Posts tagged with "music"

Apple To Announce International iTunes Match on Tuesday?

According to a report by Greg Sandoval at CNET, Apple may announce international support for its iCloud music service at the media event scheduled for next week. Apple is said to be in negotiations with record companies and music publishers to gain worldwide music rights for iCloud, although CNET reports nothing has been signed yet, but if negotiations wrap up in time there could be an announcement on Tuesday.

Whilst CNET mentions “access to iCloud”, iCloud music rights most likely refer to the specific iTunes Match service; however, another music-related feature of iCloud – iTunes in the Cloud – is also being tested in the US-only at the moment, as it can be seen on Apple’s international iCloud pages. It’s not clear whether CNET is referring to iTunes Match, iTunes in the Cloud, or both – thus bringing full iCloud access for music worldwide.

Managers at iTunes are trying to lock down worldwide cloud-music rights, CNET has learned.

[…]

Some of the countries that could receive access to iCloud include Germany, France and the United Kingdom, the sources said.

iTunes Match, originally previewed at the WWDC in June, is set to publicly launch this Fall in the United States. Apple hasn’t detailed a public plan for an international rollout of the service, which is currently in beta and requires a US iTunes account with credit card on file. The service costs $24.99 per year for 25,000 songs, but iTunes purchases won’t count against this limit. iTunes Match was previously rumored to be coming to the UK in 2012, however CNET has a solid track record in reporting Apple’s negotiations with the music labels and publishers, correctly predicting ahead of WWDC that Apple would announce a new cloud-based music service.

My Artists 2.0 Brings 8tracks Internet Radio, iTunes Integration, Better Controls

When I first stumbled upon My Artists last year, what I found was a great companion for iOS’ native iPod app that allowed users to play songs they had synced on their iPhones with a different interface that, among other things, came with Wikipedia and YouTube integration. My Artists’ main goal, in fact, was to provide users with more information about songs and albums they were listening to, pulling data from the web as a way to showcase videos and songs from the same artist that, however, were not available on the device. My Artists 1.0 was a discovery tool for music already synced on an iPhone; version 1.1 brought several interface improvements, whilst 1.2 focused on Last.fm support as in-app purchase, and made the app independent from iPod.app in that users could see My Artists’ icon in iOS 4’s multitasking tray.

My Artists 2.0, released today, takes the whole concept a step further to become a full-featured music player and discovery system for all kinds of artists, not just the ones you already know and have on iTunes. Thanks to built-in integration with 8tracks, the “handcrafted Internet radio”, users can now listen to a personalized radio station with easy controls to jump through live-streaming songs from the popular online service. Whereas previous versions of My Artists wanted to put more information about your music at your fingertips – by displaying artists’ bios, related music, and videos – My Artists 2.0 brings actual new music to the mix thanks to an 8tracks button that’s always accessible from the main list view, which as usual pulls beautiful and high-res artist pics and album artworks from the web.

The new control bar in the list view has also got buttons for quick play all and shuffle, surely a welcome addition for those who don’t always want to navigate to an artist’s page to start playing music. Once you hit the 8tracks button, My Artists will open a new window, and start streaming a random playlist within seconds. The playlists are user-generated on 8tracks.com, and you can skip and pause songs with the app’s regular playback controls. Tapping on the album artwork of a song streaming from 8tracks will display an overlay with the playlist’s information, although you can also use the sharing button in the upper right corner to open 8tracks’ website in-app. As with older versions, the sharing button has additional options to “explore” (opens Wikipedia, YouTube, or related artists and genres), open an artist’s profile or album details. And when you check out the details for an album you don’t own or have on your device, that’s where another new feature of 2.0 comes to light: native iTunes Music Store integration.

As you can see in the screenshot, alongside a nice inline playing indicator (available both for local and streaming songs) there’s a blue Buy button next to each song belonging to the album you’re listening to through 8tracks. My Artists 2.0 enables you to preview iTunes Store songs without leaving the app or, alternatively, tap on the purchase button to open iTunes and start downloading right away. No matter how you get to an album or song you don’t own, whether it’s an 8tracks streaming session or Last.fm-based “discovery” for related artists, the app will have an iTunes button next to music you don’t have synced.

Speaking of Last.fm: gone is the in-app purchase from version 1.2. Last.fm scrobbling is now free for every My Artists customer, and it needs to be enabled through a login page the first time you hit the Last.fm button. From there on, My Artists will scrobble songs – be them “local” or coming from 8tracks – to Last.fm.

