Why go with a knock off when you can have iTunes?
Written: Dec 23 '03
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Napster 2.0 came out just shortly after iTunes came out for Windows. I have been an iTunes user for awhile now, I used it on my iBook and then started using it on my Windows box. So, I was curious to see what the sequel to Napster would be.
The legendary Napster turns legal after it is picked up by Roxio. Actually, Napster 2.0 has nothing to do with the original Napster and more to do with the old Sony and Universal service named pressplay. For those of you who don't know about pressplay, it was a joint venture between Sony and Universal and sold music services through Yahoo! and MP3.com. Sold maybe a strong word since the service did not flourish like the two companies thought it would. The problem? Silly rules for what can and cannot be done with the music, strange and confusing terms and conditions, and a lack of portability.
After acquiring the Napster brand name, Roxio went ahead and acquired the pressplay service. Roxio made some changes to the service, the major change is portability. What good is music just streamed online? Not much if I want to go to the gym. So, Roxio, king of CD burning added CD burning abilities to Napster 2.0. But, it is not as simple as it sounds.
Roxio went the opposite direction as Apple did with iTunes Music Store. Whereas Apple puts a straightforward effort on buying music: 99 cents for any song, $9.99 for any album, burn all you want, and pay no subscription fees. It is that simple. With Napster 2.0 it is a bit more difficult to explain, and I still don't have a good grasp (I gave up trying to figure it all out). There is a Napster and then there is Napster Premium. The only difference I can tell is that one can listen to full streaming (96Kbps Windows Media Audio) online with the Premium $9.95/mo service.
When I first tried out Napster the www.napster.com page had only a link to download the software. That was pretty annoying. It looks like I was not the only one that was annoying by it since the new website has a little more information, but not much. Beyond the confusing pricing is the confusing interface.
Napster 2.0 is nothing but a badly done clone of iTunes Music Store. Where iTunes is easy to navigate and find things, Napster is difficult. The front page of Napster is an absolute mess. The “buy track” icon looks like Roxio right-clicked and saved the icon from the iTunes Music Store.
Searching for music is a pain in the butt. When you search for an artist you maybe disappointed. My first two searches were for Linkin Park and Howard Shore (composer for the Lord of the Rings trilogy). Neither of which showed up (but do show up at the iTunes Music Store). So, I picked another band to look for, someone a little older: INXS. Yes, Napster has INXS in there library. The search pulled up a screen in which the top third showed three album covers and the bottom two-thirds lists 150 tracks. The iTunes store brings up almost the same type of listing except there are four albums at the top and a listing of tracks at the bottom.
Now here is where I found the elegance of iTunes and the sloppiness of Napster. In Napster double-clicking the track starts a 30-second preview of the song and brings up the album cover up top. In iTunes though, the bottom half has little arrows next to the track name and the album name. If you double-click the song it will also start a 30-second preview. But if you click the little arrow next to the album name, it will pull up an album review and information above and the track listing changes to list only the tracks from that album. If you wanted to get all the track listings from Napster an extra click on the title of the album up above is needed.
Another polish that iTunes has over Napster is the navigation bar up top. With iTunes, when browsing through music, there is a navigation bar up top that helps search for music. For instance with my search of INXS the bar changes to: Home Icon>Rock>INXS>INXS: Greatest Hits (great album, by the way!). For Napster? It stays the same, just Home, Browse, and Library. So much for helping to find good music.
Since Napster seems content to be a knock-off of iTunes, these small annoyances along with others that I have not mentioned made the choice between the two easy – especially when it looks like the library that Napster offers is smaller than the one that iTunes Music Store offers – don't forget that iTunes Music Store also has a collaborative effort with Audible.com to sell audiobooks.
As for a music jukebox function, iTunes has a lot over Napster: It can import tunes from a shared drive. So, if I am at home, I don't want to have all my music on all the computers. That's a waste of many gigabytes, so I put all the music on one machine and then share that directory so that I can listen on my notebook over WiFi when I am not at the computer. With iTunes I can import music that is on a shared directory, Napster cannot. Napster refuses to even show a network drive or network neighborhood.
So in conclusion Napster is a bad knock off of the Apple's iTunes music store. It does not do one thing better than the iTunes Music Store and somethings it does even worse. It is harder to navigate and the UI is pretty kludgy. Some may argue that the one thing that Napster Premium (the $9.99/mo service) has over iTunes Music Store is the 96Kbps. But even at that Napster does not come up to par with what is on the market: MusicMatch offers up a great collection of music to stream at 128Kbps (including Linkin Park) at only $4.95 a month.
Roxio, if you're going to imitate the market leader in online music sales, you'll need more than a brand name to sell the music. Napster can be called a good start for Roxio, but it definitely needs a lot more work. It also needs to change its UI to something more unique and not quite so iTunes. But, it may already be too late for this second coming of Napster since it is coming from behind and trying to catch up with an outrageously popular iTunes Music Store. If you're going to be shopping for music online, skip Napster 2.0, it's not worth it when there is a superior product on the market: Apple's iTunes Music Store.
Recommended:
No
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mookiekong
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Location: San Jose, CA, USA
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Current Mookie Obsession: Apple iPhone 8GB and Fedora 8.
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