iTunes - page 18

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YkKmuQRayQ

Apple’s latest iPhone ad revisits that old holiday chestnut “The 12 Days of Christmas” with a lucky smartphone owner breezing through the rigors of the season with a few effortless finger scrolls.

The coolest one, the last, turns on your Christmas tree. Though Apple has added a page on iTunes of apps featured in ads, this one’s not on it. We have it on good authority that it’s  Schlage LiNK, a free app (requires extra hardware, though) designed as a remote control for home door locks.

Here’s the complete holiday app line up from the ad:

– 12 cookies cooking: The Betty Crocker Mobile Cookbook [gratis]
– 11 cards a’ sending: Postman [ $2.99]
– 10 gifts for giving: My Christmas Gift List [ $0.99]
– 9 songs for singing: TabToolkit [$9.99]
– 8 bells for ringing: Holiday Bells [ $0.99]
– 7 slopes a’ skiing: Snow Reports $1.99]
– 6 games for playing: Christmas Fever [ $0.99]
– 5 gold rings: Anna Sheffield Jewelry [ gratis]
– 4 hot lattes: myStarbucks [gratis]
– 3 flights home: Flight Search [gratis]
– 2 feet of snow: Weather Pro [$3.99]
– Tree-lighting app : Schlage LiNK [gratis]

If, like me, your Christmas shopping list has question marks next to two petulant twin nieces whose only interests seem to be quoting popular song lyrics and passages from Twilight on their Facebook pages with infinite, poorly spelled gravity (and who then quickly delete the helpful replies you leave criticizing them for being such idiots without even making a passive effort to absorb the stately, elder wisdom of your words)… well, why not consider buying them an iTunes gift card through Facebook?

Yes, the popular social networking site has just introduced an application that lets you buy iTunes gift cards for other users. The cards come in $5, $10, $15, $25 and $50 denominations, and the interface even allows you to select a date when the gift card should be delivered. The cards come in six designs: two holiday cards, two birthday cards, and two generic cards featuring those psychotropic iPod silhouettes at a rave.

For me, this is actually ideal. My nieces are fifteen years old, and I’ve long since given up on trying to suffer through a sulky, eye-rolling conversation with either of them long enough to try to ascertain their interests. Buying them an iTunes card through Facebook is exactly the sort of impersonal yet convenient gift that I’ve been looking for: it certainly beats this Edward Cullen laptop decal I was planning on getting for them.

Today, Apple launched a new RSS feed for iPhone Developers, promising updates, tips and how-to information on a range of relevant topics — from development to distribution.

The idea is to keep iPhone devs on top of the ever-shifting highways and byways of getting an app on iTunes, including:
— Tips for submitting apps to the App Store
— Current turnaround time for app reviews
— Program updates
— Development and testing techniques

With complaint sites over rejections and possible scams growing along with the astronomical app sales, something needed to be done to get better info in a timely fashion to devs.

The first few headlines look promising (see below)  it remains to be seen whether the RSS will be another reality distortion field emanator…

iTunes Connect Unavailable Dec 23 – Dec 28

Adding iPhone OS 3.x Features to Your iPhone OS 2.x-compatible Apps

You Can Now Choose the Currency For Your App Store Payments

Updated iTunes Connect Developer Guide Now Posted

Via Network World

Apple has just unveiled iTunes Rewind 2009, a feature on the iTunes Store that lists all of the year’s best selling content, across music, video and apps. For some, the feature will be confirmation of the intractable cretinism of that mouth-breathing biomass, mankind. For others, it will be a handy primer on popular media they might have missed this year. Let’s dive in!

It’s a small update, but it’s an important one: Apple has just quietly upgraded iTunes to allow buyers the ability to preview whole albums at a time.

iTunes has always allowed buyers to preview tracks before they buy: thirty second snippets that allow users to confirm that the 99 cents they are about to pluck down for “You Shook Me All Night Long” is, in fact, the AC/DC version, and not the migraine-inducing caterwaul of Miss Celine Dion dueting with Anastasia.

If you wanted to buy an entire album, though, you had to click the preview button in iTunes for every single song. No longer: now, a handy “Preview All” button is available on each album page in the iTunes Store.

Some nice functionality, to be sure, but long, long overdue. Amazon’s MP3 store has allowed users to preview full albums for over two years, and it’s hardly difficult functionality to ape. But better late than never.

[via TUAW]

Harry McCracken at Technologizer is worried that Apple’s rumored purchase of Lala could be the best thing for iTunes – or the worst.

