No, you're missing my point. The iPod by itself is just a good music player with a good interface. The iTMS by itself is just a good place to get music at a fair price. It's the combination that makes a great product, and no company should be required to help their competitors make better products. The fact is that the iTMS and iPod are in direct competition with all other music players and their stores. Some people have a problem with the fact that the iPod/iTMS combination is winning against them all, but winning isn't anti competitive.

Okay, then why is it so hard to get other purchased music online from other music stores on your ipod? What if you want an iPod but want to purchase them from a different online store and use iTunes?

You are forced into a product.

You don't even have to buy the songs from iTMS, you can get them from where ever else. I, myself, just add the songs that I download from CD's and internet to my iTunes library, and then drag and drop it into the iPod.

Because of DRM, and probably also because the other music stores just aren't very good. There are lots of people developing software who shouldn't be. Just one look at most corporate software demonstrates that.

Or because Apple makes it hard for the iPod to work with napster or RealMusic store. I know things have changed recently but in the beginning it was ITMS or whatever. Felix, I know it is possible to rip music of your own, or to copy DRM free music, but what about music you buy from a different online store?

I refuse to purchase online music until they completely remove DRM. I also think the iPod should be pure drag n drop. It should mount as an external drive and you just drag all your music in your ipod (arranged by folder, with support for several folders deep) and be done with it. The iRiver does this, but too bad it doesn't have the UI of like a touch screen iPod or iPhone. However, from what I have read online the iRiver has pretty good reviews.

But it isn't up to Apple to make the iPod work with somebody else's music store. It's up to that store to make software that works with all mp3 players including the iPod.

Drag and drop is great for the technically minded, or those who want to manually manage their music collections, but that's a very small percentage of users.

No, it is kind of up to the developer of the product to supply a SDK, at least that is my standard understanding of how that market works. Apple doesn't so they can dominate the market and seal you into their product. Smart marketing, but its the same thing MS does.

Yeah, I am going to say that nothing is easier than drag n drop.

I buy from the iTunes store because 1. It works with my iPod, and I'll never ditch my iPods, 2. The DRM isn't as restrictive as most and it leaves plenty of loopholes that can be taken advantage of, and 3. It feels better than others.

There's two ways to look at that. On the one hand, firefighters often use fire to fight fires, and make no mistake, the mp3 wars is an Apple vs Microsoft battle.
On the other hand, what's to stop another vendor from developing an iTunes plugin that takes the DRM free songs they sell and puts them into iTunes? Certainly not Apple.

For a small collection, sure. A big collection takes more than drag n drop. It requires organization, and that's what iTunes is for.

Okay, i see your point there. But I despise and disagree with how iTunes organizes my music. I hate how if it is hip hop they list all the sampled artist. I have a Wu Tang song that samples Biggie Smalls, and they freaking put him as an artist. They don't even sample his voice, it is the beat. Now iTunes thinks it is a biggie smalls song, and this drives me nuts to no end. I refuse to let iTunes organize my music. Or lets say that its a rock song featuring some other artist on vocals, iTunes will try to associate that song with the other artist, even though it was released on a different album and published under a different artist.

My music is strictly organized by this structure and this is way I prefer it. Root level directory is a folder called 'Music', then there are sub directories of albums organized by artist's name and then sorted alphabetically. So, my Wu Tang song that samples a Biggie Smalls beat is under the Wu Tang folder and I know exactly where it is. If I want to find a specific album, I open up that artist's folder then I simply choose the album. This also acquaints me with what songs are on what album, so when I decide to spend some money on ebay I can buy it on vinyl. Yes, I am a record nerd. I have over 200 vinyl records and I like to get music digitally, learn about it, then go out and buy the album.

In all honesty winamp is the best mp3 player I have ever found and it only runs on windows which is a shame. It has a 'play folder' feature which allows me to play either a whole album or whole artist, or multiple folders if I select so. It also takes up very little resources and has a very customizable interface. I mean I can download 1000s of themes for it.

Sure, I probably don't fall into the 'everybody' category when it comes to music collections and organization. However, this is how I have always done it since the very beginning years ago when MP3 was first developed and then massively shared over the internet. I am a collector and like to collect whole albums and I like how I organize it, it is efficient for me to do it this way. iTunes, iPods, and the ITMS does not allow me to accomplish this. I wish it was more flexible, not how Apple thinks you want it, how you think you want it.

Use Smart Playlists. Seriously. I'm not big on manually organizing my music, but Smart Playlists can be addictive. It's amazing the things you can do with them. Where the files are actually stored or what iTunes labels them as scarcely matters if you use them.

