Does iTunes Even Remember What Music Is?

ITunes has become the de facto way for critics and even the average user to bash Apple for occasionally outlandish reasons: it’s bloated in areas, comes bundled with the damned from hell media player Quicktime and doesn’t support a codec used by a whole 3 people, developers included. While your intensity of whining will vary depending on how much devotion you give to Apple, no one has noticed that iTunes has expanded beyond its roots into new territory.

I’m not giving the impression Apple is monopolistic in any way, oh no how could they ever conquer such a vast amount of space known as the consumer when Microsoft nearly has them gagged when it comes down to Marketshare. Instead Apple has adopted the mentality of a work stricken stay at home mom who just wants to do everything to keep you happy and for the sake of conserving sentences I’ll just call this busy mom effect and hope I can crack a successful Internet Meme while I’m at it. With the advent of new ways to distribute content, Apple has flung iTunes to the forefront in an attempt to mish-mash that distribution system and have the audacity to take all the fame for jumpstarting such a revolutionary idea like the poor sap who Steve Jobs stole the iPhone from. In this chaotic mess of mass marketing, iTunes has been bogged down with the task of supporting so much shit just so Apple can leverage the massively large user base.

Sometimes I forget iTunes still sells music when I drudge through all of the things it has to offer. Sure when you visit the iTunes Music store you’re met with a clean page that even your Grandpa could navigate and even find his way around the death metal side of the store. But actually handling music alongside music videos, tv show episodes, movies, podcasts, video podcasts, trailers, audiobooks, iPod games and soon iPhone Applications doesn’t make iTunes that much more appealing any more. It takes a heavy toll to not fuck everything up and is unforgiving on that other kind of computer which doesn’t bear a fruit logo in essence summing up Apple’s inability to code for shit on anything besides Mac OS X. Marketing hype, could be. Poor attempts at porting Applications, hell yes.

Technicalities aside, you run into the issue of the iTunes Music store itself. While you can actually buy music ranging from Techno loops to country and some obscure variants of Dark Wave, you still can’t buy all non DRM inflicted songs. I bet you forgot about that one didn’t you? Amazon and Microsoft didn’t and neither did the ungodly mass that is EMI, Sony, Warner and Universal. Yet Apple has befuddled the buying process even more by mixing DRM laden content with DRM free tracks and for the same price as well. While the decision is easy, Apple has yet to update the monolithic and soon to be archaic platform with non DRM’ed music. For good measure I am just going to toss in those DR-Dammned tracks will only play on an iPod.

But is Apple right in exercising so much control on the iTunes store? The only advantage is that the long reach given to them. Should something need to be promoted your eyes are already theirs and while you sit there gawking it’s becoming clear that its the wet dream of marketing drones everywhere. New content can be shoved down your throat easily and with your consent. Software Apple wants you to use despite your protesting can be quickly installed through the Software update extension. It’s becoming a goliath all on its own not only in influence and business practices but also in actual use. It has given the Cupertino company leeway to slack off and just tack on new services that while beneficial, are so tied into one central location robbing you of the freedom non DRM’ed content bestows.

Yet again another iTunes update is sure to roll out this time brining the longings of ever iPhone user to a screen near them: 3rd party Apps. Sure the platform is beneficial for most developers but some creativity will be cut out along the way, if Apple doesn’t like it they’ll make sure you won’t know it existed. All Apps must be approved and then siphoned through iTunes. It gives Apple the control and censorship some developers fear but we’ll have to see this play out more before any sweeping generalizations can be made about Apple’s marketing tactics.

The iTunes platform has become Apple’s lazy way of reaching a mass audience quickly and efficiently which has paves the way for a disaster should a major component of the system fail. Content and media that relies on such a system will be crippled on the innovations that helped propel it to the wide reaches of consumers everywhere. Steps need to be taken by Apple to ensure media is not so inert with iTunes to prepare for the event such a failure were to take place, validation to playback store bought songs and videos would be rendered inoperable and immediately inconvenincing the consumer.