There’s nothing better to start off the work week than another report of the imminent death of the Mac platform/iPod/iTunes/Apple/bananas. Et cetera. The latest entry in the self-delusion sweepstakes is from Tony Briggs and that bastion of journalism, the Daytona Beach News-Journal. Briggs reviews Windows Media Player 11 in an article headlined “Will Windows’ [sic] Media Player 11 kill Apple’s iPod?”
Now, in all fairness, Briggs does admit that WMP11 is unlikely to kill iTunes, “especially given that millions of iPod users would never switch to anything with the Microsoft name on it.” True dat, Tony.
But most of the vaunted “improvements” that Briggs touts for WMP11 are laughable for iTunes users. Let’s run down the list. Oh, and for those of you wondering what’s with the seemingly unrelated picture up top, well, you’ll have to read all the way to the end. But trust me, it’s worth it.
Like earlier versions of Media Player, it scans your hard drive when first loaded (or specific directories if you prefer) for all digital music and video files. All are then automatically organized in a way that makes it easy to find what you want. New in this version is the ability to sort and view digital photos as well.Nothing new for iTunes users, who have had this functionality since, oh, version 1, I believe?
Also new is an automatic connection to Urge, a new music service developed jointly by Microsoft and MTV. Like iTunes, Urge allows subscribers to download individual songs for 99 cents. But Urge goes further by offering an “all-you-can-eat” subscription that costs $9.95 to $14.95 a month. The low-cost option limits you to playing the music on your computer. You have to pay more to copy music to MP3 players and burn to CD.Aside from the lackluster subscription model, the same as iTMS, except, well, no paying to put it on your iPod.
Then we get the tried-and-true “lock-in” argument: “Unlike iTunes, Media Player 11 does not lock you into one music service. You can choose from several others that were Microsoft partners before Urge came along.” I won’t deign this with a response here; it’s been shot down too well elsewhere.
In the music area, songs can be sorted by artist, album, song, year, genre and rating and are always displayed with CD cover art (unless you turn it off). If you haven’t already downloaded that information, and you have an Internet connection, Media Player will attempt to do it for you. By relying more heavily on CD art, searching becomes more visual. It’s better than squinting at long lists of text.My God! Organizing music by artist, album, song? What a brilliant idea! I really hadn’t been using WMP before, but this makes older versions of it sound like you’d be better organizing your CD shelves High Fidelity-style.
Plug in an MP3 player and Media Player shows some more new tricks. A new window opens with a gauge showing the capacity and amount of free space on the device. You can drag and drop individual songs into the window or create playlists. If you add new songs, the sync function will keep your MP3 player up to date.Another great “innovation” that iTunes has had since Apple introduced the iPod. Good job, Microsoft. Welcome to 2001.
I saved Briggs’s first and best improvement for last, though.
It starts with the overall look of the program, which provides a sneak peak at the interface for Microsoft’s next-generation Windows operating system, dubbed Vista, due in January. A classy black frame with blue glass buttons that glow when clicked exudes sophistication.Blue glass buttons that glow when clicked? Like the ones pictured above?
Geez, Microsoft. If Windows Media Player 11 is the best you can do, well, I don’t think I want to see the worst.
[via MacSurfer]
I love your piece. When it was first launched, I started looking at the interface, and though the black is "interesting" and though there is some eye candy to behold, they are missing the point.
Eye candy is good, but only when it works "flawlessly" with the media that its supposed to play.
I'm glad you took the time to point out the features that we've been having in iTunes for quite some time now. It just shows that innovation is not Microsoft's best skill. However, they excel in peeking above their shoulder.
With that said, I have to admit, It looks like they have a worthy piece of software now. Five years later, but nevertheless, they have something that seems to work.
I can see it now, Vista, featuring OSX tools and eye candy with its included WMP11 that is just a distorted iTunes clone.
Personally I can't believe I would even have to sell these "features" as "features" to my grandmother or my dog. Simply, it seems that nearly all of the points made in the article have not only been in iTunes for years, but in every piece of music playing software ever, on any platform.
Sorting by different meta on the file? Damn I did that with my CDs, tapes, LPs even! Search is what the digital age brings to this, not sorting. I'm not sure this article was worth taking all that time over, but I thank you anyway.
Actually, I think this sort of hysterical analysis is usually irresponsible. The gist of Briggs' column is to discuss the updates to WMP versus older versions, not to compare it to iTunes. The only direct comparison he draws (and as Dan wrote, it's not a valid one) is the own-versus-rent music store model employed by Apple, and that's not even relevant to the software -- that's a music store issue. Otherwise, Briggs himself does not say whether WMP 11 is better or worse than iTunes. He does say it is better than older versions of WMP, which is a fair statement, regardless of whether getting there meant adding iTunes-like features.
