So today was the big day that was in the rumor mill for a while now. Today came, and quite simply, I'm amazed.

I used to have quite a bit of quarrels with iTunes after having explicitly used WinAmp, with not being able to do things the way I thought they should be done and whatnot, but this latest iteration just takes the cake and puts me over the top with its ease of use. Coupled with QuickTime 6.2, the new AAC encoder is just blowing me away. I honestly can't tell the difference in 128kbit AAC and 192kbit MP3. It almost pisses me off because something inside me says that's just not right, so therefore I must be getting ripped off in some way. I have yet to find the type of song that will let me know, though. So I'm enjoying it until then. Who wouldn't want 40% more music or so for the same amount of space?

Another sweet thing? Rendezvous enabled sharing. You know that thing that Jobs teased us with last summer? Well it finally came. On the network with another mac w/itunes4? Their playlist automatically shows up alongside yours. And it's way better than that demo that Jobs showed last summer. It's about time it came out, but it's worth it. And here's why. Right-click (ctrl-click) on ANYTHING in your library (the library itself, a playlist, a song, smart playlist) and you get an option to copy the sharing URL. That's right, you don't even have to be local to the network. Paste that onto a webpage or iChat window and someone else anywhere in the world has your playlist (or whatever you copied). Worldwide streaming at a click of a button. Now that is slick.

What I'm still up in the air about:
The music store. It was really the big news while iTunes and the new QuickTime were just the supporting cast. I love it and hate it. It is SOOO easy and nice, that you just want to plunk down the credit card and start buying songs. At a dollar a pop, I could build up a nice rare cd for $10. But that's just it. I can't. The library is pretty small so far and I didn't really find much I wanted. But I wasn't expecting the world on the first day of service, so it's forgivable. However, the teasing they do is not. On my first perusing, I stumbled down to Dirty Vegas. I'm thinking “Sweet!! I can get a nice copy of Days Go By without buying the whole album.” Wrong! The one song I want, they won't give me unless I buy the whole album. I found a few others like that as well. Mainly the newer more popular songs are not for sale by themselves unless you buy the whole damn album. I suspect that this was not Apple's doing and rather a compromise by the evil record industry. While I have yet to try to buy anything, I've read that they'll only let you snag a couple of songs from a record before they make you buy it to get more from the same album. I don't like that idea either. It seems like false advertising, but not quite. Just enough to get you pissed, but still like it better than everything else out there. And such is the life with Apple. It never changes.

Now….can I rationalize $400 or $500 for the new iPods as well……