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Posts tagged with "itunes"

“Think Of iCloud As The New iTunes”→

“Think Of iCloud As The New iTunes”

Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, in a post where he details some of the iCloud features he has “heard” from sources (but doesn’t state as a fact) and other personal wishes about iOS 5, doesn’t describe iCloud as a new music service or “cloud services offering” – rather, he says he’s heard iCloud is something more on the lines of a full replacement for iTunes:

The italicized sentence that follows is fourth-hand information, at best, and also the sort of thing that many of you might have already guessed based merely on your own hunches and hopes. But here goes:

Don’t think of iCloud as the new MobileMe; think of iCloud as the new iTunes.

Instead of simply overhauling MobileMe with a new name, new UI, new functionalities and call it iCloud, Gruber pictures a scenario (again, based on unconfirmed sources) where iCloud becomes the de-facto standard to sync all kinds of media and information to an iOS device:

But in short let’s just think about the ways that iCloud might be a major, dare I say game-changing, step away from USB tethering between iOS devices and iTunes running on your Mac/PC. Consider just the new out-of-box experience. Rather than “Take this out, plug it into your Mac or PC (after first making sure your Mac/PC is running the latest version of iTunes), wait for it to sync before you actually play with it”, you might get something like “Take this out, turn it on, sign into your iTunes account, and start playing with it.

There’s been a lot of speculation around iCloud, iOS 5 and the rumored Time Capsule refresh in the past couple of days. Whilst many had initially pegged iCloud as a standalone music service with streaming features, others later claimed iCloud would be a rebranding of the existing MobileMe service, accommodating options previously reserved to me.com subscribers and new features like music, movie and TV show storage and streaming. A new option surfaced in the iTunes Store earlier this week suggested iOS devices would soon get the possibility to receive automatic app updates, and indeed over-the-air sync of applications and media has long been rumored as a major functionality coming to iOS.

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iTunes Reveals Potential iOS 5 Feature: “Automatic Download” [Update]

With WWDC right around the corner, many people are getting their scorecards ready. Here’s the center spot for your iOS 5 Bingo card: “Automatic Download” for your iDevices. MacRumors discovered that iTunes is now showing a new sentence on the My App Updates page. It reads, “Or if your device has Automatic Download enabled for apps, your updates will download to your device without having to sync.”

Seems like a very clear indicator that iOS 5 will have the option to automatically grab app updates to your iOS device. Currently, you must either sync or download the updates themselves through the App Store app on iOS.

“Automatic Download” could also suggest that the option could be for more than just iOS apps. People have been wanting a service like this for quite some time and Apple has been rumored to be moving toward the direction of OTA updates and wireless syncing.

Monday, at 10am PDT, we’ll know for sure where the future of iOS (Lion and iCloud) is headed in the coming months. We’ll have live coverage of the event, so please tune in here Monday, June 6 at 9:30 PDT.

Edit by Cody Fink (1:17 AM): Apple was quick about this one. Checking for app updates no longer reveals the message posted above. Instead, Apple has seemed to have temporarily killed the service completely. With my editor and I downloading updates through the App Store on iOS, no updates are available via iTunes update, and the message has been removed.

iCloud Detailed: Initially Free with iTunes Purchase, $25 a Year Subscription

The Los Angeles Times details the undisclosed features of iCloud, which has been reported by Apple to be a significant staple in Monday’s WWDC keynote. The LA Times reports that iCloud will initially be offered free with a purchase from the iTunes Store, meaning a digital download may fetch you free online storage or perhaps a free subscription, similar to Amazon’s current offering where they offer free cloud storage for a year with an album purchase (many took advantage of Lady Gaga’s $.99 album for this additional deal). Users will want to build their libraries relatively quickly, and the subscription is said to be available at as little as $25 per year. CNet previously suggested that the service wouldn’t be free, but could be around $20 a year. This looks like it’ll be a little of both as Apple introduces users to the service.

The LA Times says Apple initially plans to allow consumers to store their data on Apple’s servers, and would like to offer much more than music in the realm of movies, television, and and other digital content through iCloud’s publishing platform. Whether that storage involves uploading your own media or having iTunes scan your library is currently unknown, but we’re hoping for the latter.

The agreements, finalized this week, call for Apple to share 30% of any revenue from iCloud’s music service with record labels, as well as 12% with music publishers holding the songwriting rights. Apple is expected to keep the remaining 58%, said people knowledgeable with the terms.

