Indie musicians have long had a difficult time getting accepted into iTunes, but it’s possible that’s coming to an end. Apple has just released it’s iTunes Producer 2.6.0 software update to a number of users, despite the fact that it has historically only been available to musicians, record labels and other partners of Apple’s iTunes Connect portal.
It could just be a standard SNAFU, of course. In fact, that’s probably the most likely explanation: if Apple was opening up iTunes to indie musicians, it’d surely be accompanied with a press release. And, in fact, if you download iTunes Producer, you still need to be able to log in through Apple’s iTunes Connect portal, making it impossible for the average busking pleb to actually try the software out for themselves.
Even so, this is intriguing. I have my fingers crossed this isn’t just a mistake, and instead, an indication of an exciting new announcement to come.
Here’s iTunes Producer 2.6.0’s release notes:
iTunes Producer 2.6 includes several new features:
Now you can look up metadata using multiple Vendor IDs simultaneously
For delivery issues, Send to Apple now supports entering notes
For music, the following are now supported:
– Alert tones
– Customizable territory groupings for rights and pricing
– Improved user interface for adding and editing translations
For books, the following are now supported:
– Target Audience, Pre-Order Start Date, and Series Display Number using the “New from file” feature
– Expanded language list
[via Macgasm]
