Loading ...After growing increasingly unimpressed with the Apple iTunes/iPod “lock-in” model I started hunting around for alternative low-cost music services online. Fortunately one of the first and favorite services I ran into is the relatively new Amazon MP3 Downloads service.
Some of the big highlights of the Amazon MP3 service for me were:
- Non-DRM’ed music
- Low-cost music (about $0.99 a song or cheaper)
- Huge selection
- 1-Click Buy Ability
- Easily see the quality of the song or album in the music listing page (256kb is common)
- Nicely Browser-integrated Downloader
- Downloaded auto-adds music to iTunes library
- Almost all albums have a Preview list of songs that are easy/instant to sample using integrated Flash player (so just hit “Play” to sample and listen to the music).
- Easy to buy an album or individual songs
My first experience with the Amazon MP3 service was immediately intuitive and smooth, I didn’t have any hickups nor did my wife (who was used to the iTunes flow of purchasing music).
To get an idea of what the flow tends to be, I wanted to buy the following album of meditation music, so I hunted Amazon MP3 for it, and found it:
After clicking Buy MP3 album with 1-Click, the integrated downloaded popped up and showed the download progress for the album.
The downloaded is a 1-time install browser plugin that runs on the background and listens for Amazon clicks in the store to download. There are some settings you can adjust in the downloader as follows:
One of the cooler side-effects of non-DRM’ed music and configurable download locations allows you to easily setup the Amazon MP3 Downloaded to dump music directly to a home network NAS music directory or the like that can be shared throughout the house to other devices (like your consoles).
Overall I’ve used the Amazon MP3 Download service quite a few times and been really happy with it each time. Since it offers the iTunes auto-integration, there is really no different use-case than using iTunes and a whole slew of benefits. I’m sure there are some limitations on the label offerings on the Amazon MP3 service, they focus mostly on Warner and Sony but do offer albums from all 4 major labels out there, so most of what you are looking for is probably on here.
Overall I think if you are a music junkie, you might take the time to check out Amazon MP3 Download service.
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September 5th, 2008 at 11:51 am
No offense, but every single one of your “big highlights” in regards to Amazon is also true of Itunes.
You also failed to specifically mention even a single one of the “whole slew of benefits” Amazon brings you.
September 5th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
D.Corban,
I could have been a little more specific I suppose, but I wasn’t aware that all of iTunes music was now DRM-free and still $0.99, I know about the higher-priced DRM free music they announced last year… maybe I missed something.
Overall I’m not that enamored with iTunes, and find an alternative that does almost exactly what iTunes does a huge boon, now with Amazon launching their video service, I’m also happy to see that Amazon offering continue to expand (although in the face of Hulu, I think the “free” of Hulu will win out in the end).
My experience of purchasing music off of Amazon and downloading it directly to my NAS into the share directory was dead easy and I was thankful for it.
September 8th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Sometimes (often?) there is no room for discussion with Apple fans. I have been using Amazon mp3 service almost since it was rolled out, in part because I did not like Apple’s method of selling and distributing songs. Clearly, many people do not have a problem with iTunes, but I think that there is a non-trivial amount of people who prefer to avoid iTunes — and for those people, the Amazon mp3 service is a nice alternative.
November 1st, 2008 at 9:06 pm
i’m interested in switching from itunes to amazon.. My question is, once I download music from amazon and transfer that to my itunes will my music still be DRM-Free so that I can play it on my xbox 360.. or will apple turn it into DRM-protected thus not allowing me to play it on my xbox 360??
November 2nd, 2008 at 9:51 am
Drew,
Great question (as I had a similar situation). iTunes will leave the music DRM-free, it’s just when you use iTunes to rip music from the original CD that it adds the DRM to the music, if you are importing DRM-free music that you have purchased from Amazon or ripped yourself using other software, then you are all set. The music will stay easy-to-manage.