iTunes - page 22

Tune Up, already a popular iTunes plug-in for Windows, makes its OS X debut on Thursday, promising to automagically bring order to your hopelessly unorganized iTunes Library and bestow upon you missing cover art, concert information, music videos and news about your favorite artists, all without your ever having to leave iTunes.

Nicely presented to a snappy backing track in the video above, Tune Up will first analyze your library, presenting you with information on all the megabytes of music you have labeled Track 1, Track 2 and so on, all the Unknown Artists, Unknown Albums and missing information keeping your database from being fit to be housed in the Library of Congress.

Once you’ve been shamed to learn how sloppy you’ve been about importing music onto your Mac, Tune Up gives you the chance to clean up your mess and the automagical stuff really starts to happen. Using a secret forensics algorithm, the program takes an “audio fingerprint” of each mislabeled track and compares it to the 90 million song Gracenotes® Global Media Database and automatically fills in the missing information.

“All of us here are entrenched in music. We’re cranking tunes all day,” says CEO and founder of Tune Up Media, Gabriel Adiv. “We’re also the type of people who want all of our cover-art, don’t like missing concerts and spend hours online looking for YouTube videos, news, and merch from our favorite artists.”

Once your library has been cleaned and all your cover art rendered, Tune Up knowingly displays upcoming local concerts for every artist in your collection, and fetches YouTube videos, Google news and Wikipedia bios related to any playing track. The best part of this feature is that it’s built in – no filling out extra forms or compiling lists of favorite artists or albums from scratch.

For a limited time, a full-featured version of Tune Up is available with 500 “cleans” and 50 cover art “finds” for free. “Tune Up Gold” provides unlimited cleans and cover art finds for a one-time fee of $19.95 or an annual subscription of $11.95. The OS X version launching Thursday requires Leopard, but the company plans a release supporting Tiger soon, as well as support for Windows Media Player and AOL’s WinAmp later in 2009.

UPDATE: This post has been edited for clarity as to search results on the US iTunes store.

Informed of racist content in the music of German neo-nazi band Lancer, Apple moved to pull the content from Germany’s iTunes store within two hours, according to a report at MacBlogz.

Landser had been banned by a German federal court in 2005 for brazenly racist songs with titles such as “Polacken Tango” (Polack Tango) and “Zigeunerpack” (Gypsy Vermin), but an Apple spokesperson was mystified as to how the bands tracks made it on to iTunes, saying, “I don’t know how it made it into the store. We do not tolerate this kind of content.”

Computerbild, a German technology publication apparently made the discovery, while a spokesperson for Jugendschutz, a German youth protection agency, was quoted saying, “the right-wing extremist scene has long identified with and used music to exercise their influence on young people.”

The iTunes Terms of Service for the US store clearly states that “you agree to use the Service at your sole risk and that Apple shall have no liability to you for content that may be found to be offensive, indecent, or objectionable.” A quick search on the US iTunes store for music produced by Detroit-based Resistance Records (alleged to be closely associated with the US Skinhead movement) turned up tracks from outfits such as hard core punk label Fat Wreck Chords and compilations from Rot Records and Riot City Records, though nothing by affirmed neo-nazi bands such as Landser, No Remorse, Bound for Glory or Skullhead.

Apple has finally concluded negotiations with Sony, Universal and Warner that will let tracks from the three giant music labels sell on iTunes without Fair Play restrictions, according to a report at AppleInsider.

AI cites information from a French electronic website claiming unnamed sources who confirm the DRM-free date is Tuesday, December 9. This hullabaloo falls squarely into the rumor category and should be seen as Holiday Hype as much as anything until either an official announcement from Apple or until tracks are actually being downloaded from iTunes without digital rights management restrictions.

The French site, ElectronLibre, also reportedly claims Apple is set to allow shoppers in France, Germany and the UK download an “unlimited” amount of certain iTunes content just after Christmas, leading up to the start of Macworld 2009 on January 6.

Via AppleInsider

FATdrop has the skinny on everything you always wanted to know about digital music distribution in a comprehensive comparison of the policies and practices of 14 major on-line stores.

