iTunes Gripes

One of the great things about using iTunes to manage your library of music/podcasts/audiobooks is the seamless nature of the experience. Everything just works together, especially if you have an iPod to bring your library (or part of it) around with.

If you have internet access, of course you can add new podcasts from the iTunes Music Store. Most of them are free and many of them are even interesting. Jonesing for a Jamie Oliver fix? He's got some cooking shows in there. Eager for a dose of Steve Jobs? The last Macworld keynote (the iPhone one) is there in all it's nearly two hours of high-quality QuickTime glory.

(A quick note for Mr Oliver: just because it may be amateur podcasting doesn't mean that it has to look like it. How much would a tripod for the camera cost? What about a boom stand for the mic? Just those two things would do wonders for the quality of the video.)

One of the nice things the Music store can do for you is to fill in any album art you may have missing. But this highlights one glaring problem with the iTunes Music store.

Some things can only be obtained from the store with a validated account, which means a credit card with a billing address in a country for which there is an iTunes Music Store. Currently, this doesn't include Hong Kong. I guess this is fair enough: Apple Inc. have their reasons for not opening an iTunes Music Store in HK, whatever those reasons are. (And they're probably related to our stupid Parallel Import laws, where monopolies are enshrined in law.)

But, even if I want some of the free stuff (like album art, or the free Wednesday singles), I need to validate my account with my credit card! I can download free podcasts, but not free songs? What? How's about a Consistent User Interface, guys!