This is how you should buy music online
With the recent launches of Google Music, Amazon Cloud Player and iCloud, there has never been an easier time to buy a song. Each service is different, though, and each has their strengths and weaknesses. Depending on your phone, listening habits and geekiness, you are better off going with one service over another. Here is a handy guide to help you choose which service is best for you.
Do you own an iPhone? Are you a geek?
Do you own an iPhone, but are not a geek?
Should you pay $25 a year for iTunes Match?
Do you own an Android?
If so, let’s eliminate iTunes. Amazon Cloud Player and Google Music offer great experiences getting music on your phone. You can purchase from right within the app. You can also purchase from the web and the music will be instantly available on your device for streaming. So which of the two should you use? You are probably better off using Amazon at this point. As with the Kindle, Amazon is a retailer that is committed to being on all devices. That means that the music you purchase on Amazon today will find its way on to many devices in the future. Will we see Cloud Player on the iPhone? Most likely, at some point. Will we see Google Music? Maybe. But if it’s as good as Gmail or any other Google apps on the iPhone, then it won’t be worth it anyway. Another reason to use Amazon is that you can easily download songs to your phone for offline listening. As an added bonus, the music you download is available in other apps — like games and such. Google Music allows you to “pin” music for offline listening but that music only will play within Google Music. As far as I can tell, you cannot access it from other apps. One thing Google Music has going for it is integration with Google+. It remains to be seen how effective that is, but the idea of sharing purchased songs with your friends is a step in the right direction. Music is social, and none of the above services have cracked that yet.
So there you have it. A helpful guide to purchasing music. We’ve come a long way and it sure is great to see three big companies competing on features and price. We are all better off for it. As for me? I mostly purchase from Amazon and Bandcamp with the occasional iTunes and now Google Music sprinkled in. I guess if you are an ultra music geek with many devices, that’s your best bet!
Dan Kantor is the CEO of exfm, a social music service, as well as an adjunct professor at NYU ITP. He spends his days listening to music and wrote this post after repeatedly being asked by friends the best ways to buy music today.
Image courtesy of Flickr user Beneath_B1ue_Skies.
Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.
AAC is superior to MP3, check the specs
This article is incorrect about downloading Google Music purchases. You can download them individually from the your Google Music library as a 320kbps MP3. Or if you use the Music Manager, there is now an option to download all music purchases. Try downloading all your purchases with Amazon. You have to check them all one by one.
This is actually a slight misnomer.
Yes it’s superior in that it can achieve a sound quality equal to Mp3 at the same bit rate in a (marginally) smaller file size, but from a quality standpoint they’re about the same. Both formats are what’s called “Lossy” compression, so data is lost when compression is done.
Since it all comes down to the ear, most people won’t be able to sonic-ly tell the difference between and AAC and Mp3 file of the same song encoded at the same bit rate.
Michael you made a bit of a mistake. AAC sounds better at the same bitrate than MP3 because of more sophisticated compression. If and AAC and a MP3 song are the same bitrate the size will be exactly the game.
Fraunhofer created MP3 and then AAC. It’s infeasible to think they created a newer format that fails to be superior to their older format.
All things considered I’d rather have higher quality in a smaller data package knowing that I can easily convert to MP3 when I need to.
The amazon downloader errors constant on lion. If it corrupts the song you have to go through customer service to get the download again. Apple with the cloud is way easier and works much better the only advantage amazon has is price on the sales they do.
Wendy, AAC may be technically superior but MP3 can be played everywhere. When buying its the safer choice for compatibility now and in the future.
iTunes doesn’t have DRM anymore Dan so it would be trivial to convert songs to MP3 if needed. In reality this article could be summed up easily.
1. Buy according to price.
2. If you own Apple equipment buy iTunes Match and you’ll get all the benefits of the iTunes Store
3. If you have hardware that “only” plays MP3 get rid of it. It’s crap.
4. Even Geeks can comfortably buy from iTunes. The automatic syncing of my music, video and books to all of my iDevices is worth more than doing the whole Amazon shuffle. My time is a bit more precious than saving a few cents.
5. Get Spotify and Rdio and enjoy millions of tracks of music
Converting to MP3 is not hard but it’s an annoying PITA to do for everything you own. And then there’s the storage of it (you keeping two copies of every song?). No thanks. MP3 for the extendability across platforms.
To Andre below, popularity has never been a very good measure of “good” (are you buying music according to Top 40?). iTunes is the most popular because iPods are the most popular MP3 players.
If you have iTunes, you would know that you can convert any file to mp3 in a few seconds. There isn’t a music storing system better than iTunes. If there was, they’d be the most popular system to use. Also, portable music is played mostly on iPod’s or iOS devices, so the file type is pretty irrelevant.
As an unrepentant and hapy Widows user, I can tell you with no uncertainty that iTunes for Windows is a horrid and frustrating experience. I was happy the day I deleted that mess from my system.
I am now actually using a combination of Media Monkey/winamp and a cool app called subsonic to manage my extensive library (over 2 gig and counting). iTunes just doesn’t cut it
Both are lossy formats so every time you convert you lose more quality. The downside of buying in AAC (already lost some quality) then convert to MP3 is that it will be definition be lesser quality then if you bought it in MP3 initially.
LOL to the guy who uses Winamp and thinks 2GB is an extensive library. (Mac iTunes user with 175GB library)
I think this is a good review of some of the major cloud services but not quite what I expected. As an iPhone user I didn’t know about the how google is trying to make the music social within their services and I like that part as how it shares is pretty important. I think Spotify is worth mentioning as it does all of the above with social sharing and really is only lacking a storefront. That’s not for me either and I’d rather be a geek about where the dollars go when buying music. Personally, I’d say BandCamp or Kickstarter is the best way to buy music. Let the services compete with better ways to share it, we all win.
Also remember that people do still buy their own CDs and use iTunes for the convenient management of their albums etc. I personally, rarely, if ever, download music from any of them. It all depends on if you only hear or listen to music I guess so you pays your money and makes your choice as ever
Buy Music? Why when I have Spotify?
>>> Even though many devices play AAC, you are still safer buying an MP3 file. <<<
2006 called- they want their audio advice back.
In 2011, AAC is supported by almost all devices, including Android phones. AAC has superior audio quality at the same bitrate, saving storage space- especially important with cell phones (even with hybrid streaming solutions).
AAC means you get higher fidelity without bigger files- it's a selling point, not a disadvantage.
Personally I get a Flac file when I can – ripped my 1K+ cd’s this way – then converted to 320kbs /sec MP3 for portability. When archiving files for storage file size at doesn’t really matter anymore given storage costs and services.
Another issue to consider is converting a lossy codec eg. ACC into another lossy codec like MP3 reduces quality each time. It all involves tradeoffs.
You totally missed eMusic.com. Great community, great prices, DRM free . Subscription model is great for music collectors. Check it out
to comment on your above comment, i have 5x more music, 10gb+ and use itunes to manage it with no problems at all. i think the real problem is trying to manage media of any sort with a windows based computer. theyre horrible at it, period. not to mention, youre using three programs to manage an average at best size collection, while i only have to use one for a bigger collection. you dont see a problem with that?
Agreed. From someone who has over 175GB of music.
A nice perk of iTunes Match is seamless integration with Apple TV. The whole library is available, and you’re no longer dependent on having a computer handy.
“Are you in Canada? SOL, son.”
Ha, yeah exactly.