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ThisGuy · May 13, 2004, 05:20 PM

I am sick of hearing a few friends of mine bash iTunes at every opportunity. Help me by giving me a fair comparison of the two.

legacyb4 · May 13, 2004, 05:34 PM

Honestly? Ignore him and just enjoy what you are using. Be frank and tell him too that you really aren't interested in hearing his opinion as you are satisfied with what iTunes does for you and leave it at that...

ThisGuy · May 13, 2004, 05:39 PM

i would rather you not be honest. i am trying to get a comparison. i am not arguing with them about it at all.

cpac · May 13, 2004, 05:57 PM

How 'bout you can use iTunes on a mac, where you can't use MusicMatch?

wataru · May 13, 2004, 06:48 PM

Has whoever you're talking about actually used iTunes? What about Musicmatch do they like better?

I've heard nothing but bad things about Musicmatch (and I didn't like it when I used it for about 10 minutes on a friend's computer) so it sounds like your friends are just being disagreeable for the sake of being disagreeable. Ignore them.

ThisGuy · May 13, 2004, 07:33 PM

everything you are saying is correct and i agree with hating it after using it for a night. i am just looking for some constructive input that can help compare the two. the one thing i actually like about musicmatch is its ability to get artwork and tag info. it seems to be better than itunes at doing this task. here is some guy's assessment:
http://www.sanitypages.com/story.asp?idvar=100

mitchell_pgh · May 13, 2004, 07:36 PM

I'm not sure, but from the site, it looks like:
1) Looks like they don't get CD Cover Printing
2) Looks like there is a burning cap on ripping
3) They can upgrade to Line-in recording

It actually looks OK...

Toyin · May 13, 2004, 10:32 PM

I've used Musicmatch on my work PC and after 1 hours with it downloaded winamp (this was before iTunes for windows). Musicmatch pales in comparison to iTunes. Have these guys actually used iTunes?

1) Fetch Art can get album art for iTunes
2) Real smart playlist (Can music match make a playlist of songs that are 100-120bpms that you've rated 3 stars or greater, that you've played less than 4 times, and haven't listened to in the last 3 months?)
3) Much better/faster search engine
4) Very easy playlist creation and CD burning. Better backup ability.
5) Better visualizations (IMHO)
6) Better music store
7) It's free
8) Only jukebox to work with iPod
9) Get Synergy or Butler nothing like a transparent floating window with currently playing album art and artist info.
10) Song ratings, play counts, last played, beats per minute...etc.
11) Music videos and movie trailers

Really I could go on, but the free version of musicmatch just plain sucks.

mitchell_pgh · May 14, 2004, 05:43 AM

Originally posted by Toyin:
I've used Musicmatch on my work PC and after 1 hours with it downloaded winamp (this was before iTunes for windows). Musicmatch pales in comparison to iTunes. Have these guys actually used iTunes?

1) Fetch Art can get album art for iTunes
2) Real smart playlist (Can music match make a playlist of songs that are 100-120bpms that you've rated 3 stars or greater, that you've played less than 4 times, and haven't listened to in the last 3 months?)
3) Much better/faster search engine
4) Very easy playlist creation and CD burning. Better backup ability.
5) Better visualizations (IMHO)
6) Better music store
7) It's free
8) Only jukebox to work with iPod
9) Get Synergy or Butler nothing like a transparent floating window with currently playing album art and artist info.
10) Song ratings, play counts, last played, beats per minute...etc.
11) Music videos and movie trailers

Really I could go on, but the free version of musicmatch just plain sucks.

My friend tried iTunes, but he said 4.2 was slow. He uses a few applications now.

typoon · May 14, 2004, 08:32 AM

Not only that But you can authorize iTunes on 5 machines, Unlimited burns, you KEEP your music. those Can't be said about Music Match.

Dyeus · May 14, 2004, 07:11 PM

How do you keep your music? I re-formatted my computer and did download purchased music in iTunes but nothing showed up, so there I was under the impression the files were supposed to downloaded I called apple support and they told me that I was supposed to back them up. was customer support wrong after all?

jfinete · May 14, 2004, 07:28 PM

You keep your music in the sense that the iTunes Music Store isn't a subscription service where you can only listen to music as long as you keep paying. With iTunes, you pay once and you can listen to the music forever (in theory).

However, Apple customer service was correct. You don't get to download your songs over and over. Once it's downloaded to your computer, it's just like any other file on your computer: it's your responsibility to back it up.

Toyin · May 14, 2004, 07:33 PM

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
My friend tried iTunes, but he said 4.2 was slow. He uses a few applications now.

Slow? I've got a 2.5ghz P4 at work and a 500mhz P3 at home (both with 768MB Ram). iTunes is decent speed on both. Visualizations are abysmal on the P3 but I think that's more related to the 16MB of VRAM on the Voodoo card. The only other thing that is sluggish is resizing and maximizing the window. The search function and GUI are as fast as iTunes on my 1.5ghz PB.

Originally posted by Dyeus:
How do you keep your music? I re-formatted my computer and did download purchased music in iTunes but nothing showed up, so there I was under the impression the files were supposed to downloaded I called apple support and they told me that I was supposed to back them up. was customer support wrong after all?

When you download a song, you're buying a unique AAC file. You can duplicate it and put it on as many computers as you want, but once you download it, it's yours. If you didn't back up these files before reformatting them, you're out of luck. Try iTunes support, maybe you can work out some deal.

wataru · May 14, 2004, 08:37 PM

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
My friend tried iTunes, but he said 4.2 was slow. He uses a few applications now.

Perhaps iTunes was still analyzing the volume of his songs. That can take a while if you have a large library, and apparently it slows iTunes down significantly.

mitchell_pgh · May 14, 2004, 08:50 PM

Originally posted by wataru:
Perhaps iTunes was still analyzing the volume of his songs. That can take a while if you have a large library, and apparently it slows iTunes down significantly.

True, I'll admit that they are WinAmp users... so who knows... that program is fast, but not as nice as iTunes.

I think iTunes is da' king.