iTunes question

[King Crimson]

i don't like iTunes. at all.

but i've got some gift card to burn on low compression rates and a meager offering of big label offerings.

once i log in to iTunes, and my account shows an amount to spend....why does route me through my credit card info and not let me buy off my gift card balance?

because i'm not spending MY money at iTunes....though i did once apparently.

i have a balance, right, at iTunes.....but it won't let me buy anything without a credit card info? that's BS. i got a gift card but it won't let me spend THAT money?

i'm confused everytime i have to keep entering a password....after i entered the gift card number/pass.

help?

[soonerboomer93]

nm, missed it in the original post

i gots no clue really

[GottaHavePride]

Probably to verify that you are the user associated with the iTunes account on your computer. Other than that, I have no idea.

[tbl]

I would assume it wouldn't charge your card, but only needs it for their records. Why, I don't know...

[SoonerJack]

Ok, I have a dumb question but I have to ask: Did you click the "redeem" link over on the right hand side of the screen and then enter your gift card number?

My son bought the whole Police collection on my dime because he couldn't figure out how to get the gift card number in there.

That's all I got. Good luck.

[SwitzerFan]

The son got his first ipod for Christmas. He also recieved a $15 itunes card. I set up an itunes account.(Didn't put in the credit card info). Logged in later with the new account. Clicked Redeem to use the itunes card. I was routed to my account info. It wouldn't let me redeem the card without entering my credit card info. I kept trying and eventually made it work without entering my credit card info. I never figured out if I went through a new path to get there or if they just give up after so many tries. This was not as straight forward as I would have assumed. I guess they want you to enter the credit card info in case you want to go over your itunes card value. Anyway that was my first experience with it for what it is worth.

[JohnnyMack]

Music snobs make my head hurt.

[KC//CRIMSON]

Music snobs make my head hurt.

I hate iTunes because it's just too damn easy. Bastards.

[StoopTroup]

Santa brought us 3 nanos and a shaker for the boy...

I've been able to download one song on MP3Rocket, transfer it to Itunes...

After that nothing....

I'm fixin' to put the Wifey to work.

[King Crimson]

I hate iTunes because it's just too damn easy. Bastards..

especially if you like low compression rates, incomplete records, and don't want anything that's not a major label release.

[Frozen Sooner]

especially if you like low compression rates, incomplete records, and don't want anything that's not a major label release.

KC, iTunes' business model is based on volume sales. For high-volume sales, they have to keep their compression rates low in order to get a decent ROI after paying for the rights from the label-otherwise, bandwidth eats up their profit margin. Same goes for non-major lable releases: why would they pay to license a song that's not going to get downloaded?

iTunes is starting to segment their market a bit with the higher-bitrate DRM-free stuff, but so far the only label to agree to the DRM-free arrangement is EMI.

It's too bad that allofmp3 turned out to be illegal. Their pricing model is what I personally think digitial music should be using. You didn't pay by the song, you paid by the megabyte. Want a higher bitrate? Awesome-you pay a premium for it, but you get it.

The sad fact, though, is that the vast majority of the listening public can't tell the difference between a 128kbps .mp3 and a CD (which is still lossy, by the way.) If they can tell, they don't really care. Look at how successful iTunes has been selling music at 128kbps-they're the #3 overall seller of music in the country with NO brick and mortar stores and NO physical media.

Basically, if people wanted higher-quality sounding music, SACD and DVD-A wouldn't have been the massive failures at market that they were.

[King Crimson]

mike, that answers one of my 3 complaints. sort of.

i know you have a position on this, but when the cheaters have better tech than mac/apple. mac was a big big freeware type company until they started making money.