The report comes when Apple’s network devices are reported to be ready for an upgrade, perhaps providing some form of iCloud caching for media playback. Apple just sealed the deal with Universal Music Group, and now with iCloud details leaking (as well as iCloud branding), it’ll be hard to keep the Lion in its cage over the weekend.

[via Los Angeles Times]

App Stores and iTunes Showing Trouble Worldwide [Update: Back Online!]

If you wanted to download Angry Birds, take a gander at Apple’s new WWDC app, or download Lady Gaga’s newest album, you may have noticed that iTunes and the App Store ecosystems are failing to download or accept purchases worldwide. While content may still be accessible to browse, Engadget first noticed that the podcast section of iTunes has gone offline, followed by failure by many to download apps from the iOS and Mac App Stores. The most common issue right now is that users can’t download apps from the iPhone or iPad, with symptoms of slow loading times, download failures, and general errors popping up in several countries worldwide. Several users are reporting problems, so either Apple is working on the backend (perhaps this service disruption as something to do with iCloud), or a server or two have decided to bite the dust at the wrong time. Apple Discussion forums such as this one are starting to crop up during this moment of inconvenience, and we’ll keep you updated as the afternoon progresses.

[Updating…]

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The Beatles Anthology To Launch As iTunes Exclusive

The Loop reports The Beatles Anthology series will debut exclusively on iTunes on June 14, expanding the existing music catalog of the Fab Four that was released after years of rumors and speculation last November. Apple heavily promoted the launch of The Beatles’ music on iTunes as a day music lovers and iTunes customers would never forget, granting EMI and The Beatles 5 million songs sold in two months. The Loop reports The Beatles have now sold more than 8 million songs and 1.3 million albums on iTunes worldwide.

EMI on Tuesday said the The Beatles’ three remastered Anthology music collections will debut on June 14. Anthology, Vols. 1-3 are available for preorder on iTunes starting today.

The Anthology Box Set comes with all 155 tracks from the three volumes ($79.99) and an exclusive 23-track “Anthology Highlights” collection of standout tracks from each ($12.99).

The Anthology is available for pre-order now, with a special introductory video and a “Meet The Beatles” radio series available for streaming in iTunes, for free. The new sets, Anthology box and streaming material can be viewed on The Beatles’ official iTunes page.

Selling A Copy Every Second, The Heist Overtakes Angry Birds

A few days ago we reported on a new game to hit the App Store, The Heist, which is an iPhone game from the team behind the popular MacHeist bundle. In just a few days it has done astoundingly well, managing to knock off Angry Birds from the top of the paid apps list in the App Store – which is no small feat.

It’s first day had 25,000 downloads according to The Loop, but on day two those figures skyrocketed to 89,798 purchases. Effectivelly that means for just its second day on sale, The Heist was selling more than 1 copy a second (there are 86,400 seconds in a day), supremely impressive for a paid app, even if the app is $0.99.

With revenues approaching $100,000 and sales already well above the 100,000 figure, its obvious to see that the MacHeist team have done a supremely good job in creating and marketing the game – some of the marketing included clues that were hidden in the first Twitter for Mac client this year. Will it sustain the top spot and keep off Angry Birds? Only time will tell.

[Via TechCrunch]

iCloud Will Scan iTunes Libraries, “Mirror” Songs Online

In a post detailing the current state of cloud-based music services from Google and Amazon, Businessweek relays some information on Apple’s upcoming iCloud service, rumored to include streaming of iTunes collections to a variety of devices and computers and said to be formally introduced at the WWDC keynote on June 6. Similarly to a rumor posted a few months ago that indicated Apple was working on a solution to let users backup & upload their collections to the cloud directly from the desktop, Businessweek says “three people briefed on the talks” (between Apple and music labels) have suggested Apple will provide a scanning tool that quickly mirrors songs to iCloud’s servers, also offering a way to replace those songs with better-quality versions if quality is not deemed “good enough.”

Armed with licenses from the music labels and publishers, Apple will be able to scan customers’ digital music libraries in iTunes and quickly mirror their collections on its own servers, say three people briefed on the talks. If the sound quality of a particular song on a user’s hard drive isn’t good enough, Apple will be able to replace it with a higher-quality version. Users of the service will then be able to stream, whenever they want, their songs and albums directly to PCs, iPhones, iPads, and perhaps one day even cars.

