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Ah screw Wal-Mart!... the music is probably censored (where applicable) anyway. I don't buy any music from Wal-Mart, I go to Target instead

Also why does eBay - though completely compatible with Safari - give the warning I need to upgrade?!? I'm using the world's best and most up-to-date browser commercially available for Pete's sake!

How does music encoded at 256 kbps MP3 compare to 256 kbps AAC?

So what? As long as PC users can play the tracks on iPods I really don't care. I think if a Mac user even tries to use the WalMart service, their machine should administer an electric shock and a voice should shout "NO!", like shoving a dog's nose in poop.

Another good reason for everyone to continue to boycott Walmart.

Wal-Mart is like McDonalds - they're everywhere, and they sell shit.

I don't think that eBay warning started coming up for me until I installed the Safari 3 beta, so I'm guessing it has something to do with that.

@ ChrissyOne
Very often...
I just love your takes
Lol

"Wal-Mart is like McDonalds - they're everywhere, and they sell shit."

Ah, yes, but they always have the lowest prices on said shit. Always.

Since the Walmart empire was built by the spending of the masses of drones, why are we surprised they can't/won't sell to a Mac? Most Mac users are not mindless drones as evidenced by choosing a less common, much maligned and often rejected yet superior hardware/software system.

why shop at walmart at all?

They are the beginning of the end of the lower class.. and eeking their way upwards.

Remember "Made In The USA" from a few years ago? How much is made in the USA now at walmart... just about nothing.

And there goes your manufacturing jobs, and the money that when with them.

Walmart doesn't play fair, they remind me of Microsoft.

Who would the Wal mart customer be anyway? Die hard PC nerds who go there because iTunes is made by their mortal enemy? Lol suffer.

/schadenfreude

Doesn't WalMart force the record labels and movie studios to edit their songs and movies for content before appearing on a WalMart shelf? Who wants censored music? Hell, maybe they're putting in some subliminal messages to buy at WalMart - nahh, they're not competent enough to know how to do that

Not really -- haven't stepped into a bogus box in years.

But, that begets the question.... the iPod using impoverished masses (you know, the same ones who are feeding their iPod off of the only software that works on their bloated, infected, $600- Windoze machines) are going to want to buy the cheap stuff.

So to that end, has anyone tried using a browser other than Safari? I wonder if the same error message would come up if I used Firefox or Opera. I'm at work right now on a windoze box so can't try.

Interesting MDN magic word = range, as in the whole range of browsers....

Wait a minute....I just went to the Wal-Mart site to see if I could spoof it with Safari's Debug>User Agent setting. Instead, Safari 2.0.4 on a Mac Pro Dual Core Intel Xenon performed flawlessly with Debug>User Agent set on "Automatically Chosen"

I picked the Fergie MP3 track, previewed (I have the Flip for Mac plug in on my quicktime player), put it in my shopping cart and got most of the way through checkout, creating a user account. I stopped at the payment section.

Never once did I encounter the "Sorry" dialogue.

Anyone else try it?

Ooops....meant to say Windows Media Player, not Quicktime Player

Yah, what's even weirder is that entire REST of the Walmart site works totally fine in Safari.

I smell a Redmond Rat.

Walmart has to be there to give customers a choice of something better by doing business at Apple.

"...They are the beginning of the end of the lower class.. and eeking their way upwards..."

There's a lot wrong there, and not just the spelling of "eking". I guess what your post is saying is that Americans should have to buy American goods no matter what price manufacturers put on them.

I remember the same argument about the Japanese cars that flooded the market in the seventies. "What about Detroit?" "Our jobs will be lost!" No sane person will argue now that Japanese imports weren't good for the consumer.

Buy American only if the product is better. Free market rules. Trade protectionism is a backwards notion.

Hey, give the Walmart guys some time to add support for additional operating systems. Not months or years like Apple needed for iTunes, but at least a couple of weeks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes_version_history

January 9, 2001 Apple releases a repackaged version of SoundJam MP (created by Casady & Greene company) calling it iTunes 1.0 (OS 9).
...
April 28, 2003 iTunes Store support (OS X).
...
October 16, 2003 first Windows version.
...
May 29, 2007 fully compatible with Vista.

@trolbert
Who would the Wal mart customer be anyway? Die hard PC nerds who go there because iTunes is made by their mortal enemy? Lol suffer.

Woooo Hoooo, I'm with you fellow Fanboi!!!!!! I would gladly pay more for lower quality DRM laced music from iTunes!!!! I won't buy "Crappy" Wal-Mart music!!

Woooo Hoooo Steve!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I know everyone wants to pay more for lower quality music because Steve said to!!!! Wooooo Hoooooo

@yikes and Anders

Great points!

There is a vast difference between a web site and a jukebox program native on a system. The web site that uses standards works everywhere, the program needs recompiling and rewriting for the different APIs.

Go troll somewhere else, dufus.

@ChrissyOne

like shoving a dog's nose in poop.

Not very effective for training dogs. Maybe effective for training WalMart shoppers.

Other than that, you rock!

I equate Walmart shoppers with stupid people. If everyone were of higher intelligence, we would not have janitors, local government workers, maids, fast food managers, etc. Society needs people to fill those rolls so the rest of us can enjoy life and have the lesser people serve us. Walmart is for them.

Your comments certainly give a decent example of what stupid really is.

Whatever happened to movie rentals on iTunes?

I'll bet that if you could use Wal-Mart's music store with a Mac, you'd find the Salsa isle completely blocked by three generations of a family shouting at each other in a foreign language.

