The iTunes Music Store

Something interesting, even if you don't currently use a Mac or and iPod.

Now that the hype has died down a bit, do yourself a favor and take a look at what Apple's accomplished. It may be difficult to see without a Mac, but here it is in a nutshell: you can buy music with one click - by the song or the entire album - legal - from the major 5 music labels.

The selection is still limited (under 300,000 songs), but it's a good start. And the independent labels are not there, but will be soon, if I understand correctly. Apple, as a 3rd party, has broken through the labels fears of the technology and gotten most of the problems out of the way.

For me, I wanted to make a pre-show CD with movie music for my home theater. I launched iTunes, selected Soundtracks from the list, and quickly found a couple of movie soundtracks. No, I don't need the entire soundtrack album from "Chicken Run", but the main theme is lots of fun - one click and 99 cents and it's mine. I selected a couple of others (then end them from Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind and the opening from The Emprie Strikes Back), made a playlist and dragged some other music I already owned, put in a CD and clicked "Burn". All done - easy, legal, done in a few minutes.