Napster who?
I downloaded my first album today from the iTunes Music Store, and all I can say is “fantastic”. They did an excellent job on the application itself. My favorite aspect is the “browse” interface—just like the standard iTunes browse.
That said, I do think the price should come down a tad. $10 per album is certainly better than Amazon or Virgin, but considering that even with the generous licensing restrictions people still have to back up their music. Especially since there is no way to retrieve the music if your hard drive crashes—in that case you’d have to buy it again.
So if you backup your music: now you have a CD in a case, just like buying in a “real store”. The difference is that you have to buy a blank disc (ok, very cheap), no cover art (the JPEG that give you isn’t good enough for print), and you have to manually create the CD. All to save $5? I’m not sure this is more convenient.
If their going to back it up anyway to CD-R, then you might as well buy a CD from Amazon in the first place. It is easier to rip a CD than somehow recreate a good looking package for your newly downloaded music. But if it fell to $5…
