Newsday: Apple, Its iPod, & iTunes May Become The Center Of A New Music Industry

S tephen Williams of Newsday just got his hands on a new iPod and access to the iTunes Music Store (iTMS), and he sees big things. He thinks that the iTMS could be the music industryis online savior, should that industry allow such a thing to happen. The article goes on to praise the attractiveness and ease-of-use of both the iPod and the iTMS. From Newsday:

If Steve Jobs is indeed King Arthur come to remake the stuttering, slumping record business into a musical Camelot, the new iPod is his Excalibur.

Sharp? As a Gillette Mach 3 blade. Sexy, like Antonio Banderas in Broadwayis "Nine." Snow white and silver, the colors of purity. Sufficiently hip to make the redesigned iPods - despite their premium prices - the No. 1 MP3 music player in the United States.

But Jobs, Appleis silky- smooth chief executive, thinks heis got the "complete solution" for the record industryis woes, even as he insists that Apple is neither a media company nor a music company. ("Weire just Apple," he recently told an interviewer from Esquire, apparently with a straight face). If Appleis new iTunes Music Store, combined with the appeal of the iPod, isnit the Great White-and-Chrome Hope of the labels, itis the closest, best thing theyive got.

There is more in the full article, including some thoughts from Mr. Williams on things that must be changed about the iTMS, and a full review of the user-experience when using it. He also has some somewhat briefer comments on the iPod. You can find the full article at Newsdayis Web site.