Opinion
For music lovers in Canada, iTunes is pretty much our only go-to for buying albums online. I tried a few of the others, like Google Music and HMV, but I found them too painful to use.
Despite trillionaire Apple taking 30% from struggling musicians, I liked that iTunes kept track of what I have already bought in my song library, now at 2,810 pieces.
Also nice that Apple keeps a copy of all my purchases on the cloud. Should I lose a computer (as I once nearly did on a business trip through Stockholm airport), I can re-download my collection to a new computer.
Also nice that the AAC [advanced audio coding; source] music file format Apple employs is open, so that most music players play it, and that the music files I paid for can be copied to other devices without copy protection. I like its interface for burning CDs from purchased albums.
Sure, there are irritants with iTunes. For one, it keeps asking me for my password, which is an unnecessary friction that gives the illusion of security. For another, it seems to be always asking to update itself, with no apparent benefit to me. And its interface for albums is dismal, forcing album-oriented guys like me endure multiple clicks just to get all albums from a specific musician in date order.
Missing Credit
The first nugget of doubt came through The Case of the Missing Credit. iTunes told me I had had a credit of $34 from gift cards I had posted, but would not let me use it.
Unreachable credit in iTunes
So, one day I finally got around to contacting Apple Support, who over the next hour (firstly) passed me on to various people, (secondly) agreed that the $34 credit existed, and (thirdly) disconnected me without me knowing who to get back to.
Chalk that up as a fail.
Duplicate Purchases
But then earlier this year the unacceptable happened. Every so often I check iTunes to see if my favorite musicians have new releases, and there was a “new” one from The War on Drugs. I assumed it was new, for according to iTunes I did not already own it. I paid for it, downloaded it, and then found that I had already purchased it at an earlier time from iTunes.
Two copies.
Two, two copies in iTunes
Looking into it, I found that the earlier purchase was of the Deluxe version. Okay, so it’s nice that The War on Drugs got a double payment from me, less 30%. But I realized what this meant: I can’t really trust iTunes to track my collection and signal me which albums I may have already purchased.
As a final insult, Apple locked my iTunes account and tells me to go to iForget.something.or.other. Really can't be bothered.
Never mind, 2,810 is a lot of songs to listen to -- in addition to the 18,374 songs in my collection of LPs and CDs.
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