Apple is expected to make iOS 7 beta 7 available to registered developers today, just days after it released iOS 7 beta 6. This is expected to be the final beta before Apple seeds the Gold Master release early next month.
Apple just released a new update for iTunes, saying, “This update corrects an issue with iTunes in the Cloud, where some purchases may download or play unexpected items.”
What does that mean, exactly? Apple didn’t say much more, but I’m guessing that some users were clicking on the button to download a previous purchase that was stored in iCloud, but ending up with something totally different.
This update should totally fix that. You can download the new 11.0.5 update directly from the Apple support site linked below, or use the Mac App Store via Software Update to get it.
Source: Apple Support
iTunes Radio won’t just be available on your iOS devices, but also on your Apple TV, according to a new beta release now available to registered developers. The update also adds some other minor features, and makes improvements to Home Sharing to make it more reliable.
Various iCloud users are reporting that 20th Century Fox movies are now available for re-download via iTunes in the cloud. As Cult of Mac reported mid-March, Universal and Fox studios weren’t able to close a deal with Apple for iCloud availability due to licensing conflicts with HBO.
Universal Studios content was released for iCloud availability soon after, in April. Now it’s Fox Studios’ turn.
Just days after opening the App Store to 32 additional countries, Apple released a press release this morning to announce that the iTunes Store is also extending its reach to another nine countries in Asia today, including Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan.
Apple has expanded the reach of iTunes Match this week by adding support for an additional 19 countries across Latin America and Europe. The music matching service, which only launched late last year, is now available to users in 37 countries in total.
Apple has expanded the reach of its iTunes Store today by offering music and movie content for the first time across 16 Latin American countries. It has also introduced the new iTunes Match service to users in Brazil, making it the first country outside of the U.S. to gain access to the feature.
Following its unveiling at WWDC back in June, users in the U.S. have been able to enjoy the iTunes in the Cloud beta, which allows them to re-download content purchased from the iTunes Store. Users in other parts of the world were left out, and we were led to believe that iTunes in the Cloud would be U.S.-only upon its launch. Today, however, Apple is rolling out the feature internationally.
TuneUp is the #1 add-on for iTunes. It cleans up song metadata like missing album info or misspelled names. It also delivers related music videos, and alerts you when favorite artists are playing in town.
It’s easy to use and can do a quick job of cleaning up the messiest library. But it’s not perfect: songs can be mislabeled and there’s been complaints of bugs and crashes. TuneUp costs $39.95/yr or $49.95 one time fee for a bundle. TuneUp also offers a la carte pricing for individual products. A free demo cleans up to 50 songs and removes 25 duplicates.
Yesterday I got a chance to talk to Gabe Adiv, founder and CEO of TuneUp Media,company behind the plug-in.
He gave me some interesting statistics about iTunes and listening habits, as well as thoughts about Apple moving music into the cloud.
UPDATE: I totally screwed this one up. When my contact, TuneUp founder Raza Zaidi, told me iTunes in the cloud has only 20% of the all the music listed in Gracenote’s big database of music, I interpreted it to mean that the upcoming iTunes Match service would mirror only a fraction of most music libraries. What I failed to realize was that 20% of music in iTunes represents the most popular 20%. The remaining 80% is all the music in the long tail. So when Apple rolls out iTunes Match in the fall, it will indeed likely mirror most music libraries, just as Apple claims. In a clarifying note, Zaidi says matches will likely be 95% or higher. In addition, the Get Album Artwork feature in iTunes isn’t powered by Gracenote, as the post implies. Sorry for the mistakes. Teach me to post before my morning coffee.
When iTunes Match goes live in September, Apple promises to instantaneously match any of the tracks in your iTunes library to the iCloud… as long as it already has your music in its mega music library. What Apple hasn’t said is that as much of 80% of your music might not be recognized by iTunes Match… and the only way to get that music into the iCloud will be to spend days manually uploading gigabytes at a time.
One of the big questions about Apple’s upcoming iTunes Match is how the online music service will handle songs acquired from non-standard sources, like analog LPs, or yes, file-sharing networks.
Coming this fall, iTunes Match will scan your iTunes library and make available in the cloud all the songs you’ve purchased online or ripped from CDs.
But Apple hasn’t explained what will happen with songs encoded from sources like tapes or LPs; or those couple of tracks you accidentally downloaded from a file-sharing network and forgot to delete. Will iTunes Match reject these songs or make them available?
In theory, the system should recognize most digitzed music. Apple has explicitly said it will not discriminate based on source, and someone likely ripped the songs from CD before sharing them with the world.
We’ve found a way for you to check how iTunes Match will treat your music library before Apple makes it public.
While the iTunes in the Cloud and iTunes Match features unveiled at WWDC this week have since been the center of attention for user in the U.S., users across the pond in the U.K. are still wondering when these features may be available to them. According to record label executives and music analysts, us Brits won’t get our hands on them until at least 2012.
As much as I love my Apple TV, I’m still rather irked that Apple is yet to offer a Netflix substitute for its U.K. users. It now seems that Apple has snubbed those of us across the pond once again with its iTunes cloud services, which apparently won’t be making their way to the U.K. anytime soon.