Harry has been testing LaLa’s as-yet-unreleased iPhone app, and it’s just like iTunes in the cloud. The app streams your iTunes music collection to wherever you are, plus you can buy new songs for a dime (well, streams of new songs).

“…all of a sudden, the iPhone’s relatively skimpy memory isn’t nearly as much of an issue, since you can stream all the music you’ve got in iTunes on a PC or Mac to your phone. You can also listen to and buy songs from Lala’s 8-million song store. It’s all surprisingly fast for a streaming service, and it even caches recent music you’ve listened to so you’re not completely out of luck if you don’t have an Internet connection.”

Harry is in love, and hopes that Apple will roll Lala’s functionality into iTunes if Apple buys the company. But he’s also worried that Apple may be buying Lala to kill it — it’s a competitive threat to iTunes.

Over at Silicon Alley Insider, the same notion is implicit in a quote from an industry insider who says LaLa’s licenses are non-transferable:

One industry source with years of experience in the digital music business is very surprised by the apparent deal. “I would be completely shocked,” he says. “None of the licenses are transferrable (not that Apple has a hard time getting licenses). Why would they buy it? Again, I’d be shocked.”

Thing is, as far as I know, Apple has no history of buying companies to shut them down. Anyone know any examples? And as Elliot Van Buskirk at Wired points out, Apple does have a history of buying companies to kickstart new products. Apple’s iTunes was based on SoundJam.

In addition, as we reported in August, Apple is building a one of the world’s largest data centers in North Carolina. Given it’s enormous size, the new data center is likely to focus on cloud computing, perhaps hosting services like Lala’s for Apple’s giant iTunes customer base.

Never let it be said that Apple doesn’t keep its promises. Six weeks after announcing it would open up its iTunes LP file format to all developers and labels, Apple delivered this morning with specifications and resources for both iTLP and its DVD-like iTunes Extras. All of the contents are here. The company also through in the TuneKit framework, a set of resources for delivering superior multimedia experiences through iTunes.

Apple also reiterated its support for making iTunes LP and Extras the format of choice for the store, just not quite yet. According to its development site, all approvals for both features will be handled manually until the first quarter of 2010, at which point submissions will be handled like all other iTunes uploads.

I’m thrilled to see it. Digital media has so much more potential than just the content by itself. These are a clear step into a brighter future. Well done, Apple.

Via TUAW.

An iPhone application developer has upped the ante on criticism of Apple’s App Store approval policies with apprejections.com, a website devoted to collating “all the known examples of rejected Apps.”

Adam Martin, CEO of UK-based Red Glasses, makers of three iPhone apps (and a software development start-up with a curiously thin web presence), created the site earlier this month to document and share all known examples of “what is actually rejected” from the App Store — and he pulls no punches in his critique of Apple’s process for deciding which apps and updates make it onto the iTunes App Store.

“Apple has a secret, undocumented, unquestionable, random process for deciding which applications to “allow” onto the deck,” claims Martin on the site. Ironically, his own BrainGame Summation (iTunes link) app had an update rejected this week for using a common workaround to bugs in the official Apple APIs; the worrkaround previously appeared to pose no approval problems but has apprently been the basis for several recent rejections.

“Apple point-blank refuses to document the criteria – or even to discuss the matter on anything except a case-by-case basis,” Martin writes, though he does allow that “in most cases, rejections [are] perfectly reasonable, and/or Apple had officially warned developers “don’t do this; we won’t allow it”.

But the site does take App Store gatekeepers to task for being, among other things, “unskilled staff [who] are given a technical tool (the secret static-analyer) [sic] which they don’t understand – but trust 100%, [causing them to] reject apps that haven’t done anything wrong, but which the tool (incorrectly) flags.”

Martin acknowledges that the fledgling site has only just gotten started, but writes that he’s “been following reports on app-rejection for over a year,” and aims to catalog everything unusual and unfair about the mysterious process for joining the 100,000 (and growing) iPhone apps available now on iTunes.

It’s now gone from “easy” to “tricky” to avoid having your App rejected by Apple, according to Martin.

Did I mention I’m in love with my new sound system, the heart of which is the T-2 vacuum tube amplifier from Neuhaus Labs?

Custom designed to bring iTunes to life, the amp sounds unbelievably awesome. But in my review I neglected to rave about its aesthetics. This thing glows!

Hit the link for some more dimly-lit tube porn.

If you’ve ever stared at a painting and wanted to reach out and squeeze that adorable little putto, you’ll soon have a chance to do it without getting arrested.