For me, My Artists 2.0 nears perfection. I still miss the ability of displaying lyrics alongside artists’ bios in the now playing overlay, and it’d be nice to be able to “forward” discovered songs to Rdio or Spotify, besides the iTunes Store. But other than that, for someone who listens to music every day, all day (well, almost), My Artists 2.0 offers a fantastic combination of local music playback (enhanced with better, up-to-date artworks and a fresh UI) and Internet-based discovery.

You can get My Artists 2.0 at $1.99 on the App Store.

Apple’s Bold Move: iTunes Match and Streaming

With the launch of the first iTunes Match beta for developers last night, Apple unveiled the last piece of the iCloud puzzle that was originally previewed at the WWDC in June, when Steve Jobs announced that iTunes Match would be available this Fall at $24.99 per year for 25,000 songs, allowing customers to download songs stored in their iCloud accounts. Because iTunes Match scans a user’s iTunes library before uploading files, songs compatible with Apple’s iTunes Store catalogue are automatically upgraded to 256 Kbps (even if the original copy was of lower quality) and “matched” with the copy on the server, whilst the ones not found on Apple’s servers are manually uploaded to iCloud. This happens for two reasons: first, Apple cut deals with several music labels and publishers to enable this “scan & match” technology that compares songs on a computer versus the higher quality copy on the servers, and doesn’t upload the original file; second, Apple wanted to eliminate the need of having to wait days for large uploads to finish – something that has affected “cloud locker” services from Google, Amazon, and many others.

The iTunes Match that was announced back in June, however, and promoted on Apple’s website up until today, made no specific mention of “streaming” songs matched/uploaded to iCloud; the way Apple originally explained it, Match was a clever way to fill an iCloud account with songs and albums to later download on iOS devices or a Mac. For as much as the technology behind it seemed intriguing, many were disappointed to find out that Apple couldn’t find a way around streaming songs without having to download the full copy first. Other services like Rdio and Spotify allow users to stream songs they don’t own by hitting “play” and waiting a few seconds for the stream to start (depending on the Internet connection’s speed). iTunes Match is actually a service for songs users own and decide to store in iCloud at $24.99 per year, so many assumed streaming required a different kind of licensing deal that Apple couldn’t make in time for WWDC.

Last night, as developers started subscribing to the first beta of iTunes Match, it turned out that, even in this first version, Apple is allowing for both downloading and streaming of songs, both on the Mac and iOS devices. The interface makes it easy to match and listen: once a music collection is built in iCloud (e.g. iTunes has scanned, matched, and uploaded songs to your account), music will be available on the Mac in iTunes’ Music tab, and on iOS 5 in the new Music app. Once iTunes Match is enabled on iOS it replaces the local music library, and you can tell the difference by a small iCloud icon next to each song.

Whereas Apple’s announcement at WWDC implied users would have to push a button to download songs, and build a music library off a master collection in the cloud, this first beta actually delivers more: users can still hit the button and download songs locally, but they can also tap on songs and start streaming them without a download.

The process is detailed in two videos posted by Insanely Great Mac. Streaming can occur both on the desktop and iOS, and it doesn’t look any different from a local iTunes library except for the aforementioned iCloud library. With this first beta, Apple isn’t accepting iTunes LPs and Extras, some file types aren’t supported and, for testing purposes, Apple will periodically delete developers’ iCloud music libraries to increase iTunes’ performances and reliability.

Streaming is a big deal for Apple, and not just because it increases iTunes’ functionalities to avoid manual downloads and waiting times. With iTunes Match streaming, Apple could directly compete with services like Spotify (recently landed in the U.S.) and Rdio, which let users stream songs over WiFi and 3G and even cache them for offline access. However, as of this beta, Apple’s iTunes Match comes with a unique spin on streaming: it doesn’t need downloads, and it’s based on music libraries made from songs users own. With the combination of local copies (the library), scan & match, iCloud, downloads and streaming, Apple could build a music service like no other in that it’s a combination of “owning your music”, and paying a yearly fee to get online access to it. Spotify is often criticized for being a streaming service that doesn’t let you “own” your library; most recently, the company added the possibility of importing local files and playing them in Spotify, but it’s not the same of being able to take local files and mirror them to the cloud. Reports citing streaming with “iTunes in the cloud” from May are now starting to make more sense, and let’s not forget Apple has patented a technology to make streaming effortless and faster by syncing small bits of data locally.

