Classic in software during the processor's vertical blanking interval to result in a flicker-free mouse cursor that took Microsoft another ten years to figure out.

The simplicity of the UI is a big hit with me. It's a real trick to avoid cluttering up a UI on a small device with very little screen space. That they customized the UI rather than making an iTunes app identical to the desktop app was very thoughtful indeed. I know some people would have wished for something more full-featured but take some time to think about how unnerving the standard iTunes UI would be on such a substantially different interface with different input. In some ways I find the iPhone iTunes UI easier to use and do a lot of my tunes searching and purchasing on there now instead of the laptop, even at home.
 
Is iTunes Wifi Store only on iPod Touch and iPhone?

I like the ability of having a portable Wifi iTunes Store.

Is it possible to access this store by using a Macbook or Macbook Pro?

If Apple really wanted the Wifi iTunes Store to be successful, shouldn't they make it available on their top selling notebooks?

Maybe this is simply a sneak preview of what is yet to come.

Who knows what OS X 10.5 Leopard has in store...

If I close my eyes really tight, I can see the iTunes Wifi Store icon on my soon to be transparent dock...

I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Peace
:apple:
 
I am absolutely amazed at how fast the previews play.

This is first gen. It seems like a no brainer to offer movies, books, and podcasts soon.

I like it.... but if I had to trade it from MMS, I would.
 
For those who like to buy iTunes, the WiFi iTunes store icon is great. For those of us who do not buy iTunes and will never buy iTunes, the icon is merely adware that Apple put on MY phone. The first thing I'm going to do when 3rd party apps are out again is trash the adware.
 
basherhp2112 said:
...Is it possible to access this store by using a Macbook or Macbook Pro?

If Apple really wanted the Wifi iTunes Store to be successful, shouldn't they make it available on their top selling notebooks?
...
Click to expand...

But if you have a MacBook or MacBook Pro and a WiFi Connection, you can just use the iTunes Store directly. :)
 
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