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Yeah, iTunes is "anti-web", by the enlightened standards of 2008. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why iTunes is anti-web: iTunes was originally released

Yeah, iTunes is "anti-web", by the enlightened standards of 2008. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why iTunes is anti-web: iTunes was originally released in January 2001. The best-of-class web browser at the time was IE 5.5. IE6 was nine months in the future. Safari was two years in the future. Firefox 1.0 was nearly four years in the future. The XMLHttpRequest object had not been invented. The term "Ajax" was four years in the future, as was the first famous Ajax application, Google Maps. Apple is a farsighted company, but surely it's a bit much to expect them to have traveled half a decade into the future and brought back Web standards that didn't exist yet. And, let me assure you: Web versions of iTunes built with the technologies of January 2001 were terrible (cough Java applets cough) compared to iTunes. That's not a hypothetical -- lots of people built such apps. They're all forgotten now. Why, now that things have moved on, doesn't Apple abandon the iTunes model and build a web app? A) Because iTunes needs to connect to iPods. Can you build a web app that can reach out over the USB ports and talk to an iPod? I'm pretty sure that, if I could, it would be treated as a dire emergency and high-priority patches would be issued. If I can talk to your iPod via JS, I can talk to your hard drives. Even the Amazon music store communicates with iPods via... iTunes! There are few other ways, and no other sanctioned way. You could, I suppose, reduce iTunes to a tiny browser plugin or a stub, but that would still require users to download and install a third-party plugin, and it would lead to problem B: B) Now that iTunes is established with millions of existing iPod owners -- who are Apple's best customers, now that so much of iPod sales are to people replacing existing iPods -- why make a major change in their workflow, with no benefit for them and trivial benefit for the world? The risk of confusing one existing iPod customer may well offset the potential benefit of getting several new music-only customers like Jeff -- who obviously doesn't own an iPod or he wouldn't be complaining. Plus: Cross-browser maintenance of an app as complex as iTunes is expensive and difficult, you can't control every aspect of the UI, and the population of people who balk at iTunes is small and is unlikely to contain many loyal Apple customers.

mechanical_fish 18y ago
Oh, and I left out Big Reason C, perhaps the biggest reason of all: Apple doesn't build a web app to sell music because several of their big recording company contracts don't let them sell DRM-free music. Apple is being deliberately constrained from competing with Amazon by the record companies. They've decided to fight Apple's growing control of their industry by manipulating the market, allowing Amazon to sell DRM-free MP3s while refusing to give Apple the same terms. The recording industry is playing Amazon off against Apple in a spiteful attempt to maintain more control. So: Apple can't sell much of their music without DRM, though they know as well as anyone else that DRM is a dead end. Selling DRM tracks through a Web app might not be impossible, but it certainly is difficult, and it's hard to believe it isn't a waste of time when Amazon is there to clean your clock in the marketplace (to say nothing of the P2P elephant in the room). Apple could put up a Web store that sells the DRM-free portion of their catalog while leaving the DRM-hobbled portion in iTunes, but it doesn't take Steve Jobs to see that as a spectacular marketing mistake.
mojuba 18y ago
Then there's reason @ (@ comes before the letter A, right?) - @) iPod is a closed proprietary gadget that can only be accessed using closed proprietary software. If iPod was open and standardized, the rest of your reasons would probably magically disappear.
- raganwald 18y ago
  I don't understand. If iPod was "open and standardized" in 1991, how would Apple have built an iTunes Music Store that would have provided the same experience? Or are you arguing that instead, they should have built something using the "open and standardized" components of the day, precluding almost all of the functionality that made it successful?
  - mechanical_fish 18y ago
    I think you mean "2001", not "1991". </nitpick> And I, too, find it funny that people are still arguing for Apple to pursue the business model that its nigh-extinct competitors were already pursuing in 2001 when the iPod came out.
  - t0pj 18y ago
    iPod was "open and standardized" in 1991 1991 was a sweet year for the iPod and iTunes. I had no issues installing it on MS-DOS 4/Windows 3.1 but had a hard time with corrupted data when connecting it up via centronix cable (I think iTunes also used a dBase III back-end at the time). :)
    - raganwald 18y ago
      But you must admit, it looked great on a Hercules Graphics Adaptor.
    - Xichekolas 18y ago
      Yeah, I really enjoying listening to my iPod during SSR (Sustained Silent Reading) in the 2nd grade. But then my teacher took it away... muttering something about "kids these days and their technology from the future"
serhei 18y ago
You're missing the entire point. ALL that needs to be displayed is a page with some album art, a description of the thing, and a "Want this? Download iTunes!" button. Then Jeff Atwood can figure out what the heck he just clicked on in Twitter. The full iTunes application still remains. FYI Apple already has a web-based "what's hot on iTunes" thing on their site which is more or less just as simple to maintain.
- mechanical_fish 18y ago
  Ah, I see. What we're asking for is an Apple-authored, Apple-hosted service to make it easier for Jeff Atwood to get free information from Apple without the risk of becoming an Apple customer. I admit, it would be really, really useful to have a service which provided links to album information and cover art without asking you to download a special application. Perhaps that's why such services predate iTunes by six years, and were originally available as (anybody else remember this?) Gopher sites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allmusic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allmusic I find it hard to blame Apple for not bothering to reinvent that wheel. What's the profit margin on it? And, for all I know, Apple isn't even contractually allowed to serve up album info and cover art outside of iTunes. Apple has signed a lot of stupid contracts (cough AT&T cough); it's part of the cost of being the ones who drag ancient monopolies kicking and screaming into the future. Perhaps I wouldn't have misunderstood Atwood if he'd given his essay the proper title: "Why the people I follow on Twitter are anti-web for linking to a non-web resource when AllMusic is just sitting there."
  - natrius 18y ago
    "Ah, I see. What we're asking for is an Apple-authored, Apple-hosted service to make it easier for Jeff Atwood to get free information from Apple without the risk of becoming an Apple customer." Information about music is marketing material for Apple. They're just doing a poor job of using it. I'm more likely to purchase a song if I can figure out what the iTunes link is pointing to instead of having to install a program first.
    - mechanical_fish 18y ago
webwright 18y ago
"It doesn't take a genius to figure out why iTunes is anti-web: iTunes was originally released in January 2001. The best-of-class web browser at the time was IE 5.5. IE6 was nine months in the future. Safari was two years in the future. Firefox 1.0 was nearly four years in the future. The XMLHttpRequest object had not been invented. The term "Ajax" was four years in the future, as was the first famous Ajax application, Google Maps." Amazon seemed to do just fine. Apple could have as well. I don't think this was motivated by a desire to have a great UX that couldn't be achieved in browsers at the time (given that iTunes is just a glorified browser)... I think it was a desire to be proprietary (anti-web, if you will).