Wmart's music service acts as a foil to the iTunes store. The recording industry uses Wmart to try to change consumers minds about iTunes, e.g. Universal. Universal, et al, want to teach Apple a lesson and be right in doing it. They forget that being right doesn't always fit in with what the consumer wants, which is ultimately where the money comes from.

@ Another Irish Dude

thx

@ qka

To be honest, I've had little luck with either.

i think this is walmart playing at 'embrace and extinguish'. don't underestimate how crafty they can be.

Let's swamp them with complaints:

http://www.walmart.com/swap/cs_email.jsp

@Mac user since 1984
"Wait a minute....I just went to the Wal-Mart site to see if I could spoof it with Safari's Debug>User Agent setting. Instead, Safari 2.0.4 on a Mac Pro Dual Core Intel Xenon performed flawlessly with Debug>User Agent set on "Automatically Chosen"
...
Anyone else try it?"

That was my first thought too, but it doesn't work on my InteliMac.
Maybe they noticed it and "fixed" it.

http://www.walmart.com/swap/cs_email.jsp

Wal-Mart is a disgusting place. Doesn't matter whether we're referring to the brick-n-mortar stores or the online store. Avoid it like the plague.

Why is Wal-Mart’s Music Downloads website incompatible with Apple Macs?

With only 1/5th the selection of iTunes, and Walmart being a even bigger monopoly than Apple, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out.

Walmart is so bad that it muscles product companies to the point that they can't make a profit.

Imagine a future Walmart with only one type of breakfast cereal on the shelves, one brand of toothpaste, one type of hair shampoo. Where a future customer goes to purchase a jacket for warmth on a cold day and finds none because Walmart couldn't find any company that will sell them one at the price/profit they want.

What's even worse, so many people go to buy at Walmart that it sucks up all the buisness from other stores with good selections and drives them out of buisness.

Maybe Wal-Mart can afford to turn away 1 in 5 customers (re: recent news that Apple laptops have >17% of the market), but I couldn't run a business that way - at least, not for long!

Top downloaded songs so far from Wal-Mart:

Theme song to Deliverance (dulling banjos)
That "if I had a million dollars" song.
and "I'm my own grampa"

We expect "grandma got run over by a reindeer" to be big during the holiday's.

Customers say they are "happier than a tornada in a trailer park" (sorry Mader), although some are complaining they need one of those high fangled computer things and something called the interweb to get the songs.

When asked about iTunes they said "it just aint the same since Bugs Bunny was taken off the air".

@More Wal-Mart news.....
Too damn funny

You can download DRM free music @ walmart by going to musicdownloads.walmart.com (no www's) and purchase from there. When it comes to downloading, you will need to select Download Songs Individually and save each individual track. Someone at their tech support line showed me that. So instead of going through the FAQ's call their helpful tech support. Also you can use any browers to go to musicdownloads.walmart.com. Works fine for my MAC

I had a wonderful experience last night. I went grocery shopping at my local "Super Target."

As I was walking down the cereal aisle, I realized my blood pressure was normal, I wasn't about to pull out my hair, I had not been run over by the obese 12 year old on the electric scooter, and I was enjoying myself.

I am so happy that there is an alternative to Wal-mart. I'm sure there could be negative things to say about Target, but for me- it's like comparing a Windoze PC to a Mac.

You can have a constant headache while you're there, or you can enjoy the experience.

Why? Because they're paid by Microsoft to lock out undesirables.

@ Joe Blow

Completely agree. I have had almost entirely good experiences at Target, and find that while the prices may be a factor of X higher, the quality is at least 3 or 4 X for a given product.

@ Joe Blow & ChrissyOne: My feelings for Target vs Wal-Mart are identical. I'd rather spend a few more pennies at Target than deal with the hassle of Wal-Mart.

Sadly, I have to drive 40-50 miles to get to a Target. Our town would have a Target, except we got a Target Distribution Center instead, and Target won't put a store in a town with a DC. Something about employees stealing from the DC and returning items to the store for cash. If only our city planning board had realized a Target store would have been better to have than the DC. :(

"Another ridiculous issue is that Wal-Mart's Music Downloads website is incompatible with Macs for no discernible reason other than either laziness or incompetence."

You missed a critical point. It only works with Internet Explorer. Got a PC with Firefox or another browser? Tough. That's not laziness or incompetence, it's deliberate.

I smell the hand of Microsoft in all this:

The Three Stooges and DRM-Free Music.

wal mart is the scum of the world. They say theyre proud to be america, yet have been proved to have sweat shops in Chia and other third world countries. I try to never go there, but theres so fucking many. Hell, what th hell happened to K-Mart?!?

rest of walmart site works in Safari, someone smells a Redmond Rat?

Nope, a Cupertino rat. What would anyone bet that Apple and SJ said if you want to keep selling iPods, don't support Mac. That way Wal-Mart keeps its dastardly villan rep for dissing the maker of its best selling music player, and sets up MS as a partner in crime.

I'm not sure if I think thats what is happening, but it is something to think about

Did you ever think that maybe some people shop at WALMART just to get away from people like you shop at Target and think they are better than everyone else. Plus they have too high prices on basic necessities. You must be a yuppie if...

Though not a smart move it is not a big deal businesswise being incompatible with a stagnant operating system such as Macintosh. It won't do any difference on Walmart's revenues.
I am not a fan of Windows and Linux either but you cannot argue against facts: as long as your software (or e-marketplace) reaches Windows users you should be fine. Windows still dominates the OS market by a large margin.

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=2
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

Guys, what is MIOX?