Florence’s Uffizi Gallery, one of the largest treasure troves of Renaissance art, is developing a touch-screen device that allows art lovers to zoom in and take a closer look at the masterpieces.

You can flip through centuries of art — the same way you scroll through your albums on iTunes.

The program is called “Uffizi in a Touch” (sadly, a name not vetted by anyone who actually speaks English) developed by an Italian company called Centrica.

It took them four years to take life-size 100-megapixel photos that will be up for perusal in December for researchers and the more tactile groups of tourists.

No word yet on whether Apple will be after them for using the Cover Flow technology that’s been on the Cupertino company’s devices since 2006.

Until I tried Neuhaus Laboratories’ T-2 vacuum tube amp, I thought I had a pretty good speaker system hooked to my Mac. It was a three-piece ensemble with a pair of nice satellites and a honking big subwoofer. It pumped out 200-watts and I thought it sounded great.

But then I hooked up the T-2 Amplifier, and it’s literally night and day. I know this sounds like an old cliche — but it’s true. Even a half-deaf old punk like me (too many ear-piercing concerts) can hear the difference. It’s striking — and it’s absolutely glorious.

We recently wrote about JBMJBM, LLC — a one-man app factory with 87 approved ones so far — on the eBay block for  $100,000.

Top-selling titles include Friday Night Lights, iSpy Game, iReferee, Pet Peeves (a social network for griping pictured above), iSexyRef2, Pro Rodeo Fan, Sit Up Counter and Shake 2 Count.

CoM had a quick word with owner Brice Milliorn about the sale, what’s next for him and how he sees the future of apps.

CoM: Was JBMJBM sold?

BM: No, I have not sold company or apps yet.  I am in talks with one guy about buying me out via stock, but it doesn’t look promising.

CoM: What plans to you have to sell it now?

BM: No plans to sell again, just going to continue doing what I am doing and do more freelance work as well.

CoM: What changes would you like to see in Apple’s app store?

BM: I don’t have a problem with Apple, you follow their guidelines you get things approved, simple as that.  The few items that I have had issue with them, they called explained, I fixed and it got approved.  I even wrote the number down and called the guy back a few times when I was having issues and within a few hours it was fixed.

CoM: Where do you think the future of app development is headed?

BM: I think the future of the iPhone is opening it up to Verizon.  That will be another huge influx of potential app buyers and I look forward to this happening.

I also believe all this hype on the Droid and all those other handsets that will ultimately never get to the level of the iPhone.  The only company to match the iPhone and better it is Apple itself.

Since its introduction in September, Apple’s multimedia iTunes LP format has been the subject of constant speculation and teeth-gnashing. I took quite a lot of criticism a month ago, much of it well-deserved, for repeating a Gizmodo-reported rumor that Apple was restricting the format to a handful of titles from major labels only and charging high production fees that further marginalized Indies.

Apple denied all of this strenuously, and exactly four weeks ago pledged to release Open Specs for iTunes LP “soon,” as well as many more iTunes LP titles arriving in the store imminently, including Indies.

All I can say is, it ain’t true yet. Apple has not released the promised Open Specs, and only four additional iTunes LP titles have shown up in the iTunes Store, plus two that you can pre-order. They’re all from major labels, needless to say. For those keeping count, Apple has 19 iTunes LP titles, of which 17 are on sale today.

I’m not saying Apple won’t fulfill its promises here — I can’t wait until they do, in fact — but rather that they haven’t. The sooner Apple allows all of its record label partners to create iTunes LPs and offer a huge diversity of titles, the sooner it will have a chance of catching on. Until then, it’s just a cool tech demo for fans of Dave Matthews and Jack Johnson.

Do you think Apple will crack 20 titles in the iTunes by the end of the month?

Pssst: If you want to get in on the iPhone app business, there’s one for sale on eBay.

The starting bid for JBMJBM, LLC. — an app factory with 87 approved ones so far — is $100,000 and ends Saturday, Nov. 14

Top-selling titles include Friday Night Lights, iSpy Game, iReferee, iSexyRef (pictured above, which helps muddled sports fans remember the rules), iSexyRef2, Pro Rodeo Fan, Sit Up Counter and Shake 2 Count.

Buy the developer out and you get 87 applications currently listed on iTunes plus all application assets which include source code files, website files and all collateral.

The Fab Four still haven’t made it to iTunes, but if you want to shell out $280, you can have some of their stuff on a limited-edition USB stick.

Collectors may crave 16GB key that comes with 14 stereo titles, plus re-mastered 13 mini-documentary films about the studio albums, replicated original UK album art, rare photos and expanded liner notes.