mechanical_fish 18y ago

Oh, and I left out Big Reason C, perhaps the biggest reason of all: Apple doesn't build a web app to sell music because several of their big recording company contracts don't let them sell DRM-free music. Apple is being deliberately constrained from competing with Amazon by the record companies. They've decided to fight Apple's growing control of their industry by manipulating the market, allowing Amazon to sell DRM-free MP3s while refusing to give Apple the same terms. The recording industry is playing Amazon off against Apple in a spiteful attempt to maintain more control. So: Apple can't sell much of their music without DRM, though they know as well as anyone else that DRM is a dead end. Selling DRM tracks through a Web app might not be impossible, but it certainly is difficult, and it's hard to believe it isn't a waste of time when Amazon is there to clean your clock in the marketplace (to say nothing of the P2P elephant in the room). Apple could put up a Web store that sells the DRM-free portion of their catalog while leaving the DRM-hobbled portion in iTunes, but it doesn't take Steve Jobs to see that as a spectacular marketing mistake.

mojuba 18y ago

Then there's reason @ (@ comes before the letter A, right?) - @) iPod is a closed proprietary gadget that can only be accessed using closed proprietary software. If iPod was open and standardized, the rest of your reasons would probably magically disappear.

raganwald 18y ago
I don't understand. If iPod was "open and standardized" in 1991, how would Apple have built an iTunes Music Store that would have provided the same experience? Or are you arguing that instead, they should have built something using the "open and standardized" components of the day, precluding almost all of the functionality that made it successful?
- mechanical_fish 18y ago
  I think you mean "2001", not "1991". </nitpick> And I, too, find it funny that people are still arguing for Apple to pursue the business model that its nigh-extinct competitors were already pursuing in 2001 when the iPod came out.
- t0pj 18y ago
  iPod was "open and standardized" in 1991 1991 was a sweet year for the iPod and iTunes. I had no issues installing it on MS-DOS 4/Windows 3.1 but had a hard time with corrupted data when connecting it up via centronix cable (I think iTunes also used a dBase III back-end at the time). :)
  - raganwald 18y ago
    But you must admit, it looked great on a Hercules Graphics Adaptor.
  - Xichekolas 18y ago
    Yeah, I really enjoying listening to my iPod during SSR (Sustained Silent Reading) in the 2nd grade. But then my teacher took it away... muttering something about "kids these days and their technology from the future"

serhei 18y ago

You're missing the entire point. ALL that needs to be displayed is a page with some album art, a description of the thing, and a "Want this? Download iTunes!" button. Then Jeff Atwood can figure out what the heck he just clicked on in Twitter. The full iTunes application still remains. FYI Apple already has a web-based "what's hot on iTunes" thing on their site which is more or less just as simple to maintain.

mechanical_fish 18y ago
Ah, I see. What we're asking for is an Apple-authored, Apple-hosted service to make it easier for Jeff Atwood to get free information from Apple without the risk of becoming an Apple customer. I admit, it would be really, really useful to have a service which provided links to album information and cover art without asking you to download a special application. Perhaps that's why such services predate iTunes by six years, and were originally available as (anybody else remember this?) Gopher sites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allmusic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allmusic I find it hard to blame Apple for not bothering to reinvent that wheel. What's the profit margin on it? And, for all I know, Apple isn't even contractually allowed to serve up album info and cover art outside of iTunes. Apple has signed a lot of stupid contracts (cough AT&T cough); it's part of the cost of being the ones who drag ancient monopolies kicking and screaming into the future. Perhaps I wouldn't have misunderstood Atwood if he'd given his essay the proper title: "Why the people I follow on Twitter are anti-web for linking to a non-web resource when AllMusic is just sitting there."
- natrius 18y ago
  "Ah, I see. What we're asking for is an Apple-authored, Apple-hosted service to make it easier for Jeff Atwood to get free information from Apple without the risk of becoming an Apple customer." Information about music is marketing material for Apple. They're just doing a poor job of using it. I'm more likely to purchase a song if I can figure out what the iTunes link is pointing to instead of having to install a program first.
  - mechanical_fish 18y ago

webwright 18y ago

"It doesn't take a genius to figure out why iTunes is anti-web: iTunes was originally released in January 2001. The best-of-class web browser at the time was IE 5.5. IE6 was nine months in the future. Safari was two years in the future. Firefox 1.0 was nearly four years in the future. The XMLHttpRequest object had not been invented. The term "Ajax" was four years in the future, as was the first famous Ajax application, Google Maps." Amazon seemed to do just fine. Apple could have as well. I don't think this was motivated by a desire to have a great UX that couldn't be achieved in browsers at the time (given that iTunes is just a glorified browser)... I think it was a desire to be proprietary (anti-web, if you will).