Amazon MP3 vs iTunes Music Store

Amazon MP3 is an online music store that sells DRM-free songs and albums. It was launched in September 2007.

iTunes is Apple's online music store that was launched in April 2003. Songs are DRM-free.

Comparison chart

Improve this chart	Amazon MP3 Currently 3.60/5 1 2 3 4 5 Rating: 3.6/5 (85 votes)	iTunes Music Store Currently 3.35/5 1 2 3 4 5 Rating: 3.3/5 (69 votes)
Pricing:	$0.25 to $0.99 per song; $4.99 to $9.99 per album	$0.99 to $1.29 per song; $9.99 per album
Re-Downloadable:	Yes (via Amazon Cloud Player)	Yes
Catalog:	16.0 million songs	14+ million songs
DRM:	No	No
File format:	MP3	AAC, MP4
Launched on:	September 25, 2007	April 28, 2003

1 Catalog
2 File format and Sound Quality
3 Openness
4 Availability
5 Pricing
6 Ease of use with iPod/iPhone
7 Related Articles
8 References

edit Catalog

Amazon MP3 offers DRM-free downloads of over 2 million songs from 180,000 artists and 20,000 labels. In comparison, Apple says the iTunes Store now contains over 6 million songs.

edit File format and Sound Quality

While Amazon sells songs in the MP3 format with a 256 kbit/s variable bit-rate, iTunes songs are encoded 256 kbit/s AAC streams in an mp4 wrapper, using the .m4a extension.

AAC was devised as the successor to the MP3 standard. It achieves better sound quality than the MP3 format when compared at the same bit-rate [1].

edit Openness

Both Apple and Amazon sell songs without DRM and in open formats, AAC and MP3 respectively. Any music player will play these files.

edit Availability

As of 2011, The Amazon MP3 service is available for consumers in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, and Japan.

iTunes is available in France, Germany, UK, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Canada, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, Japan, Norway, Australia and New Zealand. See also: Map of iTunes availability

edit Pricing

Amazon MP3 is cheaper than iTunes. Most songs on Amazon MP3 are priced from 25 cents to 99 cents, with more than 1 million of the 2 million songs priced at 89 cents. Most albums are priced from $4.99 to $9.99. On iTunes, individual songs are available for 99 cents and $1.29. Albums are usually $9.99.

edit Ease of use with iPod/iPhone

Songs sold by both music stores are compatible with the iPod and iPhone via iTunes, though due to the nature of the iTunes Store's integration within iTunes, it is arguably an easier and more seamless experience.

If you have iTunes installed on your computer, Amazon downloads mp3 format to a location of your choice and also downloads to your iTunes library. If iTunes is not found on a Windows computer, it copies to Windows Media Player, instead.

edit Related Articles

edit References

Comments: Amazon MP3 vs iTunes Music Store

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Anonymous comments

Amazon's bitrates are variable with an average of 256 kbps. I read this on there website today. They don'y tell you ahead of time so who know what quality you'll get.
108.✗.✗.118 on 2012-02-01 03:18:14

iTunes ditched DRM years ago. They have $0.69 songs now, and album prices vary (in the US). Device manufacturers do not license AAC or MP4 from Apple, because Apple does not own those formats. What's up with the multiple different catalog sizes?
71.✗.✗.82 on 2012-01-08 11:02:53

Amazon.com MP3 downloads are still not available outside USA
95.✗.✗.215 on 2011-01-13 12:54:10

Amazon have had a UK MP3 store for 2 years mow.
86.✗.✗.116 on 2010-12-17 20:16:22

iTunes purchased music is NOT re-downloadable with jumping through some serious hoops (forms, proof of purchase, etc.).
212.✗.✗.76 on 2010-11-21 10:40:31

Apple's m4a format is higher quality than mp3.
24.✗.✗.102 on 2010-07-18 13:47:50