The USB “core” pulls out of an apple, recalling the Granny Smith from the record company founded in 1968. Some 30,000 keys are available from the online store, from December 7  in the UK and December 8 in North America. (You can also pre-order online now.)

If you’re more interested in their music, it sounds like slim pickings for a hefty price —  at least one fan, alluneediscash, on the site argued:

“But the BOX SET is only $219! ($179 at amazon) no one loves the beats more than me, but shouldn’t they charge LESS for the usb?”

Which raises the perennial question of when this icon of Brit pop will finally make it to iTunes.  Although the Beatles settled the marathon trademark dispute with Apple two years ago, the use of this apple key, meant as a nod to Apple Records, might stir the embers of animosity rather than hasten them for Apple downloads.

Nothing like a customer service tale with a mostly happy ending: Nathan switched computers and lost everything he bought from iTunes (music, ringtones, movies) as a result.

So he wrote to Apple (iTunesStoreSupport@apple.com) and they agreed to let him re-download all the music he bought at no extra charge:

I understand the titles you purchased from the iTunes Store with account [redacted] were lost. I know how upsetting that can be. My name is Jesse and I would be more than happy to help you with this today.
Seeing that you have been a loyal customer since September, 2004, the iTunes Store would like to give you the opportunity to re-download (at no charge) all the titles you purchased on this account that are still available. This does not include any item that has been modified or removed from the store since you purchased it. Please note that you may download your purchases only once, so this is an exception. Also note that Apple does not offer protection for the loss of data from your hard disk, so I recommend that you back up your iTunes library as soon as possible…Full email from Apple at Consumerist.

Nathan was also able to re-download ringtones, but not movies though the rep did not provide an explanation for why not.

The King of Pop Michael Jackson’s posthumous album, This is It, launched yesterday on iTunes and almost immediately went to the no. 2 spot and 10 spots on the list of  hot-selling albums.

As of this writing, it was second only to the soundtrack to The Twilight Saga, the New Moon.

The widely-anticipated album almost didn’t make it to iTunes.

Jackson’s last effort contains only one new song, the title track, and Jackson’s estate did not want to sell the album, as per Apple’s policy, on a track by track basis.

Fans who shell out $13.99 for the whole enchilada also get four demos and a poem with the 15 tracks including “They Don’t Care About Us” and “Billie Jean.”

The uneasy compromise: the new single only comes with the complete album.

As commenter yippiyyip noted: “The lone fault is that the title song is not being sold separately. Buy the album for the song? No thanks.”

Would you shell out for an entire album to get just one track?

Condé Nast announced that it will launch a digital version of men’s mag GQ on November 18 in tandem with the print issue.

The digital version available on iTunes will cost $2.99, half of the newsstand price, and there’s no word on whether snail mail subscribers get a discount. Condé says digital GQ be a perfect clone of the dead tree GQ, right down to the ads.

Last week brought reports that Apple’s much-touted album format, iTunes LP, had serious challenges. Brian McKinney of Chocolate Lab Records claimed that he had been told that Apple was charging a $10,000 production fee for iTunes LP, but it didn’t matter anyway, because the product was only meant to extend to major record labels, anyway.

This set off quite a ruckus. I called iTunes LP a form of paid advertising instead of a legitimate offering, for one.

In a rare move, Apple has responded to the explosive rumor and denies all charges. Apple contacted UK blog Electric Pig, informing them it will be “releasing the open specs for iTunes LP soon, allowing both major and indie labels to create their own. There is no production fee charged by Apple.”

That’s very positive news, and if it means what it seems to, it’s well-worth celebrating. I should also note that Apple’s announcements need to be very carefully read. They typically mean just what they say and no more. Pledging to allow labels to “create their own” iTunes LPs does not mean that you will approve them, for example. Saying “There is no production fee charged by Apple” does not mean that some other intermediary won’t charge for production. Bear in mind, Apple still claims it hasn’t rejected the Google Voice app for iPhone, claiming it has yet to approve it months after submission and heated letters to the FCC later.

Honestly, this topic looks murkier all the time. Apple is a remarkably opaque organization. The truth is, we will never know if Apple previously intended to allow indie labels to participate in iTunes LP prior to this minor controversy, nor do we know if the rumored production fee once existed. Apple keeps its inner workings so locked down that we can only ever judge the company based on its external actions. If an iTunes LP SDK is released in the next month, that’s a positive sign. And if we see the selection of iTunes LPs grow from about 12 to 1,000 titles in the relatively near future (with abundant indie label participation at no extra charge), it will be clear that the format is a major push toward a true digital album.

