This morning while being impressed with the fact my iPhone App Store app indicated I had an update via a 1 with a circle around it (much like when you have a new SMS message or email), I noticed something bad. Real bad. Looking in the iTunes Applications section, I saw that the storage path for my application was not the NAS (Network Attached Storage) server path I had specified for my music. Instead, it was on my local drive in the default iTunes folder in a new folder called Mobile Applications. Take a look at my Info window. The danger behind this is for those thinking they are securing their data from failure on an external RAID drive actually could lose all their applications with local hard drive failure. Yikes!
Knowing this, it is advisable to back up your local iTunes folder either through Time Machine (Leopard users) or a third-party application such as our favorite SuperDuper! While your apps are also stored on your iPhone, it is unknown if they can be restored from the device to iTunes after a re-installition of iTunes. Apple did not respond for requests to explain this in time for this post.
RateMe! is very basic in what it does, but it does it so well that it just will not disappoint. Simply displaying five spots on your menu bar, you click on one of the five positions to transform the small white square into a star. Right click on it and you can select from the pop-up Increase or Decrease which will do so in half-star increments. Yes, half-stars are here baby! Man, I can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted this feature in iTunes and now here it is. Your half ratings will also appear in the iTunes interface as well. Sweet!
RateMe! lets you play, pause, mute, loop the current track, and perform other minor tasks. It also displays the track name and artist for a brief moment at the start of each song. SvenOnTech confirmed with RateMe! author Michael Markert via email this morning that this feature will be configurable to show longer or toggle in an upcoming release.
RateMe! is freeware but Market would appreciate any donations from you elated users. Give it a try and do thank him for his work if you continue to use RateMe!
Warner Bros. Records’ R.E.M. and leading social music discovery service iLike announced today that Accelerate, the best-selling rock band’s 14th studio album, will stream in its entirety exclusively on iLike and its syndicates beginning March 24th. A first for the company, the iLike Worldwide Listening Party will continue through March 26th, six days before the album’s North American release on April 1st, 2008. Additionally, R.E.M. will record an exclusive video message introducing and discussing the album that will be available via iLike for distribution across the Web.
“Collaborating with iLike, and debuting Accelerate across the Web is in keeping with the spirit and immediacy of the album.” says the band’s frontman Michael Stipe. “We wanted to do something superfast and super real. Music, art, and pop culture are about right now, and nothing else matters. Accelerate is our turbo-charged response to the times we live in.”
In addition to being available on iLike’s website (www.ilike.com), the iLike Worldwide Accelerate Listening Party and exclusive R.E.M. video message will debut through the iLike Sidebar desktop plugin for iTunes and Windows Media Player (www.iLike.com/download), as well as across the Web via iLike’s leading applications on Facebook, Bebo, hi5, and for the iPhone. R.E.M. have already been using the iLike Universal Artist Dashboard to post content, reaching their fans across multiple syndication channels via iLike’s “Post Once, Publish Everywhere” platform. The album will also be available for pre-order via iLike’s retail links to iTunes and Amazon.com.
“With 11 songs clocking in at just 34 minutes, Accelerate is intense and relevant, with songs inspired by the WTO riots in Seattle, the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and other topical themes,” said Ali Partovi, CEO of iLike. “We are honored to play a role in helping R.E.M. introduce this album to their fans across the Web. This is our first-ever Worldwide Listening Party and R.E.M. has set a very high bar.”
In many ways, Accelerate marks a break from R.E.M.’s recent albums, 1998’s Up, 2001’s Reveal, and 2004’s Around The Sun — all finely crafted works exploring the textures and possibilities of the recording studio. Accelerate ties together the band’s entire canon as part of the vision for the new album turning old dreams into a new reality.
To listen to R.E.M’s Accelerate and watch the band’s exclusive video message, please visit: www.iLike.com/R.E.M. To learn more about iLike’s multimedia blogging tools and other free services for artists, please visit: www.iLike.com/forartists.
Now you could probably guess my excitement last week during the Keynote when Steve Jobs announced movie rentals…in High Definition (HD). Two great things that I had been longing for and here they were, right before me. Yes! But I also noticed that Apple’s CEO mentioned this during the Apple TV update and made no stipulation to if the HD would be on both AppleTV and iTunes. I guess raising my hand for a clarification would go unnoticed, so off to the Apple booth I went to find someone who could answer that. After bouncing off a few Apple employees, I finally found one who could answer my question. The answer, “No iTunes support.” Well, would it ever come to iTunes I begged? “I don’t know. Maybe.” Joy.
