Be Excellent To Each Other

Okay, believe it or not I have never bought a digital download.

I have an iTunes account but the only music in it is what I own physical CDs of. The only Apple product I own is a shuffle which gets very occasional use when I go to the gym.

I have a Google phone which I use for pretty much everything. I'm assuming I can download some version of iTunes to it.

So my question is this, are there any pros and con's of each that I should be aware of. Are there any limitations if I throw my money at one rather than the other?

Thanks for your opinions/help.

My understanding is this:
No, there's no version of iTunes for Android, however there are plenty of things that will sync your iTunes library to your phone. Not least, Google music manager, which will upload everything so you can access it through Google play music.
As far as I'm aware, if you buy a song through iTunes, you can export it and do whatever you like with it. I've no idea what the situation is if you buy a song through Google play.

Spend £10 a month on a spotify account instead, would be my recommendation.

Google Play gives you a free version (although not quite as good version) of iTunes Match which is excellent. Upload your current MP3's and you are away. Might have to ripe your CD's to upload them. Signing in on your phone and download your uploaded music anywhere (ideally on free wifi). You can also buy songs on Google Play to. I have over 12K songs uploaded to play and or download and it doesn't cost me a penny.

EDIT: LINKY

For everything you want to buy, check Amazon first. Their MP3 download store tends to be cheaper than iTunes, plus the downloaded automatically imports the files to your iTunes, and you also get a copy in 'The Cloud' so can play them on any PC you log in to that has a net connection.

Hmm, thanks mrak. I'm only really using my phone at the moment, so that is a consideration. I've got a month free of spotify so will see if I use it enough to justify it.

Thanks to everyone for your posts, it all helps.

I recently bought the new QOTSA album from Google Music because it was cheaper than Amazon (I didn't check iTunes because fuck iTunes) but also because I wanted to be able to listen to it instantly via my phone ,which was a proper 'living in the future' experience. I was put off later though when I got home and wanted to download the physical set of mp3 files for my mp3 player as you've only got two choices here:

• Specifically download the music I'd just bought; which is fine but can only be done twice for each song and after that you're screwed apparently
• 'Download free and purchased' music (i.e. all the stuff in your library that you didn't upload yourself as a single download action)

The latter option worked fine for me this time because I've only bought that one album but every time you bought more stuff you'd be faced with a bigger and bigger download of stuff you didn't need just to get to the mp3s you actually bought; a process which is so stupid I can barely believe it. Also, having just checked the Google Music Manager app, the option to 'Download free and purchased' isn't now enabled for some reason so if I'd accidentally deleted that QOTSA album I'd now be screwed it seems.

So, yeah, Google Music is a great service for uploading and streaming stuff you've already got (I've used it on my phone a couple of times recently and it's never burned through ludicrous amounts of data or anything) but I can't recommend it as a service for actually buying music from. If you absolutely must listen to the album in question right this minute then maybe, but that aside you're better off just buying from Amazon and uploading it to Google music separately.

I'm amused by how you led with 'fuck iTunes' and then bemoaned a bunch of problems that don't exist on iTunes.

Yeah but iTunes brings it's own unique and exciting problems to the party that, for instance, Amazon's service doesn't hence fuck it. That aside I'm amused that you're amused because you just couldn't let my comment go without saying something could you?

it was pretty funny though, in honesty. 'Fuck iTunes' as a general meme is like the modern version of that Slipknot 'People = Shit' 90s angsty thing.

I don't really know what you're talking about (the Slipknot comparison especially makes
no sense to me at all); I meant 'fuck iTunes, so I said 'fuck iTunes' and any chat about memes or whatever is reading way too much into it.

I still can't believe AE ruined iTunes for everyone.

Fuck iTunes because the music there is generally 50p more expensive per album than Amazon.

And I'm the kind of person who doesn't like to waste 50p.

:rolleyes:

I just wait til an album is about a fiver on CD, and buy it then.

In fact, I got a really nice bargain on Friday. The most recent How To Dress Well album on vinyl. RRP £21. Discounted to £10. Took it to the checkout, and when they scanned it, it was £7! Plus free MP3/WAV download. Happy times.



Oh, I know what you meant. I just found it funny. And any assumption that I was reading too much into it or whatever is reading way too much into my reaction.

You can't throw digital downloads in the bin.

I think he meant

It matches them the same as Apple to the higher quality version they have in the cloud. It also downloads everything as you go unless pin it for local storage . not sure that accounts for everything though.