I’m thrilled Apple is taking this seriously, and I hope iTunes LP lives up to its potential. Keep your eyes peeled.

(Thanks, Zor!)

Over 6 million songs in the iTunes Music Store. God knows how many albums that translates to, but we must be insane to try and pick 20 albums worth considering for their combination of music and artwork, right?

As long as we’ve got that straight on the front-end, then.

Herewith, a collection of 20 albums available on iTunes, loosely organized by release date (in reverse order) and presented with the thought they might make good additions to the much-ballyhooed iTunes LP upgrade hyped at Apple’s It’s Only Rock and Roll event in September.

No doubt readers may quibble with some (perhaps all!) of our selections; no doubt you’ll have suggestions of your own. Do let us know abut it in comments. All album links open in iTunes.

So, a month ago, I wrote a post proclaiming iTunes LP to be the first digital album good enough to criticize. I would like to revise that assessment. It is, instead, the first major content misstep in the history of the iTunes Store.

At launch, Apple had six albums available in the format, which basically marries lyrics, album artwork, ad video content to your collection of AAC files. Scratch that, there were five albums and one musical comic book. It seemed like too little, but it was a launch — there were hardly any apps on the App Store when it came out, too. A month later, however, things have scarcely improved. We’ve gone from six offerings in iTunes LP to 13.

So what could be the problem? As it turns out, it’s the business model. According to Gizmodo, an indie record label owner asked Apple what it would take to get some of his albums available in the LP format. Apple’s reported answer? Be a major label. Seriously. Read on.

The New York Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) gave the green light to Station Stops, an app with handy time tables, after having it yanked from iTunes for intellectual property claims against the developer.

Station Stops, which costs $2.99, is back in the Apple store this week.
It’s a major victory for the developer/blogger/commuter Chris Schoenfeld, who saw his work pulled from iTunes in August and on the receiving end of a nastygram from MTA lawyers.

The app provides a timetable for the Metro-North Railroad for regularly-scheduled trains departing and arriving from Grand Central Station.
Schoenfeld ran into trouble with the MTA because although they provide schedules to Google Transit, they do not release the data publicly. To build his app, Schoenfeld did it the old way — by entering data manually from the published public schedule.

More on how the MTA saw the light after the jump.

Two music companies representing rapper Eminem have settled out of court with Apple over a download dispute.

Eminem’s publisher, Eight Mile Style, and his record company, Aftermath Records, sued Apple for allegedly making the rappers music available for download without permission.The rapper was not involved in the case.

The details of the settlement are confidential, the Associated Press reports.

Remember the great Eminem iTunes commercial based on “Lose Yourself?” Here it is again:

Publishing house Simon & Schuster  just launched a new product dubbed “vook,”  a dumb name for what sounds like a smart video book.

The idea? Vooks blend text and video into a reading and viewing experience, so the next time you’re not really getting a sense of place from a novel, or want to see how exercises are done you can watch a video. It’s also got all of the social media trappings, so you can discuss, rant etc. about the vook, (pronounced to ryhme with book), too.

The first four titles, available for $4.99  each on iTunes, are workout book “The 90-Second Fitness Revolution,” a book of DIY spa treatments called “Return to Beauty,” a thriller by Richard Doetsch called “Embassy” and romance novella “Promises.”

Dublin launched a bike sharing scheme on Sept. 15. Sponsored by French ad giant JC Decaux, locals can pick up the bikes around town, then leave them at one of 40 stations. The first half hour is free.

The trouble? Firm Fusio thought it’d be nice to have an iPhone app, available gratis on iTunes, telling would-be cyclists which stations had bikes available and how many. The Dublinbikes app used a mashup of Google Maps and data from the official Dublinbikes Website.

JC Decaux sent a nastygram to Fusio threatening legal action, and the App was pulled Sept. 23 from iTunes.

The story sounds depressingly similar to StationStops, the app that ran into trouble with NY transport authorities by publishing available public schedules.

It may not be over yet, however: politician Paschal Donohoe, a declared iPhone user, called on Dublin City Council to intervene.

“The new bike scheme will depend on bikes being available, when and where people need them,” he said in a statement on his website.  “A new application for iPhones provided this up-to-the minute information on where the bikes were located.”

“We should be encouraging innovation for the sake of the economy, not stamping it out.”
In the meantime,  there are already a couple of mobile web alternatives to the killed bike sharing app.

Via Wap Review