Here’s the deal with HD and AppleTV. The upgrade supports Dolby 5.1, common to HD set-ups but not exclusive in addition to the menus and other additions. Apple must feel that that coupled with the fact most watch movies from their couch in the living room (or their bed in the bedroom), support for us Mac users isn’t needed. But the thing is, a vast majority of DVD players and HD players (Blu-ray or HD-DVD) aren’t hooked up to audio systems taking advantage of the bliss of digital sound coming from the discs or to even attached to HDTVs (initial install base is at single digits.) Expect similar results out of Apple TV 2.0. Further added frustration to this thought is that Apple’s own web page states, “Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound is not available with all HD rentals.”
Another interesting hitch to all of this is the fact that current Apple TV owners will be able to upgrade their firmware and receive HD content without the ability to hear that 5.1 sound. (Kinda kills the audio argument for Apple at this point, I guess.) Erg.
Looking to the visual aspect, what makes a plasma or LCD TV more special than my 30 inch Cinema HD display? Let me repeat my monitors name, Cinema HD. Um, don’t you think, Steve, that my Cinema HD device is just a wee-bit perfect for HD movies? In fact, I’d say it’s freakin’ over kill it’s so good!
So where’s the HD in iTunes, then? I don’t have to have 5.1 audio support, but it’d be nice to have it and with many after-market sound card options, Dolby’s theater performance isn’t an issue. Dying to push my Cinema HD screen to its limits, I’m tired of SD (Standard Definition) content on my lovely screen that I nearly had to hock my first born for to afford it. Give me something, Steve. What gives?
My only hope is my thinking that Apple TV 2.0 gets HD first to push more of Steve’s “hobby” off the shelf. Once the sales are serious enough for Steve to be pleased with them, I think we will see HD on iTunes and finally on my Cinema HD display.
Could it be the reason so many in the media and bloggers in general have had a hard time wondering what will be announced at Macworld is because we’ve all forgotten about…the Beatles? The catalog is prime for release and just in the last year alone, there has been indicators pointing to the fleetly release of the most sought after catalog in the music world. EMI’s experiment with DRM-less protected music on iTunes under the “plus” banner has done the label very well. EMI is the parent label to the Beatles catalog. Those close to Apple Records, Ltd. have publicly stated that all songs by the greatest and most successful bands of all time is coming. Not may be, but is coming. It’s also well known how huge of a Beatles fan Steve Jobs. Look at what was on his iPhone last years Macworld (pictured). Top it all off with the fact that now all the solo material of each Beatles member is available on iTunes today. It just seems Macworld is ripe for an incredible announcement next week.
If Apple, EMI and Apple Records, Ltd. announce the release of the entire Beatles catalog next week from San Francisco, this news will saturate not only the tech media but the media at large. It will trump CES, again, and put Apple on front pages of magazines and newspapers for weeks to come. It’ll also give us all a day of rest from Brittany news!
Things just seem very ideal for the Beatles to go digital and iTunes is the premium place to do it. While it has been well documented that the Beatles will be widely available, Apple’s relationship with EMI is obviously strong and Apple’s recent settlement with Apple Records, Ltd. was undisclosed to the public. Want to bet Steve didn’t put some limited exclusive clause in it for the digital versions of that honey pot? It’s just, soooo Steve.
Yes, folks, I do believe Billy Shears will be raising a smile next week from Moscone! 
Classical label, Deutsche Grammophon, is bringing it’s catalog to the web for global consumption. With over 2,400 titles to chose from, many “gems and perls”, as Helene Grimaud (sorry, I don’t have the accents for her first name) puts it in her YouTube commercial. We have Lang Lang (pronounce Long Long) her to tell you how excited he is about the new service.
DG Web Shop, as it’s titled, is under the Universal Music Group umbrella and such, this is yet another fist-a-cuffs gesture toward Apple’s iTunes. While it is a global market, pricing is in Euros and thus after the conversation rate - surprise - is more expensive than iTunes. All files are encoded in 320 kpbs MP3 and thus there is no DRM attached to these fine pieces of art. DG Web Shop’s press release notes this as, “part of Universal Music Group’s ongoing market trials of DRM-free downloads, announced earlier this year.” No notation how it balked at Apple when it asked for the same after the EMI announcement. Mmm.
