iTunes links tend to be cumbersome. When you hit one, it generally opens a new window which offers you to open iTunes (if it doesn’t do so automatically), and if iTunes wasn’t on, it might slow down your system. All-in-all, it’s not perfect.
Apple also realized it and their solution, which they started rolling out a couple months ago, is “iTunes preview”. The concept is that whenever you hit an iTunes link, you’re getting a preview page of the content you’re trying to access.
The service was limited to Music until now, but Apple just extended it to apps. See it by yourself by following this link.
This is an interesting evolution. The theory that, in the long-run, iTunes might be moving to your browser has been floating around for a while now and it goes well in hand with the idea of a cloud-based music library for everyone.
I’m not yet convinced Apple would do such a thing. The iPad is shipping with three different stores which makes me think that Apple really enjoys having its own little ecosystems.
But who knows? Web browsers are the future.
Eh, that link still opened iTunes for me (Firefox on a Mac, btw).
I’d actually love it, if i could buy stuff from a browser anywhere and my (running) iTunes at home automatically downloads it for me. Same with the Store on the iPhone.
iTunes still opened for me as well, but I did get the preview page in the browser.
“I’m not yet convinced Apple would do such a thing. The iPad is shipping with three different stores which makes me think that Apple really enjoys having its own little ecosystems.”
It’s still their ecosystem.
This makes sense though. If you’re someone with an iphone who uses, for example, an rss reader, twitter app or facebook app and someone posts a link to an application on itunes, what happens? The browser opens, then itunes opens. On the iPhone this is particularly annoying.
This way, if someone’s interested in the app, they can look it over without becoming annoyed with the whole process. If they wish to actually buy it, then they’re probably more willing to launch iTunes.
Apple purchased lala didn’t they? so it would only make perfect sense for them to make this move and utilize there newly acquired power.
Same here. iTunes opened, and I got the preview page too. So how is this any better? Now I have to close two things?