Works with
All iPods and iPhones
The Good
Huge selection
Easy to use
Great iPod integration
Good prices
The Bad
No a la carte/monthly fee plans
Small movie selection
The Price
$0.99 - $9.99+, depending on content
I feel sorry for CD stores. In the face of the iTunes Store, they just don’t seem to make sense anymore. After all, the iTunes Store offers a bigger selection, better pricing, and an easier integration with the iPod than any CD store ever could.
The iTunes Store is the 800-pound gorilla of the digital media marketplace. No one has sold more songs or driven more expansion of the kinds of media available to legally download, while also providing an elegant, integrated experience with a digital media player.
There’s no question that iTunes is at the top of the heap – the store that Rhapsody, Napster, and every major CD chain wants to be like. And with good reason – it’s a great service. As anyone who has used it much knows, the iTunes Store has an amazing selection of songs and albums to browse, preview, and buy.
In recent years, Apple has also taken good steps to add downloads of TV shows, audiobooks, podcasts, and iPod games to the store. The most recent prominent addition to the store is the ability to buy feature-length movies.
And this content works easily and smoothly with all iPod models, making the complete experience of using the iTunes Store with the iPod simple and satisfying.
Still, not everything is perfect with the iTunes Store. The chief obstacle for the store is that downloading a lot of content costs a lot of money, making a service that offers flat-fee plans, such as eMusic (Read Review), a very attractive alternative. If iTunes were to offer such a plan, it would almost surely reclaim many customers lost to eMusic (though it’s doubtful that iTunes could afford to do this with its current pricing and contract models).
The iTunes Store also lags in terms of its movie selection as well (and this is a good thing for retail stores – they can still outdo iTunes here). If Apple is unable to convince more movie studios to make their films available, it may have trouble selling more video iPods and the development of the digital entertainment market may slow a bit.
Despite these issues, the iTunes Store is still a terrific place to fill your iPod – and you’ll never need to wait in line at a CD store again.