Via Distorted Loop

The Amazon Mobile app could get you out of a few Christmas-present dilemmas. The app gives iPhone and iPod Touch users access to wish lists, shopping carts, one-click shopping, plus all the customer reviews and ratings that may make last-minute buys less of a shot in the dark.

It also includes a nice feature called “Amazon Remembers” which lets you save snapshots as visual post-its if you see something you want to buy later. The app saves the photo and searches for similar items, too.

Released a few days ago, it’s had some good reviews, including a five-star rating from “ericthewhat” who says: “Great. I can definitely see my drunk-texting problem becoming a drunk-shopping problem.”

Well, at least you won’t be sobbing into your beer buying stuff like “I’ve Never been to Me.”

In the first release, one of the useful things you can’t buy or download from Amazon are MP3s.

From the mobile app you can put MP3s on your wish list and then buy from your computer, but it’s a bit of a buzzkill for what otherwise seems a useful app.

Via: 37 prime

‘Tis the Season to make a list out of everything you can possibly think of – who’s been naughty, who’s been nice, the Best of This and The Worst of That.

Apple released its lists of the Top 10 Paid and Top 10 Free Apps on the iTunes AppStore Tuesday, and also broke down the top apps by category. If you visited the iTunes store since the AppStore launched in July, you’ve been able to get a running snapshot of the Top 10 overall lists, as they have been published on the AppStore’s front page since the launch.

After opening strong, Super Monkey Ball ended up 4th on the list of top paid app downloads, while Koi Pond quietly, like a zen warrior, took the top honors. Amazingly, enough people paid for iBeer to put it in the #10 spot.

Among the free downloads, two music apps, Pandora Radio and Shazam were in the top 5 (#1 and #4, respectively) and in only two months of availability, Google Earth managed to place #7.

For all of the AppStore’s Top Lists, click here.

For all of the iTunes Store’s Top Lists, click here.

On Monday night’s Colbert Report, the most feared television journalist in America let it be known he was none too happy that his Christmas Special Soundtrack was 15 spots down from Kanye West’s top selling album on iTunes. He called for the Colbert Nation to crash Apple’s iTunes servers at 5pm EST on Wednesday to vault his record to the top position and “force Kanye to admit I am the voice of this generation, of this decade.”

As of Tuesday night, Stephen Colbert’s disc had moved up two spots to #14, but his new rival, at this writing, is Britney Spears, whose album Circus is presently iTunes’ top seller.

There has been no word from the Colbert camp calling off the flashmob, nor comment regarding whether West’s arrogance remains in need of a takedown now that his record is no longer in first position. Knowing Colbert’s own reputation for having an outsized ego, however, it’s likely he’s still looking for a big bump in the polls on Wednesday.

Fluid Tunes is a pretty cool free app from Majic Jungle Software that uses your computer’s camera to interpret movements of your head, hands or feet, letting you browse, play or pause your music in iTunes without touching your keyboard or mouse. It works on OS X 4.11 and higher and is a tiny (788K) universal binary.

Blogger Charles Teague has done some comprehensive analysis of emerging trends based on the AppStore’s first 5 months of business and there’s no denying Apple’s online distribution model has exploded out of the gate.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the proposition that the AppStore could be Apple’s most revolutionary development of all, which Teague’s research would appear to confirm in many respects.

The chart below shows the number of applications being released per day, with momentum clearly trending upward and sitting currently at more than 140 new apps per day. There are more than 9000 apps available on the AppStore, with the ratio of paid to free apps at about 7:2.

Low End Mac figures their time is now.

With the economy exuding the stench of death and government busy creating trillions of dollars worth of fictional capital to “bail out” some of the nation’s brand-name institutions, Low End Mac believes their philosophy of “use it up, wear it out, and then recycle it” could not be more timely.

“We are the kings of making our computers last, last, and last some more,” writes blogger John Hatchett in a great piece describing how he turned his old iMac into a digital jukebox. With a little bit of drive cloning and hooking the iMac up to his home stereo, he now listens to his iTunes library all over his house.

Via Low End Mac

Apple is in talks with three major music studios that have held out selling songs on iTunes free of copy protection, according to a report Thursday. If successful, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony BMG titles could be part of Apple’s iTunes Plus.

