Muxtape started back in March of 2008 and has been growing steadily in popularity since then. To put it simply, Muxtape allowed a user to upload a playlist of songs to its site and then share those playlists with other users. The site was supported by links to Amazon’s music store, where users could purchase songs heard on the site.

Now posted on the site’s homepage, the site “will be unavailable for a brief period while we sort out a problem with the RIAA.”

Stop supporting these dinosaurs. Go to a band’s show. Buy independent. Support the bands, not the leeches.

UPDATE: Word on the street is that Pandora is looking at a possible shutdown. Fantastic.

More here: http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/01/painting-the-town-magenta/
and the order: http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/31/deutsche-telekom-t-mobile-demands-engadget-mobile-discontinue/

PS: This ordeal isn’t a joke but happy April Fool’s day, too.

Taking a step back for a moment, Apple has made great progress when it comes to their applications.  iTunes, for example, has simplified the process of managing one’s music library, myself wrangling hundreds of albums worth of material.  On top of simple and straightforward library management, they offer their fine iPod music player which integrates flawlessly with their iTunes application.  Now outside of iTunes, I usually don’t have much to do with Apple.  I do shop from their iTunes Store often and find it very complete when it comes to finding what I’m looking for, aside from some artists.  I own an iPod Shuffle and frankly love it to death.  People shrug it off from its overly-simplistic, no-screen only-buttons-and-lights appearance, but I find it simple and of great quality, not to mention the audio fidelity of the generation 1 iPod Shuffle to be very satisfying with a nice pair of headphones.

In 2007, Apple decided to port its Safari web browser to the Windows platform, labeling it a beta and making it available for free via download.  At first, I jumped on the opportunity and have found Safari on Windows to be sleek, simple and very fast when it comes to page rendering.  Though I’ve never been a fan of Safari on the Mac platform, it does its job and the simple fact that its fast is enough to give it attention.  One issue I’ve found with Safari on Windows is that, well, it looks like crap.  Yes, the Apple staff have ported it straight from the Mac platform to Windows and that includes just about every aspect of the application, including design.  However, I seriously think Apple should re-think the look of the browser.  To me, it sticks out like a sore thumb when it comes to the Windows platform.  I do understand that Apple isn’t making much for money when it comes to their browser and I’m positive that they purposely designed the browser to indoctrinate users into the Mac look feel of things, as if its a large marketing campaign.  The same goes with iTunes on Windows, it looks just too similar to Mac applications and just doesn’t fit in with Windows.  Looks aside, both applications are very well planned and executed.  iTunes alone, I find it hard to come up with a suitable replacement.

Safari still needs a lot of work to give it a significant edge over the other major web browsers on the market today.  Internet Explorer 7 is ahuge improvement over version 6 and supports web standards well.  When it comes to Firefox, though, it just cannot stand its ground.  Firefox has been gradually snatching up marketshare in the browser market and rightfully so.  Mozilla Firefox has been my browser of choice for several years now, supporting web standards first, stable operation and application expandability with extensions.  Even today, Firefox is improving greatly still, with Firefox 3 looming over the horizon for a June 2008 release.  I’ve been testing nightly builds of Firefox 3 for a while now and find it much faster over version 2, and even giving Apple a run for its money when it comes to speed.  But the expandability aspect of extensions is just too much for me to consider Safari my browser of choice.  Speed alone won’t get you marketshare.

Something that’s also been in the news lately is how Apple’s been handling its 3.1, final release of Safari.  For some time now, iTunes has been pushed on to Windows users via Apple’s Quicktime media technology, which I originally thought was distasteful of Apple.  Now, Apple alone isn’t the first nor is it the last company to use this tactic, as Microsoft and Adobe have been doing it for years with Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player and the Google Search Toolbar with Adobe Reader.  While the extra software installations are optional, with a somewhat exception of Internet Explorer 7, I feel that when you install or update a product on your computer, you should not be asked to install more than what you’re already attempting to use.  Recently, Apple has been offering an install option for Apple Software Update on Windows machines during a new or update installation of iTunes or Quicktime.  I personally chose to install Apple’s software updater to continue updates for Quicktime and iTunes, both of which I find myself using often.  However, Apple has taken the “darkened path” of pushing again, more software, onto its users by offering Safari through its Software Update application.  I feel strongly that developers and/or companies should not use software updaters to install optional applications, but to only update products already installed.  I see this as an abuse of user trust between the user and the developer/publisher of applications, as it exploits the users’ faith in a software update application to update applications they have allowed onto their machines.  Again, Apple isn’t the first company to do this and I would much rather see them stop using their users’ trust to their advantage.  Stick with updating software that already exists on a user’s machine, don’t exploit someone’s trust with you.

On top of all of this hoopla about Apple pushing new software disguised as an “update,” I’ve delved into the license agreements of iTunes and Safari after this issue has come to light.  It seems that Apple, again, has slipped up with a product of theirs, as the Safari user agreement includes a possibly dangerous tidbit, against Apple anyway.  Quoting directly from the Safari user license agreement:

2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions
A. This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time.

Apple’s legal department most likely missed this and didn’t revise their license for Windows’ version of Safari.  I don’t hate Apple, but I think that they’re just growing too large to maintain the level of control that they’ve previously and continuously held on their platforms.  Success is not a bad thing in the least, but from the way that things are going lately for Apple, I’m beginning to second guess the real perks that Apple has paraded about their system.