President of Deutsche Grammophon Michael Lang states in the same release, “By launching this easy-to-use, intuitive DG Web Shop, we are not only expecting a significant growth in turnover but are also aiming to solidify and expand the digital future. In concrete terms, this means establishing innovative sales channels and concepts: by attracting the classical novice and, of course, those already steeped in the genre – and everyone in-between – as they transfer from being only CD buyers to exploring the advantages of downloading, in CD-comparable audio. This web shop’s easy-to-use search function helps all music enthusiasts find and select music by categories such as genre, composer, artist, as well as filter by awards, reviews and series.”
That’s where all you classical lovers come in and vote with your dollar, er, Euro. Now with Amazon’s music download service and this service, the heat is on at Apple which is a good thing for even iTunes lovers. Competition is always good. Now let’s just see how well this works out for Universal. Time will tell.
Since day one of owning my iPhone, I have had syncing issues with it. I first reported the issue on June 30th and to my amazement not a single other person seemed to have been experiencing long sync issues like I was. I’ve searched Apple’s support site and many other iPhone sites and I’ve never found anyone else having problems, save one. The one I did find had no response to their issue (I’ll have to go find that post and reply to it.) So, I just lived life with 30 minute sync times in awe of my other iPhone friends and their few minute sync times.
Well, things changed Sunday night. That’s the night I migrated from my existing Exchange server to my new Exchange 2007 server. Since the good folks at Redmond thought it wouldn’t be prudent to have a mailbox migration tool for my provider to just import my current mailbox, I had to drag folder tree by folder tree to my new Exchange server mailbox. With 700+ MB of messages and such, I knew this was going to take a while on my limited upload broadband connection and anything I could do to minimize the upload time, I was willing to do.
I put Entourage’s calendar into list view and waited a few minutes for the filter to do it’s stuff. When the count ticker finally quit its tabulation, it stopped at a large number. A very large number. 35,709. Yup, I had over 35,000 events in my calendar dating all the way back to 1998 and what I quickly noticed was a ton of duplicates, mainly of re-occuring events. When I saw this, I remembered how Entourage and its syncing with iCal created some duplicates way back in June. I guess it was more than just “some”.
After spending over an hour going through the long list of events and deleting globs of duplicates in the 221 count (what an odd amount of duplicates!), I finally was able to bring my event amount down to about 5,000. I then put the iPhone on its cradle and — BAM! — in two minutes the entire iPhone was synced. That was a 28 minute reduction! In fact, it happened so quickly, I thought maybe it timed out and performed the sync again and once again, two minutes. Wow, what a difference 30,000 less events make.
Needless to say, I’ll be closely monitoring my events and seeing if the iCal/Entourage sync service is duplicating items again. My suspicion is it will continue to do so and I’ll need to figure out what is causing it. I’m sure the next version of Entourage may correct this; however, with the updated mail.app and iCal coming this week in Leopard, I may just convert over to the Apple coded applications and say goodbye to Microsoft.
35,000 events. Amazing…
Well, looks like Universal had a trick card up its sleeve when it “left” iTunes for Amazon. (It really didn’t leave, but rather stated it would be selective in material available on iTunes for the future.) Many thought it was going to an “Unboxed” formula with music downloads on Amazon but I must say, Amazon’s MP3 Download service is mighty fine. Fine indeed. No DRM and with a bit rate of 256 kbps, this looks like it has a good start out of the, um, box. Add the fact that you can use Amazon’s MP3 Downloader, both for the Mac and Windows, that automatically adds all purchases to your iTunes library, and now you have a bona fide contender for an iTunes Store competitor. Yeah!
Most songs come in at 89 cents and albums at $8.99 (USD). This is a dime and dollar difference from iTunes. I’ve found other albums that are at the five dollar mark making Amazon’s service a first stop for me before making any music purchases. What I love about this service is the ability to pay less than $9.99 per album than if I went to iTunes. I love the irony in Steve Jobs “one price” model and yet iTunes Store is littered like the Las Vegas Strip with high priced trash all over it. I still can remember the first time I tripped over an $18 album. And yes, I ended up purchasing it on CD from Amazon for $11.99 shipped. Now, in some cases, I can get it cheaper…downloaded!
I must say that I do love the iTunes Store. It’s a one stop place for most of my (DRM-free) music shopping. But with Amazon’s downloader and cheaper prices, I’m going to go here every time first. If the song or album is not available or is more expensive than iTunes (which I doubt will ever happen,) then I’ll hit iTunes. Thankfully, I once again have a choice and I intend to fully use it. Just like the old days of going to Tower Records, Rainbow Records, or the Record Factory, to find the best deal on Billy Squire’s Don’t Say No, I can now shop around “town”.