Although CNET described discussions as “still preliminary,” an agreement would expand Apple’s iTunes Plus option to include music from all major studios. When the program was launched about a year ago, only EMI signed onto selling tunes free of restrictions that tied iTunes purchases to an Apple device.

With its iTunes and iPod dynasty, Apple has dominated digital music sales. However, a growing number of rivals — Amazon, Microsoft and MySpace among them — have used DRM-free MP3 music to loosen the stranglehold.

The AppStore “is causing a sea change in both the mobile phone industry and the gaming industry that threatens the viability of all competitors,” according to technology stock analyst Jason Schwarz at Seeking Alpha.

Calling the AppStore bigger than the Mac, the iPod and the iPhone, Schwarz points to comments made by Steve Jobs during Apple’s recent earnings conference call with industry analysts, in which he pointed out that the company is now benefiting from being at the center of a cycle in which cool applications beget more sales, thereby creating an even larger market which will attract even more software development.

Schwarz writes that Apple and the AppStore have “brought the Internet to the level…everyone expected during the tech bubble…[with] efficiency of distribution [that] is impossible for the traditional model to compete with,” and goes on to identify Apple stock, trading in the $80 range, as “a unique wealth building opportunity.”

Some Cult of Mac readers have lately complained about the preponderance of iPhone and iPhone app-related coverage we have been publishing, but the fact of the matter is that AppStore development is exploding. It represents where much of Apple and Mac oriented creativity exists right now. And if Schwarz is right when he says “Modern day society values its computers and phones above all else,” then AppStore news and product development are likely to increase and not fade away.

MacBook fans are in an uproar after discovering the new laptops contain hardware-based copyright protection that prevents the viewing of iTunes movies on some external displays, such as a second monitor or a projector.

“This movie cannot be played because a display that is not authorized to play protected movies is connected,” is the warning MacBook users receive when using an external display that doesn’t support the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) protocol.

The HDCP technology is part of Apple’s Mini DisplayPort Content Protection built into MacBooks. Hollywood studios looking to protect their movies appreciate the 128-bit copy protection measures included in DisplayPort, according to reports.

I took quite ill on Thursday, and literally didn’t leave the house at any point between Friday and Sunday mornings. And, like a lot of bed-ridden people, I was in far too much pain to actually think about reading, writing, or, well, thinking. Instead, I got caught up on all of the junky entertainment I never find time for otherwise. Comic I hadn’t yet read. DVR’d episodes of Top Design. And virtually all of the content on Netflix Watch Instantly.

Now, for those of you who still haven’t had the chance to try out streaming Netflix, I will say that it works incredibly well. Movies start quickly, the new interface allows you to scrub through looking for your exact place, it resumes play if you accidentally quit. (I had a few films with skewed soundtracks, but it was a rare occurrence). What’s astounding, however, is just how tiny the Netflix streaming library is compared to Hulu, iTunes, or, you know, Netflix DVD service. After a few days in bed, I’d watched literally everything that I had any interest in seeing that the streaming service had. I mean, there are only two seasons of 30 Rock.

And that’s when it hit me: everyone who’s called for Apple to start a monthly subscription model for iTunes has been almost right. There’s tons of money to be made there. But the opportunity isn’t from making its full music library available for $15 a month. It’s in charging $20-30 a month for unlimited TV show access.

Think about it: Apple has the largest library of digital downloadable video on the planet right now. Sales haven’t been as good as hoped. Apple has begun to rent movies, which means it has the DRM to prevent people from keeping a permanent copy of a rented clip on their hard drive. And yet TV shows are still available only for $1.99 each. While that’s a pretty good price, it’s not one that I’ve paid since Apple first made TV available through iTunes (I briefly had 10-pack passes for The Daily Show and Colbert way back). But I would gladly ditch my Netflix subscription and pony up the same $20 a month for unlimited rentals of the TV shows on iTunes, even without movies. That’s $240 gross from me that Apple and the TV studios wouldn’t see otherwise.

