The big new feature in iTunes 4 is Music Store. I’ve already read one person who said “finally somebody has got it right”. I’m inclined to agree. You have a bunch of browseable pages leading you to playlists of purchaseable tracks. They look just like other iTunes playlists, you can even double click the tracks to hear a sample. You can access music from any label and you buy songs for 99¢. It doesn’t work outside the US yet and the selection currently looks bad. I searched for Aphex then Bambaataa and got nothing before giving up and going back to the zzzone.

Micropayments. Fantastic. I’ve got lots of albums where I’m missing a track or two and I’ve got lots of artist collections where I’m missing the odd release. I’ll pay about 60p to get that missing track, oh God I will, I’m a major tidier. If you’ve heard a DJ drop a tune you really like, why spend weeks waiting for it to arrive on SoulSeek or Kazaa when you can just hit a button and let your card do the talking and not much talking at that? I think this is the next stage for music sales, I think that everybody involved here is going to make money. I’m sad that MP3 didn’t quite destroy the music industry. Hopefully it will someday.