Amazon’s Music Store Is Cheaper, Beats iTunes.

If you like the glitter and glamour of iTunes Store, you won’t be impressed with Amazon’s new music store.

Finally, a little online music sales competition for Apple. The AmazonMP3 store is cheaper than iTunes, very easy to buy, and songs play on iTunes and iPod. What’s not to like?

Oh, and the Amazon MP3 store works on both Mac and Windows PCs. A little competition is good for Apple, good for the music industry, and with another decent choice with lower prices, good for iPod users.

Thus far, every online music competitor has failed miserably because Apple got the formula just right. Easy to use DRM (digital rights management). Consistent prices for singles and most albums. Wide selection of songs, TV shows, and movies. Simple purchase process. Instant sync between Mac or Windows PC and iPods.

It’s not magic, but no other online store has come close to Apple, now the 3rd largest distributor of music in the US, behind only Wal-Mart and Best Buy.

Amazon sells plenty of CDs but their online presence has been spotty potty until now. AmazonMP3 is an online music store that will put a dent in iTunes near monopoly. That’s good and bad for Apple, but a lot more good than bad.

How can something that takes away customers and sales be good for Apple? iTunes needs some healthy competition so content providers, both music and video, will be less reluctant to do business with Apple in the future. Everyone wins.

What does AmazonMP3 have that iTunes doesn’t have? Music without DRM and lower prices. AmazonMP3 starts life with over 2-million songs from more than 180,000 artists, and 20,000 major and independent labels. Apple’s iTunes has a larger selection of music, plus TV shows, and movies.

AmazonMP3 offers single songs priced at 89-cents or 99-cents, with albums priced from $5.99 to $9.99, lower than comparable songs on iTunes Store. Amazon’s music is encoded in MP3 format at 256 kilobits, which makes sound quality comparable with iTunes’ AAC format (which is really MP4). For the average music buyer, quality will not be much of an issue.

When you buy a song on AmazonMP3 it gets downloaded to your Mac as an MP3 file, which still needs to be imported into iTunes. However, albums purchased from AmazonMP3 require Amazon’s MP3 downloader which tracks the music download and inserts the songs into iTunes automatically.

Unlike iTunes, AmazonMP3 does not require a special application to view and preview music and make a purchase. The whole “store” works fine in a browser window, Mac or Windows PC. Music from the store works on any iPod and any Windows Media Player portable music player.

Compared to the music buying process on iTunes, AmazonMP3 leaves a bit to be desired. Apple’s selection is over three times that of Amazon’s, plus, iTunes Store has TV shows and movies, all of which download easily and install during an iPod sync.

The strongest advantages with AmazonMP3 Store is the lack of digital rights management and the lower, 89-cents for a single, price tag. That compares to $1.29 for DRM free music from iTunes Store. Currently, the #2 online music store behind Apple is eMusic, which also sells DRM free songs for as little as 27-cents per song.

Amazon makes it easy for Mac and Windows users to buy, download, and move music to iTunes, iPods, and other portable music players.

The weakest feature is the lack of music from the major music labels such as SonyBMG and Warner. Universal has only a few offerings of their massive music catalog available for the AmazonMP3 Store. That’s 2-million songs without DRM on Amazon vs. over 6-million songs with DRM on iTunes Store.

Finally, some decent, affordable, usable competition for Apple and iTunes Store. But don’t expect a rapid change in the online sales rankings any time soon. Apple has approximately 75-percent of market share. Next in line is the much smaller eMusic. AmazonMP3 presents competition, but will take time to build market share.

Everyone stands to gain from this type of competition, including Apple, which needs to be seen less as the online giant, and more of distribution partner for the music industry.

Check out AmazonMP3 Store and do your own comparison shop with iTunes Store. The differences are distinct, but Amazon’s new store is the best of the competition, with lower prices, and no hassles with DRM.

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