Now, if it were anyone but Apple, I would say that kind of price is too high to pay. But this wouldn’t be a streaming competitor to Hulu — it would be for files that could work on any iPod or iPhone. That’s a compelling proposition right there. It would further cement Apple’s vertical integration as the premiere agent for digital entertainment on earth. It would make an AppleTV as essential as a TiVo. It could even begin to make the cable companies nervous if Apple’s selection continues to improve (live sports being an obvious exception).

I think it’s a slam dunk. Does it make sense to you?

First made available through the iTunes Store on April 28, 2003, the timeless power ballad “Don’t Stop Believin'” has become the top-selling catalog track in iTunes history and the sole catalog track to have crossed the 2million (double platinum) threshold.

Following its original release in 1981, “Don’t Stop Believin’,” the second single from Journey’s groundbreaking chart-topping “Escape” album, peaked at #8 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart and at #9 on the Pop Singles chart. Propelled by what the All Music Guide has called “one of the
best opening keyboard riffs in rock,” “Don’t Stop Believin'” quickly established itself as one of Journey’s signature songs while helping to spawn the “arena rock” genre.

“Don’t Stop Believin'” hit a grand slam in 2005 when it became the unofficial theme song for the Chicago White Sox, World Series Champions. Journey frontman Steve Perry performed the song at the World Series Championship celebration in Chicago.

The song enjoyed a massive resurgence in popularity in June 2007 after serving as the soundtrack to the climactic final set-piece of HBO’s hit mafia family television series, “The Sopranos.” Download sales
of the song on iTunes rocketed an incredible 482% for the period from Saturday, June 9th (the night before “The Sopranos” finale) through Tuesday, June 12th, of that year, at which time Hillary Clinton also chose it as her presidential campaign theme song.

Nearly 25 percent of Japan’s music fans use Apple’s iTunes software, compared to 19 percent of the U.S. online population, a media measurement firm announced Tuesday.

The iTunes application, used by iPod and iPhone owners to purchase and organize digital music, found 23.7 percent penetration of the nation’s Internet users, according to comScore. Globally, 11.2 percent of the world’s Internet users prefer iTunes, the study found.

The UK had the second largest percentage of iTunes fans with 23.4 percent penetration coming a close second to the gadget-hungry island nation.

The U.S. was ranked third with 19.6 percent reach of iTunes. France and Germany completed the top five iTunes countries, the company reported.

Giant discount retailer Walmart has slashed its price for MP3 music to 74 cents, challenging both leader Apple and Amazon. The Bentonville, Ark. chain also announced Tuesday it’s MP3 store will offer a free download with each music CD purchased.

The new pricing is limited to what Walmart calls its “Top 25,” songs from such artists as Coldplay, Nickelback and Carrie Underwood.

You may wonder how people at rock concerts wave lighters in the air now that only pariahs smoke and carry Bics.

Enter “American Idol” winner David Cook, whose new single Light On can be downloaded from iTunes for $1.99. It comes with a “lighter” app that illuminates the screen of an iPhone or iPod Touch.

“There’s a little semblance of rock mythos to it,” says the 25-year-old carefully scruffy Cook. “You get a lighter during a rock ballad and nobody burns their thumbs.”

Eco-friendly, yeah. Non-inflammatory. Sure. Cool, not really. You could turn the screen of your iPod or iPhone on and wave it around without an app. But it does open the way for music-related apps. Disturbia anyone?

Via USA Today

To mark the one-month anniversary of launching HD sales at its iTunes Store, Apple announced it will offer more than 70 episodes of Fall prime-time hits from ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and cable.

Among the HD episodes are ABC’s “Desperate Housewives,” “Lost,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Eli Stone.” CBS shows include “CSI,” CSI: New York, “CSI” Miami” and “Numb3rs.” NBC show in HD on iTunes include “30 Rock,” Heroes,” “The Office” and “Law and Order: SUV.”

Apple said it has also sold 200 million television episodes and 1 million HD episodes. The HD episodes from ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox cost $2.99 a piece while each regular episode from the iTunes Store carry a $1.99 price tag.

In September, Apple kicked-off HD sales, offering 12 high-definition NBC episodes for free. The announcement coincided with the release of iTunes 8 and the return of NBC, which left the iTunes Store in August 2007, following a dispute over pricing of its television shows.