This of course gives Steve Jobs a problem that he’ll have to re-evaluate his pressure hold on the music industry. While it’s fairly common knowledge that Apple really makes very little on music purchase from iTunes, variable pricing may be something Apple will be forced into accepting with the advent of the Amazon store.
Hey NBC (and Universal.) I’d like to thank you for saving me about $40 in a Season Pass ticket from iTunes and for giving me a higher quality version of your very entertaining show. Man, the details are so much better than what I was getting from iTunes that I can’t wait ’til I start downloading The Office, too!
Now since I’m on a Mac and your true intentions was not about the viewer (as you tried to tell the world), I had to go elsewhere besides Amazon.com or Hulu to get my season premiere of Hereos. Elsewhere meant going to this fine site and using Miro for the download. Miro nicely displays not just the most recent episode, but all of them including entire seasons! Now granted, you have to wait for all the seeders to get busy, but once that happens, it’s only a few hours and I have my free episode of Hereos…in 720p HD! How nice is that?!
Now, would I have done all this if NBC was still on iTunes? No. ‘But what about the HD?’ you ask. Well, while the high def is nice, iTunes is still faster and more convenient. I also do want to pay for my videos; however, if the provider that once gave me a paying way to do so and then takes that option away, what’s a hooked fan to do? You gave me no choice, NBC!
I’m sure we’re going to be seeing a spike in torrent traffic and a massive drop in NBC’s bottom line for downloads after this is all done. It’ll be fun to watch NBC come back to Apple like a dog with its tail between the legs. Man, is Steve Jobs going to have a fun day at work when that happens.
Okay, I have to get back to this free show on my Mac. L8.
It’s a bit ironic that Steve Jobs would make a jab at NBC Wednesday with Apple’s custom ringtone for the iPhone announcement. Basically, the NBC-Universal issue is that Universal wants more control over the DRM and higher prices for its content. If you look at the 99 cent price per ringtone charge Apple is pushing, you could say Apple is committing the same sin as NBC. Think about it. You can only use songs (and not even all of them) from the iTunes store. Control. You have to pay FULL price for a partial song! Higher prices. Sure, you could play the entire song as a ringtone, I guess, but would you get your complete value from it? No. While you can customize the start and end points of the song, does that really justify the high price? Not really.
Going further, what about the fact that you are being double charged? I mean, if you already purchased a song prior, you have to purchase it AGAIN! How does that make sense? I can’t believe Jobs could tell the audience at Moscone Center with a straight face everyone has to pay TWICE for the same song!
What makes this whole thing just amazing is the fact that you can put ringtones on the iPhone now without the help of Apple. Sure, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to use iFuntastic, but iToner (which we reported on) does the drop amazingly easy and costs $15. Granted, not cheap, but after a dozen or more ringtones from iTunes, it will be cheaper than Apple’s alternative.
To customize the start and end points isn’t too difficult, either. Garageband can do the edits on ones files and then you can save that out as your ringtone. Sure, it’s probably not as easy as it is in iTunes 4.7, but the selection and cost doing it this way is so much cheaper.
So that brings us to how Apple blew it. I don’t want to say it is being greedy, because it really could have charged more per song, but it is demonstrating that it likes to a make a buck toward the obscene. Like the DRM argument that even Steve Jobs agreed with, you should only have to pay ONCE for something you already own. If I purchase “Respect” from Aretha Franklin, then I shouldn’t have to buy it again if I want it to be my ringtone.
So why is Steve behind this? Well, there’s a new player in this game and it’s AT&T. Carriers make big money off of ringtones and this topic was sure to have come up with Apple when it brought it’s iPhone to then SBC with all of Apple’s demands. AT&T had a lot to lose and I’m sure ringtone revenue was not one thing it wanted to come out of its grips. Add in the evil record companies and you’re back to high pricing.
While I think Apple blew it with this lame pricing plan of 99 cents (49 cents would have been a better price point if it had to go through with the double charge plan), hopefully it’ll look the other way and continue to allow products such as iToner to work with the iPhone. It may have its back up against the wall, but it has been demonstrating this blind-eye treatment with all the Apple TV hacks. Hopefully, it’ll continue with the iPhone.