I’m not an impatient person; I just prefer to have everything now. Anything after “now” tends to frustrate me…a lot. To the point where I smash my fist on the desk. Throw things. Maybe make angry phone calls to random numbers in the yellow pages. You know, normal stuff. So you can imagine my dismay when I woke up this morning and noticed that my iTunes pre-order for Motion City Soundtrack’s new album, “Even If It Kills Me,” had not automatically downloaded and filled my Library with its savory pop-punk sweetness.
Since I’m a relatively laid-back kinda guy, I decided to try every-freakin’-thing imaginable to get it to download: log off/on, Check for Purchases, view my Account settings to make sure I had actually pre-ordered it, quit iTunes, etc., etc. Nothing worked.
Fine. iTunes wants to be a grouch. Fine. I wound up downloading the non-pre-order album, which was actually available (even though it doesn’t come with some tracks that are included in the pre-order).
Not surprisingly, I’m not the only one smacked by iTunes’ confused definition of “pre”: my friend Tim had the same problem with the MCS pre-order. My other friend (yes, I have more than one friend) Mike has had three separate instances where his pre-order failed to download, and he then had to contact iTunes support to get the mess corrected.
iTunes’ support page on pre-orders notes:When you pre-order an item, you may not be able to download it at the exact moment it becomes available for regular purchase. You’ll receive an email the same day to let you know when you can download the item.
My question: If the album itself is available for download, why isn’t the pre-order? And what part of the “same day” are they referring to?
It’s now 3:30PM and my pre-order still isn’t ready. Is this standard? Does it take all day to get the download? Or does iTunes just fudge it up sometimes? Have you had this problem? What time do you normally get your pre-orders? Another sentence that ends in a question mark? Vent your anger (at either iTunes or me) in the comments. That’s what it’s there for.
[Update:] Of course, ten minutes after I post this, I get an e-mail from Apple saying my pre-order is ready to download. Lovely.
[Update 2:] It seems the pre-orders are released about the same time Apple issues the “New Music Tuesday” e-mail. Anyone subscribed to that will tell you: it’s never on time. I think once I got it Wednesday morning.
I looked back through my mail archive and New Music Tuesday has often arrived on Wednesday and I even see a couple Thursdays. I have gotten used to reading it Wednesday morning.
I have a lot of watches on various artists in place, but I think they send the reminders on Fridays so the music has already been available for *days* by the time I get them.
I ran into that problem with my season pass to Damages. Totally different, I know, but I think the frustration levels were probably around the same magnitude. I have a choice. I could DVR it with my cable box for free, or I could Apple TV it. Apple TV has won 100% of the time for me. Until Damages. The new episode aired last Tuesday. The new Episode didn't become available until over the weekend sometime. Saturday I think. I'm surprised the iModerators didn't delete the dozens of complaints cleverly disguised as user-reviews.
The latest album I pre-ordered was 'Smashing Pumpkins: Zeitgeist'. I also tried everything possible to get it since the normal album was up there and the pre-ordered one wasn't.
I ended up getting the pre-ordered one the next day, but it does lead me to ask why usually when you pre-order something, you get it before everyone else and when doing so on iTunes everyone else gets it first. Sure you might get a track or two extra, but the price is the same and it comes later.
I'm from Finland by the way, so I used the finnish iTunes store.