Better late than never: Oxford and Cambridge have joined scores of prestigious universities around the world making lectures available for free on iTunes.

So far, iTunes U offerings from Oxford include J. Craig Venter on genomics and and intro series about the university narrated by noteworthy alum, ex-Monty Pythoner Michael Palin. It will expand to 150 hours.

Rivals Cambridge allow users to download over 80 Naked Scientists “enhanced podcasts” (not sure we want to think about what the enhancing involves) by Dr. Chris Smith.

Oxford Vice Chancellor John Hood said, “We hope that this service will make Oxford’s diverse range of audio and video material more widely accessible to applicants, alumni, supporters of the University, and the intellectually curious.”

Via The Student Newspaper

Looks like the Apple logo, clears the air around your desk. Not sure how clean it’ll really keep the five cubic meters that surround you, but maybe it makes a nice white noise to drown out your office mates.

$22 from Brando.

Via Geeky Gadgets

The iPhone 3g arrived in Russian stores Friday. They cost a pretty ruble — 23,000 and 27,000 or about $900 and $1,000 for the eight and 16 gigabyte versions — causing some early adopters to spend as much as they make in a month on the gotta-have-it handset.

Retailers weren’t expecting long lines, though. Apple resellers are using a don’t call us, we’ll call you approach, asking potential buyers to leave contact details.

“We already have more than fifty people on our list, so it is better to leave your number and we will call you when your phone is ready for pick up,” he said. Most dealers, such as Evroset and Svyaznoy are also accepting advance orders.

This is a good thing, since temperatures in Russia are already brisk and wet.

Videos show a few very subdued customers waiting in bank-like settings for their new phones.

Although the arrival of the 3G version was sufficiently hyped (as per the “iSoon” billboard above) retailers don’t expect a stampede because uber-early adopters have already bought them on the gray market…

Sales expectations for the former U.S.S.R. are 3.5 million handsets by the end of 2009.

Via Moscow News

Apple published the 2.2 update for Apple TV users last night and the biggest news may be that users will now be able to turn the device off from within the control panel.

A major complaint about Apple TV has been that the thing runs extremely hot, in addition to the fact that even when not in use, it sits there burning kilowatts of energy, very much at odds with the company’s aspirations to environmental friendliness.

Now, finally, users may put the device into “Standby” mode by pressing the “Play/Pause” button for about 3 seconds from the Main menu. There is also a “Standby” option accessible from an interior menu that I can’t mention here because WordPress doesn’t like the word. But it rhymes with vettings.

As expected, US Apple TV users can now buy HD TV shows directly from iTunes. The latest update also lets users make music video playlists from their favorite songs and Genius can be used with Apple TV, as long as users activate Genius in iTunes and sync with their device.

See all the update features here.

Designers have tried before to integrate tech with clothing, mostly resulting in stuff you should buy, stick in a box and sell 20 years from now rather than wear today.

Exception made for Julieta Gayoso’s Indarra line, which includes this Touch Pad Jacket with wireless controls for your iPod that allow wearers to pump up the volume, turn it down or skip tracks while on the move. (The controls even look like Apple icons, so people won’t think you’re randomly poking yourself).

The design’s simple and practical enough to actually wear, with a waterproof finish, zip-out 3M lining and plenty of pockets. The limited-edition numbered topper, which also comes in also comes in “iron moss” and black, retails for about $275. Argentine Gayoso, who started designing tech-friendly clothes in 2006, also offers a line of basics for women.

Smart clothes that actually look smart. Now there’s an idea.

Via Reuters

Is this the new MacBook Pro?

The picture above claims to be a camera phone pic snapped by an Apple employee on the design team.

If the picture is real, it means the new MacBook Pros, expected to be unveiled October 14, have a few design changes:

1. It has a unique two-tone case. A first for Apple. The lid looks like it’s made of glossy black plastic, with an aluminum bottom.

2. The lid dispenses with hook clasps in favor of a magnetic latch mechanism, like current MacBooks.

3. There’s no multitouch sensitive “glass touchpad,” as rumored.

The Apple source also sent an ad featuring the MacBook Pro that is destined for Apple’s website.

The MacBook Pro ad after the jump.