Businessweek also briefly mentions Apple could use a subscription-based model to give users access to these functionalities and stream songs they purchased or uploaded. Whilst the general consensus among bloggers seems to be that Apple will either allow users to upload entire music collections or listen to songs they don’t own like Spotify enables subscribers to access the company’s online database with a subscription, the technical details on Apple’s iCloud service are still unclear. A patent design suggested Apple could make users sync small bits of music locally and fetch the rest online to avoid buffering between songs; others claimed it will be a simple system revolving around uploads and streaming like Amazon’s Cloud Player; several reports also pointed at Apple building a new service that combines subscriptions, partial uploads and scanning tools to reduce upload times on a user’s end. Businessweek seems to believe the latter option, with a subscription-based payment and a desktop utility that scans iTunes and somehow mirrors everything quickly to the cloud.

Apple Faces Licensing Challenges With Music Publishers

In just a matter of weeks, Apple is expected to reveal their cloud-music service at WWDC. With rumors suggesting Apple is actively co-operating with the music publishers, CNet today published an interesting article that highlighted the potential stumbling blocks that Apple faces in tying up a deal. There are four major record companies and it is widely believed Apple has finalised agreements with three of them: EMI Music, Warner Music and Sony Music, furthermore, Universal, the current holdout may reach an agreement with Apple this week. Yet this is only half the battle, as CNet points out, because Apple still needs publishing rights – the big labels only own the recording rights, not the publishing rights.

For the publishing rights, Apple must negotiate with the large music publishers individually. With only two weeks till WWDC it really doesn’t leave Apple with much time at all to sort this out. But what are publishing rights? As CNet explains, when Apple sells a song, such as the Beatles “Twist and Shout”, it must pay both EMI and Apple Records (representing the Beatles) for the sound recording. However it then has to pay the publishing company that represents the writers of the song and words (in this example it is the company representing Phil Medley and Bert Russel). However if Apple then wants to sell a cover version of the song, such as The Isley Brothers version, it again has to pay Medley and Russell again.

The complication with this is that whilst there is a set rate for those licenses in terms of CDs and digital downloads – there is no precedent or guidance for a cloud-based music service that Apple is reportedly developing. As CNet suggests, there is very little money that separates Apple and the publishers on this issue, but it will nonetheless be the sticky point of negotiations. What muddies the water even more is that because Apple has inked deals with 3 the labels already, they “have soaked up most of the money that Apple is prepared to pay” – leaving little for deals with the publishers.

A source from the recorded-music side said that the labels who have licensed Apple have negotiated only what their songs are worth and if Apple is unwilling to pay the publishers’ price, the publishers don’t have to provide licensing. The source suggested that this is a negotiating ploy and that Apple is trying to pit the labels and publishers against each other.

[Via CNet]

Switch Between iTunes Accounts From The Menubar

As usual after someone comes out with a hack that involves AppleScript and a bit of manual fiddling, a GUI version follows after a few weeks. Back in late April we covered an AppleScript created by a Reddit user that, once configured, allowed you to quickly switch between multiple iTunes accounts by simply invoking a shortcut or manually launching the script. Many of us have been there before: in order to enjoy music and apps from the iTunes Store internationally – sometimes avoiding restrictions and taking advantage of timezones – we have to set up different (possibly fake) international accounts. Whilst Apple doesn’t exactly accept this practice, it’s still possible as long as you don’t select a payment method in iTunes. Or maybe, some people simply prefer to create legit accounts and keep different purchases tied to each account. No matter the reason, however, switching between accounts in iTunes is a slow and annoying process: the app isn’t meant for multi-account usage, and every single time you’re forced to re-enter your account’s email and password.

The AppleScript we covered provided a great way to switch accounts and have iTunes automatically fill in the required fields; today’s solution, brought to us by Nature’s Eye Studios, gives the same concept an interface with a lightweight app that lives in the menubar and lists all your iTunes accounts, properly organized by country. You can create as many accounts as you want from the settings, and the app will lets you switch between them by simply selecting one from the menubar’s dropdown menu.

I’ve found this app to be slightly more stable than the aforementioned AppleScript (which made my iTunes crash every once in a while) and, overall, more intuitive than launching a script created for each account I have. You can download iTunes Account Switcher here.