I've tried smart playlists, I am anal about it because I run rsync scripts to back up music from machine to machine remotely. I like everything to be organized where I put it, not how some program wants to organize it. Like I said, i am not a typical user, I care about small things like this.

However, now that the iphone is unlocked and cheaper, I may be getting one soon, plus I may be working part time at the local apple store and an employee discount would help me want one more. The thing is, I just want to push my music over wireless and not even deal with ever touching my iphone (or ipod) with the itunes client. it bugs me, and it makes me not want to use itunes.

I mean I am the type of user where I don't have any extra icons on my desktop. The first thing I do on a user's machine is grab all the icons and files on their desktop, and toss them all in one folder called "stuff" or whatever on the desktop. I can handle a folder or two but that is it. I guess you could say I am OCD about digitally organizing data, haha.

I guess that's the part I'll never understand. I know there are others that feel this way too, but I just don't get it.

You could spend tons of time organizing folders of songs the way you like them, but you could do the same thing with each block of every file you store on your hard drive too. I just don't see a benefit to doing either. What matters in the end is how easily you can get to the files you need, not where or how they're stored.

I am just OCD about my digital files is all. When you streamline everything to your preference and finely tailor the details of how you want it, you tend to stick with that method because it works for you. My whole music collection is synchronized (a bit over 40gigs in size) between several desktops and one laptop, and of course my file server. I use one machine to rip new music, with the codecs and quality I want then I sync it to my other machines. For example a few weeks ago I did some work for Anodyne Records. They are a good customer because they pay me in cash, put me on the guest list of local concerts, and pay me in merchandise. So they gave me a new copy of the Meat Puppets new album on their label for helping out with their computers (I had restored back ups of their financial data, pretty important stuff). I take it home and do what I do with every CD I buy or obtain through bartering, and I ripped it on my Linux box in FLAC. Then I converted an extra set of the FLAC to high quality VBR MP3 files, leaving the FLAC intact on my Linux box. Then using rysnc with the -u flag I sync my whole music directory to my other Macs and PCs. I have a 5.1 sound system shared through a KVM switch, so I need all my systems to have my complete music collection. The -u flag only copies new files (or it updates) to the remote sync.

So as you can see I have a methodical system of redundant back ups and the ability to play music on any of my machines which shares my 5.1 speaker system via a KVM with audio support. There is a method to my madness, and this is the most optimal way for me to do what I want to accomplish.

Now I also run audio and video out of one computer into my TV and eventually want it to run out to a receiver and a really nice stereo system when I get around to spending several thousand dollars on that, but it is something I am planning for.

I like having back ups, just in case. Back ups are good. Then I can just re-run my rsync script if I have to blow out a machine or if I have to replace a faulty HD. It only takes a few moments to copy 40 gigs of music via the network, and if I get a partial recovery from a failure the -u tag only copies files that aren't already present.

Like I said, I am kind of OCD when it comes to this.

Tom, I understand your feeling about iTunes. The music isn't what I'm OCD about. I'm compulsive about my photos, and therefore have avoided iPhoto because of its proprietary method of importing and organising.

I'm okay with iTunes, because I don't much mind how it organises the files.

I want my images in folders, and the folders where I say. I back up things systematically.

I'll probably use iPhoto at times now that it can import as an alias rather than the true image, because it is pretty integrated with many other things which could be fun to use. But I prefer my own anal way of organising.

Do I hear an echo?
 

I hate to say it, cwt, but you’re sounding like Steve Ballmer.

Ow!

I can see how people might compare this to Windows and IE, but it really isn't the same at all. There's really only one thing stopping a competitor from selling songs for the iPod, and that's their own DRM, not anything Apple has done to keep them out. Heck, there are plugins to add audio interviews to albums in iTunes! How hard could it be to put songs in there too?

There are plenty of third party plug ins and applets for IE too, but that doesn't excuse how MS tries to lock you into a product. it is the same thing with the iPod and the ITMS

There is no way for IE plugins to allow you to use another browser on sites that require IE. Plugins for iTunes can allow you to use songs and other information from vendors other than the iTunes store with your iPod. It's not the same thing at all.

Firefox has an extension called run tab as IE, which opens IE in a firefox tab. IE also has java plug ins developed by third party to integrate it. Autodesk uses IE for all its online licensing, they develop their own tools for it.

You are referring to what is known as Active X, which is a MS only technology and only works in IE. Most web based companies have moved over to open source based technology that supports all platforms. MS is trying to lock you into that product, just like how Apple is with iPod and ITMS.