Readers of SvenOnTech will know just how much we love the Sonos Multi-room Music System (review). Anyone that steps into our office or home is always shown or Sonos set-up as part of the tour and most go away with promises of getting a Sonos for themselves. The only con we can ever find with Sonos is cost.
Well, Santa Barbra-based Sonos has just announced the ZonePlayer S5, an all-in-one unit that drives cost down to a price point anyone can get excited about. By including the brains behind Sonos into a box filled with speakers, all one needs to do is plug the power, pull out an iPhone or iPod touch, and connect to a ZoneBridge and you’re jamming to some tunes (view demo). Like the other ZonePlayers, the S5 gives you a full-featured experience with access to your entire iTunes DRM-free library, Internet Radio, as well as services such as Napster and Pandora. You control all this from the free app available at the iTunes AppStore from the palm of your hand.
Now are you ready for the price? $399. Ya, just $400! Remember, you are getting, essentially, a Sonos ZonePlayer and killer sounding speakers. This is less than those Bose systems that does less and in our opinion has lost sight of its audiophile roots. Speaking of roots, the guys that started Sonos came from a loudspeaker background so you KNOW these things kick and trust us, they haven’t forgot their roots!
The Sonos ZonePlayer S5 will be available at the end of the month and we know it’ll be all treat and no trick.
Untitled and incorrect music titles in your iTunes library are now history. Today equinux released SongGenie, a software application designed to analyze, detect and label music data. SongGenie constructs an acoustic fingerprint of each track and, based on specific characteristics, detects the appropriate artist name, song title and album title.
SongGenie automatically identifies tracks containing incomplete or incorrect information. It even detects music titles for tracks with no artist, album or song title information; titles that were digitalized without extra information and are therefore called, for example, “Title 01″ and additional characters that suggest incorrect names like an underline.
Using an acoustic fingerprint, SongGenie determines which track to work on and intuitively inserts the correct information in its user interface. With just a click, the appropriate description text is transferred to the track in question.
“SongGenie taps the full potential of the iPhone, iPod and iTunes: The Genius function in iTunes 8 profits particularly well from a complete music library, ” said equinux CEO Till Schadde. “It doesn’t get easier to care for one’s music archive than with SongGenie and CoverScout.”
Price and Availability
SongGenie is now available for USD 29.95 (24,95 Euro) in the equinux Online Store and will soon be available from Apple resellers. Moreover, SongGenie is also available in a bundle with CoverScout 3 for USD 54.90 (49,95 Euro) in the Online Store. SongGenie is localized in English, German and French.
Today equinux released CoverScout 3, the ultimate software to complete album covers in iTunes. With its sleek and intuitive user interface, CoverScout searches the Internet to find missing album art and can automatically apply its findings to your music library. CoverScout’s integrated editor and automatic workflow complete every music library.
“CoverScout revolutionizes the way to the perfect music library. It’s never been so much fun to find missing album artwork,” says equinux CEO Till Schadde. “Whoever wants to use Cover Flow on their iPhone to flip through their music collection won’t be able to resist CoverScout.”
The interface of CoverScout 3 is based upon the principles of Cover Flow. Its intuitive and familiar interface make it easy for anyone to flip through their music library and find all their missing cover art. CoverScout scans your music library as soon as the application is launched showing all covered and uncovered tracks. It searches for appropriate cover art on the internet which it can automatically apply to entire albums or individual tracks.
CoverScout begins where iTunes ends. CoverScout searches multiple music archives like Amazon, WalMart and Google Image Search simultaneously. It can also be adjusted to include additional search sources. In the integrated cover editor, each album cover can be edited with pixel precision, rotated, cropped, scaled and the colors can be adjusted. CoverScout even offers the option to photograph rare albums with one’s iSight.
CoverScout 3 is now available in German, English and French from $39.95 in the equinux online store. CoverScout will appear in a high quality product box at local Apple retailers soon. CoverScout 3 runs with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard only.
CoverScout fills the gray gaps that iTunes leaves behind: It detects missing album covers in your music library and searches online for fitting cover art – all in an intuitive and sleek user interface. In an integrated cover editor, artwork can be quickly and easily modified. CoverScout perfects your music library on your iPhone, iPod, Apple TV and in iTunes. CoverScout also offers custom-fit print templates to print out CD covers and inlays for your CD collection.
Want to listen to your iTunes music right on your wireless phone? No problem. Alltel Wireless, America’s largest network, today announced that it is the first wireless carrier to offer its customers access to nuTsie, a service that allows users to listen to playlists from their iTunes libraries on over 10 Alltel wireless handsets. In addition, nuTsie enables users to share those lists with friends across the Internet and on their mobile devices.
nuTsie, available for $4.99 a month or $19.99 for one year, can be accessed by visiting Alltel Shop located on the handset. In addition to being able to play music from their iTunes collections, customers can also listen to recommended music based on their playlists and explore hundreds of thousands of playlists from other users and nuTsie’s music experts, providing a new world of music right at their fingertips.
“Our customers are now relying on their wireless phones to provide entertainment as well as reliability,” said Kristi Crum, director of multimedia content for Alltel Wireless. “The launch of nuTsie will maximize the music capabilities on their phones so they can now easily listen to their favorite music from iTunes, no matter where they go.”
The nuTsie application, developed by Melodeo, a leader in mobile and online media, is available on a wide range of including the MOTORAZRTM V3m and V3c, the MOTOKRZR K1m, theäAlltel devices the MOTORAZR2 V9m and MOTOROKRTM Z6m. Additional handsets include the LG AX565, The Wave by LG, the LG AX8600, Samsung MuseTM, the Alltel HueTM by Samsung and The WaferTM by Samsung. More Alltel handsets supporting nuTsie will be announced in the coming months.
“nuTsie offers Alltel Wireless customers an easy, inexpensive way to access their iTunes libraries on the go and to hear new music from other users’ playlists and from our own programmed music,” added Dave Dederer, Vice President of Business Development at Melodeo and founding member of the GRAMMY-nominated, multi-platinum rock band The Presidents of the United States of America.
“We’re extremely pleased to be teaming with Alltel to bring nuTsie to a wider audience.”
Alltel Wireless continues to provide choice and flexibility to the customer’s wireless experience with its exclusive “My Circle” feature, giving customers unlimited calling to and from any five, 10 or 20 numbers on any network for free. Alltel Wireless was also the first to offer Anytime Plan Changes, giving customers the flexibility to change their calling plans at any time, without extending their current contract.
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.