It’s time for me to inform iTunes that we’re breaking up. No, really Apple, it’s not me, it’s you. Keep your proprietary aloofness and your clunky updates, I’ve fallen out of whatever it was I originally felt for iTunes.
Several months ago, I ditched the iTunes store for Amazon MP3 because I could find songs that were priced the same or lower and they weren’t “protected”. Last week, Amazon offered unlimited space for music on its cloud drive with any paid upgrade. So I forked over the twenty bucks and began transferring my entire library. Now I have access to all my music on up to eight devices without having to constantly sync one up with another. My iTunes playlists were imported so I didn’t have to redo any of that.
After a week of road testing the Cloud Player on my Mac, iPad (yes, two Apple products and I still want to be done with iTunes) and Android phone I can easily see that this is a relationship that may last a while.
Yes, Spotify just moved across the ocean and started flirting with me by extending an early invitation to try it out. I’ve only been using it for a day and can see some potential but there have been some glitches that I wouldn’t expect from a platform that’s already in full use elsewhere.
The transfer does take a long time (several days for people who had hundreds of CDs ripped to iTunes) but that’s one of the last inconvenient things you’ll have to deal with regarding your music collection and its accessibility.
The unlimited space offer won’t last forever and Amazon hasn’t stated how long it will be available. Any purchases you make from Amazon MP3 don’t count against the space you have on the cloud drive so there should be plenty for you if you happen to come across some previously lost CDs (as I just did) even after the offer expires.
My hard drive feels freer than it has in years and I’m already starting to forget what iTunes looks like.
I think I’ll go outside and enjoy some music.
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