Tanooki wrote:I've got an iPhone5S here, but I do NOT have iTunes installed because of it's cancerous tentacles that loop through windows and the garbage they force to load at start up.
I don't have iTunes on my devices either...I use all of that space for video games!
^^ I buy CDs, then make the MP3s that Apple probably would like to remove to sell me the stupid tracks for $2/ea when I got the CD for like $5~. Not going to happen.
I'm no fan of iTunes, but I like my iPhone quite a bit. That said, all my music is either downloads from the local library-provided Freegal service or from CDs I own. A CD is a great backup because you can easily rip another copy of the track at whatever quality you want.
Also, don't bother getting the higher sample-rate songs. Your ear can never hear the difference (because according to Nyquist there really isn't one, at least for the audible audio spectrum) and your iDevice won't play the higher "quality" files. It down-samples them.
isiolia wrote:Like, there are tons of CDs on Amazon I can buy the physical disc, and immediately get the option to download the MP3s (and I think stream it to boot, idk, I don't do much music streaming).
Correct. Any CDs you buy off Amazon, they give you the full set of MP3s to go along with it. That's useful for streaming across their devices, like my Fire tablets, my Fire TV Stick and my Echo. Of course Prime Music is also all sorts of awesome.
Xeogred wrote:The obvious answer is that it's time for the Dreamcast 2.
Since I bought my smartphone I've gone more towards Amazon MP3, since I can buy music right from my phone and download it as well.
I only still use my iTunes account since I still have so many albums I wanna complete first. If I go to buy those albums on Amazon MP3, I'd have to pay full price, in lieu of a reduced price to complete them. I know Amazon MP3 does this but this doesn't apply to my iTunes purchases. I mean, I own a handful of Dresden Dolls tracks from their self-titled album and their "Yes Virginia" album and I'd save a few bucks completing the albums on iTunes.
Prime Music is a huge reason I'll be keeping up the service, far better than that crap I subbed to for a few years XM put out. I consider it the #1 benefit with the shipping perks a close second, then video after since it's hard to find things on it since it stupidly sorts like their main product site (and on mobile/console devices likes to forget sorting preferences such as 'prime only videos' to display.
I just read a new article about this, and the blog author was jumping to conclusions. While Apple Music does upload unique tracks, it does not delete your originals. The blog author must have had some other kind of technical fail occur somewhere. Apple does not delete originals. At worst, it updates the title and album art, but it doesn't erase, overwrite, or alter the audio data itself in any way.
