iTunes Music Store Hits 100 Million Songs

iTunes, iPod, ITMS, 700,000 songs available, Mac and PC, excellent service, excellent quality, easy shopping experience, easy owning experience.

Add them up and that’s why all the other online download services combined still don’t equal half of what Apple does with the iTunes Music Store each day.

There’s something to be said for “doing it right.” iTMS is legal downloads of popular music done right.

That being said, what could be done to improve the iTMS combination?

For one, get The Beatles music catalog online. It’s not, you know. As of now, there’s no online music service that offers music from The Beatles. Interestingly, The Beatles and Apple are engaged in a nasty lawsuit regarding use of the “Apple” name; trademarked originally by The Beatles record label, Apple Corp.

The two had an agreement: Apple Computer could use the word ‘Apple’ as long as they stayed out of music. Hmmm. What’s the iTunes Music Store?

This will be a fun one to watch, but it’s doubtful that we users of the iPod and faithful buyers of Beatles music will be winners.

What else could iTMS do better? Remember, it’s a combination of iPod, iTunes, iTMS, and features that make it the overwhelming choice of music lovers. Except that battery life in the iPod (any model, any color) is terrible.

Sony just introduced their new Walkman with battery life estimated at 20 hours. It’s roughly the same size as the iPod mini and limited to Sony’s proprietary ATRAC3 recording and playback format. And you have to use the Sony music store (by all accounts, that sucks), and you’re limited to Windows only, and blah blah blah…

Not good. But the battery life would be great.

OK, one more. Compatiblity with Windows Media Player format (Apple turns “off” that capability in the iPod) and ability to play Windows licensed music.

Between the two formats, that’s about 98-percent of the legal download market, so it’d be a great plus.

Maybe.

You see, if you can get all the music you’d ever want at the iTMS, and all that music and about 10 times more will play on an iPod and it’s the best music player available, what’s the issue?

Beatles’ songs?

Battery life?