My Experience With Amazon’s MP3 Download Service

First let me say that I went into this review not hoping for much and was instead pleasantly surprised. So, before I go on, let me say that I think for many people Amazon offers a fair alternative to the iTMS. And if you are willing to go through a few more steps then it is definately worth it. Now on to the rest of the review.

The selling point that convinced me to give Amazon's service a shot was that they sell DRM-free songs in MP3 format. Some of their songs are also a little bit cheaper (by a dime) but the though of saving 10¢ wasn't really what persuaded me to give them a try. For me it was the joy of knowing that I can do whatever I want with my music without having to first un-cripple it. 

How do you go about actually buying music from Amazon, you ask? Well, it is as easy as going to www.amazon.com, selecting the MP3 Downloads from the Movies, Music & Games category. From there, type in the name of the song, artist or album and select the song you want from the search results. The interface is actually quite clean and intuitive. You will see the song name, artist, album name, length of song and price all clearly marked. There is an option to listen to the song and just like iTunes it plays a random 30 second chunk for your listening pleasure. So in many respects it operates just like iTunes. This means that there isn't any learning curve that would prevent your average user from switching over. But enough of the similarities! Here are several differences that make using this service quite different from iTunes. 

Buying songs with Amazon is easy, but it isn't as easy as iTunes. With Amazon, the first time you purchase a song you will be given the chance of downloading their free MP3 downloader. This application downloads the songs for you once you purchase them and then automatically adds them to the music player of your choice. So it is quite feasible to purchase all your music from Amazon, but use iTunes to organize your music. I didn't use this application because I don't need another program sitting in my Applications folder and I don't mind importing the songs manually. However, I've only purchased a couple of songs from Amazon, but if I starting buying more songs I might change my opinion about their downloader. 

Since this application was optional I decided to skip it and see what was involved with downloading things manually. Overall it was fairly intuitive. You click the button to buy the song, it shows you the price and asks you to confirm your purchase and then once you agree to their terms of service it downloads the file for you. It is then up to you to go and import it into iTunes. As I said before, it is easy, but it's a far cry from clicking one button in iTunes and having it just appear in your library. But to be fair, I think it is the best possible interface that you can get from a web browser. 

Overall I really liked Amazon's service and would encourage everyone to give it a try. For me, the lack of DRM and lower price was well worth the added hassle of getting the song into my library. There are still plenty of reasons to use the iTMS such as ease of use, larger selection and extra features. Furthermore, I anticipate making many more purchases from iTMS, however I will definitely be using Amazon again when I next need my music fix. Anyone out there tried Amazon's service?