Still, many questions are left unanswered with this week’s iTunes Match beta. Was iTunes Match supposed to get only song downloads, with the current streaming implementation being just a glitch? Or are we in for a streaming surprise come Apple’s next keynote? Moreover, will Apple further tweak iTunes and iOS 5 to put the focus on streaming, allowing for advanced iCloud-based playlist creation? And how will music labels react to the news that iTunes Match is capable of streaming, too? Perhaps this is already part of Apple’s grand iCloud plan, and music labels knew all along that iTunes Match would stream songs, as Businessweek suggested in May. Or, streaming came unexpected to them as it did to everyone else in this first beta. But more importantly, will iTunes Match be available outside the U.S. once iOS 5 and iCloud are publicly released? Early signs pointed to “no”, with sources claiming the UK wouldn’t see iTunes Match until 2012. Currently, iTunes Match is a developer-only beta (closed at the moment with more openings “over the next days”) that requires a U.S. credit card (not just regular iTunes credit – e.g. promo codes and gift cards) for automatic billing. It’s unclear whether or not Apple will open the final version of iTunes Match to any kind of U.S. iTunes account, or if they’ll keep it exclusive for U.S. iTunes customers with a credit card on file.

As usual with betas, things can change before the final release. There’s a fragmented market out there, and Apple has a chance to disrupt it with iCloud and iOS 5. As it stands now, iTunes Match looks like Apple’s boldest move in the online music space since 2003.

Update: AllThingsD now weighs in writing that, according to an Apple spokesperson, iTunes Match still isn’t streaming. What looks like a stream is actually a simultaneous listen and download, although Apple isn’t providing additional details on the technology behind iTunes Match. AllThingsD speculates that Apple may be using some sort of caching mechanism for when users don’t “download” songs from iCloud, though that’s just an “educated guess”. From the videos posted this morning, indeed it looked like an iPhone was capable of streaming songs off iCloud.

AllThingsD also reports that Apple has the licensing rights to streaming, but they’re not implementing it due to a design choice – Apple apparently doesn’t believe mobile networks are advanced enough to allow for streaming of large music libraries. Check out the full report here.

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Airfoil, Reemote and AirPlay: A Multi-Speaker Wireless Setup

When I first covered the 4.5 update for Airfoil, which added extended AirPlay support and remote controls for compatible apps, a reader suggested an interesting hack or, better, workflow for wireless audio in the comments: given Airfoil’s capability of sending audio from a single source to multiple speakers or devices at once, it was possible to send audio from iOS to the Mac using AirServer, and then pass along data from AirServer (which acts as an AirPlay receiver on the Mac) to speakers recognized by Airfoil. Later, another reader chimed in to say that, considering Airfoil’s recent improvements, there was no need to install a separate app – Airfoil Speakers itself could handle the AirPlay stream from iOS to OS X, and then be used as an input source in Airfoil. When combined with an app like Reemote, this setup would allow you to send audio from an iPhone or iPad to the Mac wirelessly, from the Mac to another set of speakers or computers, and then control everything from iOS. Read more

Records: A Jukebox for Your Mac

Records for the Mac is a brand new music player for your desktop from green&slimy software. Focused on creating quick playlists for parties and events, Records delivers a fullscreen interface on Snow Leopard that focuses on search and album artwork to identify music. Albums and songs are dragged into a tray to create a queue of tracks, and DJs will have the option of auto-mixing songs from their library for an instant queue. Queued tracks can be shuffled and played on repeat for random and continuing set lists. DJs can also add podcasts to the queue; podcasts like CLUBcast can be mixed with your own variety of tracks for near instant party playlists. Toss in keyboard shortcuts and Last.fm scrobbling, and Records is a fully functional, visual “audio browser” that makes finding music a cinch.

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An Analysis Of Apple’s Adjustment Of International App Store Prices

UPDATED: Included a discussion on various sales taxes to clarify some of sections of the analysis, also corrected a mistake regarding Denmark prices.

For those of you who aren’t located in the United States, Wednesday’s news of Apple re-adjusting their prices in the App Store for international stores might have been pretty big news. For many the headline was welcome news, indeed when I woke up Thursday morning and saw they had finally re-calibrated the iTunes ‘exchange-rate’ I was pretty happy about it. We first discussed the great disparity in global iTunes prices back in January and I was pleased to see Apple eventually act and restore some fairness for international consumers.

