New Media Player: Nice Features, but It's No ITunes

Microsoft's new Windows Media Player 11 boasts an easy interface with the MTV music store Urge. (By Microsoft Corp.)

By comparison, Napster and Rhapsody offer the same price plans but also let people play entire songs for free -- an unlimited number at Napster, though you can't cue up multiple songs, and 25 a month at Rhapsody. Yahoo's subscription services cost about a third less than Urge, and both it and Rhapsody give subscribers a discount on song purchases.

Urge's inventory of about 2 million songs appears no better than anybody else's, but with a few strange omissions (for example, D.C. punk rockers Fugazi) that may only reflect its relative youth. Its search function shows matching songs as you type a query, often with awkward stutters as it scans through that sizable catalogue. It also has the irritating, unhelpful habit of padding out search results with songs and albums that aren't for sale.

Downloads don't come with any of the extras, such as lyrics, printable booklets and bonus videos, that are bundled with many new albums on iTunes -- you can't even print a CD cover or a track listing.

The biggest omission at Urge, however, is MTV's own identity. Except for a set of custom playlists and "Informer" blogs covering particular genres, little here says "I'm MTV." Urge's Web radio stations are all computer-driven -- and the one I sampled played many of the same songs on consecutive days. This store doesn't even sell music videos (although some can be streamed for free) or any of MTV's own shows.

Like every other Windows Media-based store, Urge suffers from the Not iPod problem -- its downloads don't work on Apple's elegant music players. Instead, you can choose from a wide assortment of other devices that all seem to fall short of the iPod's high standards. Consider the new iRiver Clix: This handsome rectangle of glossy white plastic stuffs its shuffle-playback option two menus deep and shuts off its screen after a minute instead of just dimming it.

But Urge's downloads also can't be played on Windows Mobile handheld organizers and smartphones. If you try to open one, you're sent to a Web page inviting you to install the desktop versions of Windows Media Player 11 and Urge, an impossibility on a mobile device. The final annoyance comes when you copy purchased songs to another computer. Urge will treat them as rented downloads, incapable of being burned to CD, until you sit through a "Restore My Library" procedure that downloads new copies of the music.

Not only has MTV failed to match iTunes, it has repeated some of the worst mistakes of earlier iTunes challengers.

Apple needs -- and customers deserve -- vigorous competition. But that's not going to happen if the best Apple's rivals can manage is a combination of beta software of dubious reliability and a tie-in to a music TV channel that devotes most of its airtime to things besides music.

Living with technology, or trying to? E-mail Rob Pegoraro atrob@twp.com.