So I got bored this weekend and tried out Apple's iTunes music service.  It
absolutely rocks, very impressive.

There's a ton of music I was looking for, but haven't purchased it because I
don't want to buy the whole CD.  99 cents a track is a decent deal, and
instead of buying 5 different CD's for like $17 each (hard to find stuff), I
got by with spending $4.95.  It's 128kbps AAC, but it does sound quite
decent.  It would be nice if it was a higher bitrate, but as it is, I can't
really hear any problems with it.  30 second previews of songs at full
quality also.  This is the one thing that annoys me about buying music at
most stores, there's no way to preview it first.  

Also, if you have iTunes, and you go to http://spymac.com/music , you can
search people's shared playlists and stream their music to your machine over
the net.  You can't copy it, just listen to it.  I'm sure someone will
figure out a way to copy it though.  Although, since you can get most stuff
for 99 cents a track, it's probably not worth the hassle.

If you have iTunes, you need to try this out.  It's funny that record
companies complain that there's no future in online music distribution,
however, it's hard to see how there's not after checking out the iTunes
thing.  

Jay

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