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Posts tagged with "itunes"

Apple Responds To Sony, In-App Purchase Must Be Available As Option

News broke last night that Apple rejected Sony’s latest ebook reading app for the iPhone because it used a technology that allowed users to purchase books out of Apple’s in-app purchase system, through Sony’s own store embedded into the app. Sony claimed Apple told them “from now on, all in-app purchases would have to go through Apple”, and now Apple has fired back to clarify Sony’s statements.

As reported by The Loop:

We have not changed our developer terms or guidelines,” Apple spokesperson, Trudy Muller, told The Loop. “We are now requiring that if an app offers customers the ability to purchase books outside of the app, that the same option is also available to customers from within the app with in-app purchase.

Basically, nothing has really changed in the guidelines – except the fact that in-app purchase through Apple’s system has to be built into the app. If an app comes with its own store to purchase books, the same option should be offered as native in-app purchase for all iOS users. Apple takes a 30% revenue cut out of every in-app purchase. It seems like at this point Amazon will have to update its Kindle app as well to offer iOS in-app purchases. I will be interesting to see how Sony, Amazon and others will update their applications to support the new in-app purchase guideline, and users’ reaction to multiple offerings inside an ebook reading app. While Apple’s 30% cut sounds like a deal-breaker to publishers, in-app purchases linked to iTunes are seen as a useful option from customers, which will be able to get receipts and detailed information about their book purchases directly into their iTunes account page.

First Details of The Daily: Six Sections, Sudoku, Interactive Articles

The Daily, News Corp.’s much anticipated iPad-only newspaper, will be announced tomorrow with a media event at New York’s Guggenheim museum. The publication is the result of months of collaboration between Murdoch’s News Corp. and Apple, which will send  VP of Internet Services Eddy Cue to join Murdoch on stage for the presentation. The Daily, in fact, will be based on a new subscription system created by Apple that will allow users to receive fresh content every morning through an iTunes’ push feature. Read more

Spotify’s Head Of Business On iTunes and Music Labels→

Spotify’s Head Of Business On iTunes and Music Labels

Spotify, the European-based music streaming service, is having a hard time trying to launch its product in the United States. Once expected to become available in a self-imposed December 2010 deadline, the service failed to launch due to the lack of deals with major music labels that, as you can guess, have to guarantee Spotify access to their music libraries.  Two weeks ago, All Things Digital reported Spotify managed to close a deal with Sony, as a first step to bring the service to the United States. In the past months, rumors surfaced detailing how Apple was subtly playing against Spotify to convince labels that the service wouldn’t be a good source of revenue like iTunes.

Spotify’s head of business Faisal Galaria told Strategy Eye:

Q: But aren’t the labels eager to break iTunes’ monopoly?

A: If you’re the digital team [at a label] and 80% of your revenue was coming from one place, how much are you going to p*ss them off until someone else can guarantee all that revenue from a new source?

Put yourself into their shoes for a moment – you’re a nice, fat big executive at label X, Y, Z. You’re getting half a million dollars a year as long as you hit your bonus. Your bonus means that 80% of your revenues comes from iTunes. Are you going to tell iTunes where to go? Because your half a million dollar bonus has now gone.

According to various reports, Apple may be blocking Spotify from launching in the States because of a similar music streaming service they are building on top of iTunes, based on the data center in North Carolina. [via Cult of Mac]

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The Great Disparity in Global iTunes Prices

Over the weekend I curiously started investigating whether Australians had been getting a progressively worse deal for their iTunes purchases as the Australian dollar rose from USD$0.60 to parity whilst iTunes prices stayed constant. The answer is most definitely a yes but it doesn’t just apply to Australians, and the extent of the price disparity is larger than I had thought.

Whilst Apple is entitled to have different prices for different regions, it doesn’t really need to. Furthermore the extent to which there is price disparity is very extensive for the music section of the store and this article aims to bring the inequity to light. Apple has previously been under similar pressure but the exchange rates reverted back, I would hope Apple again reconsiders their iTunes pricing system now when exchange rates have pushed the disparity to a very high level.

This turned into a bigger article than I had expected so here are the key things I cover and keep reading after the break for a full run down with tables, graphs and more.