Hysterically dissecting a fairly neutral overview of an update to WMP that largely mentions iTunes only for context is just silly. And columnists don't write their own headlines, so you can't blame Briggs for the admittedly silly headline an editor slapped on his column. Take a deep breath, Dan.
You're probably right, Mark. I certainly didn't intend to come across as hysterical; perhaps I should have confined myself to expressing surprise over the fact that many of the features iTunes users take for granted have been just now incorporated into Windows Media Player. And while I did not (and would not) point a finger at Briggs for the headline (having had editors put awful headlines on my own pieces in the past), I agree that it is silly and probably mostly responsible for my getting fired up about the issue.
Still, I think touting glowing blue buttons as an enhancement is pretty funny. :)
Laugh at WMP11 if you like, but as a Mac user who also has a PC I can tell you that I find WMP11 to be far superior to iTunes. Hands down no question.
Now maybe I can more easily say this because I don't use iTMS, I prefer subscription based not per track.
Randy
Sorry, Mark, that type of disclaimer doesn't work. The reality of who slaps the tagline on an article doesn't dispel the simple fact that it sets the tone for the piece. The tagline is the first information the reader digests and orients the reader as to what to expect. As such, the entire article is going to be read with the back of your brain screaming... oh... this is WMP trying to kill iTunes.
That aside, I still can't help but worry. I remember when the Netscape browser ruled the world. Even I foolishly thought MS Explorer was biting off more than it could chew. But look what happened. Market dominance is no guarantee that MS won't win anyway. I know that the Explorer/Navigator fiasco involved very shady dealings by MS... I just don't think they've risen above them yet.
Dan (I assume not Dan Moren this time), you said of my headline comment:
"Sorry, Mark, that type of disclaimer doesn't work."
I disagree. One of the thrusts of Dan's post was that the columnist is an idiot. Since the only truly idiotic thing in the column wasn't put there by the columnist, I felt it was worth calling out.
Yes, the headline is poor, makes no sense, and besides that is mismatched to the article text. It is worth criticizing. But Dan's analysis slammed the column, the columnist, the newspaper itself, Windows Media Player, and Microsoft. While I'm sure he didn't intend for it to, it reads like the kind of zealotry that deservedly gives Apple devotees a bad name. And it wasn't even a comparison to iTunes, it was a comparison to older versions of WMP.
A little more critical focus would have made for a better post, I think. (Note that I do agree with all of Dan's points, underneath the editorializing.) That was the point of my original comment.
Dan Moren wrote a good article here. So what if he compared WMP11 to iTunes? It's his article, and that's what he chose to do. He made many legitimate points too.
Thanks Dan for doing your job. I enjoyed this piece.
Not to nitpick a good article, but iTunes has actually been able to perform all of the mentioned mp3 player functions even before the iPod existed. In the pre-iPod (and OS 8) days, I received a Rio player as a graduation present. When hooked up to iTunes the interface worked in much the same way as the iPod interface does today. The main difference being that then I got to pick my 6 favorite songs instead of my 600 favorite songs.
Additional proof that Apple is more on top of the game than MS can ever hope to be.
Mark, I disagree that the thrust of Dan's post was to call Briggs an idiot. The post merely analyzed the improvements to WMP and, for the most part, pointed out that those improvements were copies of existing features in iTunes. You assert that the headline was mismateched to the article and further claim that "it wasn't even a comparison to iTunes." That, at least in part, is flatly incorrect. The article itself states "Microsoft's Media Player 11 [is] a tool so good, some have dubbed it the iTunes killer. That's probably an overstatement, especially given that millions of iPod users would never switch to anything with the Microsoft." It further compares iTunes with WMP regarding locking the user into a music service. Thus, there were clearly comparative portions of the article, and Dan called those out (as well as pointing out a number of the improvements in WMP are merely ports of features iTunes has had for, ahem, quite some time). In the inherently subjective world of how you read Dan's tone, I'll merely state I read it as jesting and fun, not hysterical. When copying of features is blatant (and, here, it is), I'd think you at least get to rag them a little for the fact that there's a gross lack of originality or ingenuity.
i believe it's normal to compare them, since they are competitors. also it's very normal to pick your favorite one and point out the features each one has in it's advantage. i would assume most people here prefer iTunes (or most people in the world?) to windows media. i'm sure windows has some cool features that are missing on iTunes, but yes, it made the article posted by briggs sound somewhat funny when stating the new windows media is better than iTunes, but then only mentioning "new features" available in iTunes since it's first version. he ended up not showing why windows media is better. but then again, i don't even think microsoft itself could do such thing. with windows media, windows vista, or whatever else it is thy release.
So, I don't use my iTunes very often. I've always used WMP, and it has always (with the exception of the glowing blue buttons) had all of the features listed here. I don't see any new features listed in this article. Frankly, other than the format (wma, aac) and the gui, I've found basically no difference between the two programs.