All Articles Tagged iTunes

Not evil twin to Phone Different Week in Review, not an invasion by Fake Steve, This Week in Smart Phone Schadenfreude brings you all the feel-better news you need about the smartphone world outside Apple’s current media dominator. (Who knew there was such a world? We were just as surprised! Inelegant, interface challenged, keyboardy, crashy, single-touchy place — best not to linger…). Join us as we mock review the big news from last week at our sister sites. Everybody loves sibling rivalry! Read the rest of this entry »

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More and more people are switching to the iPhone. They’re switching from Palm and Windows Mobile and even Blackberry (looking at you, Barack Obama!) smartphones to the iPhone. They’re switching carriers to get the iPhone. They’re switching off the carrier-locks just to be able to switch to the iPhone in their own, currently unsupported countries. And now that the next-gen iPhone 3G is all but upon us, and more and more regions are announcing deals to offer it, the switching is only going to get faster and more furious.

To celebrate the switchers, those who dare to phone different, the iPhone Blog wants to help you get your content off your old, perhaps restrictive and outdates systems, and onto iTunes, ready to sync to your new iPhone.

Read on to find out how!

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Yeah, Chrisey, hang on a minute, I’m conferencing in our mutual friend from Cupertino…

Hello? (Manage, this thing is easy to use!) Hello Stevie? Whoa, there he is… Stevie, It’s me Tony. So what do I gotta do to get on this computer thing… this iTunes Chrisey here keeps telling me about?

No, me, I don’t know nothing from nothing about it, but Chrisey tells me it’s, you know, the next big deal, and we want our taste.

Yeah, I’m using one of your — what do you call them — iPhones right now. Never mind how I got it, fell off the back of a truck with 10,000 of its little friends we’ve already shipped to China, capiche? Let’s talk content.

What’s that? Childlike sense of –? Listen hippie, we want flexible pricing and a bigger cut off the back end. We’re not those ***** from NBC you’re used to ******* dealing with, you hear me?

Simplicity? Zen? (Did he just tell say “boom”?!)

Okay. Calm down. Calm down. The suits from Time Warner are handled. Those ******* ********, they’ve blown it in the past, we all know that, but what’s done is done and this deal is good for them, good for us, good for you — good for everybody but those clowns up in Redmond, huh?

Yeah, okay, forgetaboutit. This time tomorrow you’ll be watching those foul-mouthed ***** on Deadwood and that crazy ***** Dexter or whatever right there on your little iPhone, okay? So why don’t you take one of your little barefoot walks down to Whole Foods and get one of those fruity drinks you like so much, and me and Chrisey will figure out the details, okay?

We good? HBO on iTunes now? Good.

Yeah, okay. Namaste to you to. Whatever. (Madone, you believe this guy?!)

Read

Well, NBC is still boycotting iTunes, but in a surprising move, they’re back on the iPhone (and iPod Touch). How? Streaming live through the built-in to MobileSafari QuickTime player — take that, Flash snobs! — and without advertising!

Silicon Valley Insider has the Hulu-trumping details:

NBC is streaming full episodes of “The Office” and “30 Rock” to the iPhone in unprotected Quicktime format. Without advertising. Go figure. To get there, go to nbc.com on an iPhone (or presumably, an iPod touch). Scroll past Howie Mandel and Sam Waterston, and NBC invites you to “WATCH FULL EPISODES!” Be warned: the quality is pretty bad and our borrowed iPhone froze twice.

Now, while I do get a snazzy iPhone-optimized web page, I don’t get the watch full episodes option (probably because I’m not in the US, and were I to see such US content, the world would explode), so if you get it to work, please let me know, and let me know how well!

Windows pundit and out of the closet iPhone lover Paul Thurrott brings his usual brand of over-the-top Apple baiting and legitimate griping to bear on iTune’s recent announcement of “day and date” movie downloads, where iTunes will offer the latest from Hollywood for sale (not rental!) the same day as DVDs are released.

