iTunes and Amazon MP3… It Is No Contest

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Tags : Amazon, Apple iTunes, Digital Music

iTunes and Amazon MP3… It Is No Contest

Posted on 16 March 2010 by Dan Cohen

I was listening to Spark Radio the other night, and when I heard a song that I liked a lot. I jumped over to the iTunes application on my iPhone and purchased the song for $.99. The next day I was thinking to myself that perhaps the rest of the album was worth getting. (Yes, I am old enough to be one of those people who actually likes to own an entire album instead of individual singles.)

So I went over to iTunes I saw that it was available for $9.99. I was about to purchase it when I stopped for moment and thought to myself… “Self, maybe I should check out Amazon and see what they charge for the download.”

I did just that and discovered that it was available on Amazon.com for a good bit less. In fact, the same album that iTunes had for $9.99 I could purchase for $7.99. The exact same album and it was two dollars less.

An oddity, right? Well not quite. And it got me wondering… was the price differential a fluke or a normal every day thing…

The album that got me wondering initially was Groove Armada’s new album Black Light.

On iTunes it is $9.99 for 12 tracks or 11.99 for 15 tracks.

On Amazon it is $7.99 for 12 tracks.

On both you can preview the music. On both you can get additional information and suggestions for other albums or groups. Both downloaded in 256kbps. But one will save you a few bucks.

Next I checked Massive Attack’s album Heligoland.

On Amazon it is $9.49 and has 14 tracks and a digital booklet.

On iTunes it is either $9.99 for just 10 tracks and a digital booklet or $12.99 for the “Deluxe Version” which includes 16 tracks and add-ons.

In fact I check a few dozen albums and found that time and Again Amazon’s pricing for MP3 downloads was the same or better– sometimes MUCH better– than what I could find in iTunes. Since Amazon’s MP3 downloader will automatically add tracks purchased from Bezos and Company into iTunes buying music through the massive eTailer is no more difficult than buying through iTunes. I’m sure there are times when the price on iTunes is better, but in my unscientific analysis this morning it was pretty darn clear that when you are looking to purchase music you will be doing yourself, and your wallet, a favor by checking Amazon first.

This post was written by:

Dan Cohen - who has written 2793 posts on Gear Diary.

Having a father who was heavily involved in early laser and fiber-optical research, Dan grew up surrounded by technology and gadgets. Dan’s father brought home one of the very first video games when he was young and Dan remembers seeing a “pre-release” touchtone phone. (When he asked his father what the “#” and “*” buttons were his dad said, “Some day, far in the future, we’ll have some use for them.”) Technology seemed to be in Dan’s blood but at some point he took a different path and ended up in the clergy. His passion for technology and gadgets never left him. +Dan Cohen

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Joel McLaughlin
Not to mention the fact that if your MP3 player isn’t (SHOCK! HORROR!)an Apple product, you may have a better time trying to get the song playing on that than the iTunes music since iTunes is a AAC and Amazon is MP3.
http://www.geardiary.com Judie Lipsett
It’s interesting to me that there is such a disparity between the number of songs offered on albums, depending upon where you purchase or which edition you buy.
But what a great option – I never think of Amazon.
http://www.geardiary.com Michael Anderson
Joel – other people still make MP3 players?
Personally, my kids still buy tons of stuff on iTunes, and the iTunes Gift Card is one of their favorite things …
But for me, I can’t remember the last time I bought something on iTunes, as like you say, Amazon is always at least $1 less.
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doogald
One thing to note is that once you buy a song in iTunes, there is an option in “complete my album” that lets you buy the rest of the album for a bit less. As far as I can tell, Amazon MP3 does not have the same (I just bought a track there last night, and couldn’t find the option, no matter where I looked.)
Another slight plus to iTunes if you have an iPod is that any purchases that you make from the iTunes Store that sync to your iPod can be synced back to your iTunes library if they song is accidentally deleted. This is not true for Amazon MP3 files that are synced to the iPod.
Sometimes I look at both stores, sometimes I just get lazy and buy from iTunes rather than comparing. Though I must say that I hardly buy music these days anyway.
http://www.geardiary.com Douglas Moran
Dan: you might consider installing the Amazon Firefox shopping plugin that I posted on a bit ago; then you can do your compares a bit quicker, if so inclined.
dbmurray
Dittos to Joel’s point. I have a Zune, which plays songs from iTunes just fine. All the stuff I really care about, though, is purchased in MP3 format in the first place and backed up twice in addition to my laptop and Zune. I can’t remember the last time I actually bought anything from iTunes that they weren’t giving away for free.
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