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Hey, big guy. What's going on.

Further, they have not come close to Apple's ease of use model. You can listen to the music through the download application (it also downloads the album cover), burn it to CD, or move it to your player, all in the same application. iTunes keeps track of my cc number, so I don't have to go through the "shopping cart" process. I just click and confirm (you can turn off the confirm). I didn't even know Walmart did music downloads, but they're proprietary format, and you have to use Windows Media Player 9.

None of these approaches Apple's interface and simplicity. It's obvious that MS is co-opting Apple's business model, and I'm not claiming Bill Gates is the devil because he did. It's a smart business move. But if you look at what they're planning, it's obvious they aren't modelling after Napster or Walmart.

BTW, thanks for an intelligent rebuttal.

You've got a good point. I think there's a significant difference between what Apple and the others did. While Napster and some others got a lot of people downloading music, they were primarily stealing it. None of these created a viable economic or legal model.

Look at Walmart or Rhapsody or Napster now. All of 'em offer legal pay-for-play downloads. Apple's not exactly innovating in this space.

Further, they have not come close to Apple's ease of use model.

I have to confess that my daughter owns an iPod. Not a bad little device. But the iTunes interface is one of the biggest piles of crap that I've ever used. It's slow, klunky, counter-intuitive, and does not provide adequate feedback regarding synchronization. It's not a bad first effort -- but I've seen better software written by college kids.

iTunes keeps track of my cc number, so I don't have to go through the "shopping cart" process. I just click and confirm (you can turn off the confirm). I didn't even know Walmart did music downloads, but they're proprietary format, and you have to use Windows Media Player 9.

I recently downloaded iTunes on my WindowsXP machine, after I got a couple free song codes from the Pepsi-iTunes song giveaway. I LOVE iTunes. It far outshines Windows Media Player, IMO, as far as controls, sorting songs, burning CD's, etc. The graphic equalizer is better also, and you can set each song to use it's own custom equalizer settings whenever you play it.

Just the very pleasant experience of using iTunes has caused me to seriously consider going Mac for my next computer. I like to order parts and build my own computer, though, since it's quite a bit cheaper than buying a ready-to-rock machine. Another downfall of Macs is gaming, which I sometimes do quite a bit, and many of the big-time games are just not Mac compatible.