  • iTunes uses fixed prices (i.e. $0.99, $1.29 etc.) and for stores outside the US these price levels were converted using a very conservative prediction of the future value of a particular currency
  • The price levels in non-US stores seem not to have been updated in a long time, yet the value of the non-US currencies have mostly appreciated since then. As a result people purchasing from most of the non-US iTunes Stores are now paying more than US customers and Apple is earning more from those customers
  • The conversion rate is different for the App Store and Music store (and likely the other stores too), the App store conversion rates are much more appropriate and the price disparity is less extreme.

Updated on April 27 2011 - see end of article for revised figures and comment.

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Tip Of The Day: Check for App Store Updates With Keyboard Shortcut

For me, the most annoying thing in iTunes is that to check for app updates I’m forced to mouse to the “Check for Updates” button in the lower right corner, and most of the times I miss the little arrow next to it with my cursor. I used to hate this. I’m saying “used to” because thanks to this tip I found over at Finer Things in Mac, now I can check for app updates with a keyboard shortcut.

The shortcut is the usual Command-R. What’s interesting is that the shortcut is used to refresh the web view in the iTunes Store, and Command-R isn’t documented in the iTunes menu.

So, there you have it. Command-R to check for updates. A little trick that’s incredibly useful for me.

iTunes 10.1.2 Now Available, Adds CDMA iPhone Compatibility

A few minutes ago Apple released iTunes 10.1.2 to the public. It’s available now in Software Update or on Apple’s website. The changelog mentions “a number of important stability and performance improvements” – we’re not really sure what they are, but I would guess on Verizon iPhone compatibility looking forward to February 10.

iTunes 10.1.2 for Windows is available here.

Update: the latest iTunes does indeed add CDMA iPhone compatibility. From the release notes in the download:

iTunes 10.1.2 syncs music, movies, and more with iPhone 4 (CDMA model) and provides a number of important stability and performance improvements.

iPhone, iPad Rumored to Get NFC Technology, Large Opportunity Awaits

A report by Bloomberg today suggests that Apple’s next iPhone and iPad are likely to feature NFC (Near-Field Communication) technology that would allow various forms of data transfer between the iPhone and another NFC capable device. Richard Doherty of consulting firm Envisioneering Group explains that the technology would be primarily used for making purchases at physical stores, expanding Apple’s reach in commerce beyond just iTunes.

Near-Field Communication is a technology that can send and receive data between two such devices with NFC that are up to 4 inches apart. The technology has gained popularity in recent times, most notably being included in Google’s Nexus S.

By including NFC into the iPhone and iPad, Apple could use it’s existing iTunes accounts and give consumers an alternative to more traditional financial services by Visa, MasterCard and PayPal. Richard Crone, an industry advisor suggests that “It would make a lot of sense for Apple to include NFC functionality in its products.”

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App Store Gets Official Twitter Account

It looks like Apple has just started sharing status updates with an official @AppStore account on Twitter. The account isn’t verified yet but its first tweet has been retweeted by the already verified @iTunesMusic. So why is the App Store on Twitter? Well, according to the first public message:

Welcome to App Store on Twitter! Follow us to discover new apps, get exclusive offers, and share with friends.

It will be interesting to follow the tweets from this account closely and see if they mirror the apps Apple features every Friday on the App Store homepage. This new account expands the set of official Apple services and personalities on Twitter.com: @iTunesMusic and @iTunesTrailers tweet new material from the iTunes Store on a daily basis and @pschiller has been busy sharing Instagram pictures lately. Apple is also active on Facebook and Youtube, where all the commercials and keynotes end up in HD.

On a side note, Scott Forstall hasn’t tweeted yet.

Update: the account is verified now. [Thanks, Florian]

App Store: 10 Billion Apps Downloaded

It’s official: 10 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The competition Apple launched to celebrate the new milestone has ended, and Apple is now projected towards the next milestones, 15 billion apps and 20 billion apps.

The App Store was launched in 2008, when the only iPhones available were the original iPhone and the 3G. In January 2010 App Store downloads topped 3 billion; the downloads became 5 billion during summer 2010. Thanks to the enoermous success of the iPad and iPhone, Apple added another 5 billion downloads in 6 months.

Will we see 20 billion apps by the end of 2011?