Unfortunately I soon figured out it wasn’t all good news; Apple had only adjusted the iTunes ‘exchange-rate’ for apps. For their other stores such as for music, movies, TV shows and books the prices remained unchanged. Nonetheless I have revisited my January analysis, updating that data and doing some further analysis of what the price changes actually bring, what it means for individual countries and who is better or worse off.

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Spotify Launching Today In The US, iPhone App Available In US App Store

Popular music streaming service Spotify, after much speculation and rumors, is launching today in the United States with an invite-system (for those who signed up last week) and subscriptions to access the various functionalities offered by the European company. Unlike the iTunes Store, or Amazon’s MP3 Store, Spotify allows you to stream a catalog of songs you don’t own, and in spite of the latest version introducing a purchase option, the focus of the service clearly is on streaming, rather than downloading. You can create playlists online, share them with your friends, mark songs as favorite, and browse the latest releases from Spotify, which thanks to support of major music labels happen to be the same of other marketplaces like iTunes. Spotify runs on a variety of platforms including the Mac, and you can read more about the desktop client’s features in our previous coverage.

Whilst Spotify has announced that the service will be open for business today in the US starting at 8 AM ET, the iPhone app, previously available exclusively in some European countries, is now available in the US App Store as well. The app is free, it’s got no iPad counterpart yet, but it lets you stream all the songs you have in your Spotify library, provided you subscribe to Premium plan ($9.99 per month) that gives you access to ad-free music with offline caching capabilities and mobile app support. Read more

Review: Play by AOL Aggregates Music, Lets You Share & Discover

Play by AOL, the latest contendant in the social music discovery and sharing space, aims at providing a streamlined solution to what could be considered a common problem among iPhone and Android users: there is no unified system to share what you’re listening to and discover new music through the songs and albums your friends are liking. Ping by Apple failed at offering a solution truly meant for mobile with quick, instant access by being nothing but a mere social layer on top of the iTunes Store; on the other hand, apps like NowPlayer could be regarded as social attempts to get the music out of your device and onto the Internet (e.g. where your friends are), yet there’s always the issue with people finding tweets about #nowplaying annoying and, most of the times, out of context. Imagine if I tweeted all day about the music I’m listening to. That wouldn’t work. So that’s why in the past months we’ve seen the rise of SoundTracking (our review), a clever utility and social network by itself that lets you quickly share what’s playing on your device and send it off to an Instagram-like stream made by people you decided to follow within the app itself. Soundtracking can send items to Twitter and Facebook, but you don’t have to, as the app can live as a network on its own. Furthermore, sharing is made simple by a button that integrates with the iOS Music app to grab what’s playing in seconds, artist’s info and album artwork included. Read more

Hands on with Amazon Cloud Player for iPad→

Hands on with Amazon Cloud Player for iPad

For all intents and purposes, outside of the track scrubbing, the Amazon Cloud Player site on iPad simulates a basic music application reasonably well. The music quality sounds no different from when I stream my tunes on a desktop browser, and thanks to iOS multitasking, I can use other apps on my iPad while streaming music over the web. I have noticed that the service runs best if it retains the focus, however. When using another app, the music tends to stop after a song or two. A quick return to the web page nudges the stream to start up right away: something I hope is addressed in the future.

Amazon’s extended support for Cloud Player for the iPad is quite nice: if you’re an Amazon customer, all of the music that you’ve purchased or will purchase is now immediately available for playback via an online browser.

Amazon is making some nice strides with their Amazon Cloud Player, but the biggest hurdle to get users into the service is that you have to upload all of your music to their storage locker, and you still can’t play that music well on your iPhone or iPod touch (the device you’re most likely to have with you all of the time). The act of uploading isn’t something I want to do — and iPads have more than enough storage to carry enough of your music if you’re arguably normal and don’t need to carry your 150 GB library with you at all times. Too, services like Spotify can put a damper on Amazon’s service. Unless you listen to a lot of local music or uncommon artists, Spotify (especially now that it’s coming to the US) is going to have all of your music already online and ready to stream at $5 to $10 a month.

I have nothing against Amazon — I think having the option is spectacular and their addition of unlimited music streaming is big move — but it’s going to be hard to hook and sink iPad users who want to browse the Internet while listening to music, or who want the instant gratification of competing online services. What Amazon really needs is an app, although I’m not sure Apple would allow that to happen.

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