Thurrott rightly points out that $15 for no-extras, unilingual, often non-captioned, DRM-laden movies is just too pricey, and even (though in a later point) that Hollywood is charging apple a whopping $16 per film, meaning Apple is taking a $1 hit on every movie they sell (as a loss leader to drive iPhone and iPod sales).

And greedy, gluttonous movie studios wonder why people are willing to go through the hassle of pirating (JAR!) content?

He also tells us rental movies don’t get the “day and date” treatment, even though Hollywood grants that privilege to CinemaNow and Movielink (whom he makes sure to mention had “day-and-date” purchases before iTunes as well).

Although Apple link-bait to be sure, Thurrott does place some small blame on the movie industry. Please allow me to add massive quantities more. Like the record companies, terrified of Apple becoming the #1 seller of music (whoops! too late!), the movie industry wants to give competitors some competitive advantage, with apparently no consideration for consumers who, 70% of whom, according to US market share, have iPods, including the iPhone, and would benefit from this content being made available under the same terms (if not more fairly priced with fairer terms of use) via iTunes.

But the movie industry is afraid of Apple “ruining” their business the way Apple “ruined” music. It couldn’t possibly be that the advent of the internet allowed creators to connect with consumers without the usury and distribution oligopoly of old media?

What says Thurrot?

I’d point out two things: That the ongoing migration from physical media (VHS, DVD) in the entertainment world mirrors a similar migration in software delivery, from physical media (floppy, CD, DVD) to subscription services and cloud computing. More pertinent to this story however, is the notion that anyone who is buying digital movies from iTunes (or any other service) is simply wasting their money. The future is anywhere, anytime on-demand delivery of content, delivered as subscription service. The very notion that someone needs to “own” a movie is outdated, especially when that movie is an intangible and demonstrably inflexible DRM-encoded digital file.

Fairly priced, DRM-free content, let’s say new movie rentals for $2 and purchases for $4, and there would be no casual piracy (and greatly reduced piracy in general). Volume pricing, given the economy of moving around nearly-free bits via legitimate p2p within a network may not be a working business model for the movie industry, but then again, it could just make them a fortune…

At that point it becomes, like iTunes music, an impulse buy, and I know I would spend more per month on that than I do now on physical media that costs them much more to produce and distribute.

What do you think?

The iPhone comes in 8GB and 16GB. That’s a lot of capacity fill. And where do we get content enough to fill that capacity? No, not the torrentz (JAR!) — iTunes!

5 years ago, Apple realized that if they wanted to sell iPods, they needed to give people stuff to load onto those iPods. Now, what originally began as a Mac-only 200,000 song sparkle in the eye of Steve Jobs, has grown into the cross-platform (except for Linux!), multi-billion track served (some even DRM-free!), #1 music retailer, not to mention the foundation pillar of podcasts, with nearly a gazillion free audio (including our very own Phone Different Podcast!) and video programs there for the downloading.

Happy birthday, iTunes. And here’s to many more.

(And let’s work on getting the recording industry to give us the rest of those tracks DRM-free, and on some international movie and television content, b’okay?)

One of the features I most want for the iPhone is the ability to use it as a Wi-Fi remote for iTunes (and related services like Front Row or the Apple TV). Sitting back, multi-touch flicking through lists of content, finding something interesting, tapping, and — boom — having it “just work” on my TV or Mac would be Jobsian perfection.

Well, if TUAW’s latest rumor pans out, Apple may be about to deliver, well… not exactly that, but something just as cool:

Apple is working on a new iPhone application called iControl. Like Apple TV and other remote controllers, it would allow the iPhone to connect wirelessly to local iTunes libraries and browse through and play media from those sources. TUAW is told that a media navigator will allow you to view videos, play podcasts, listen to music and even support shuffle playback.

As is increasingly the case, the rumor comes via deep delving into the latest firmware and discovering all sorts of interesting localization strings. Whether this means we’ll just be able to play iTunes content on the iPhone as though it were a mobile Apple TV, or if I’ll be getting my dream iTunes/Front Row/Apple TV remote control via the iPhone as well, we’ll have to wait and see.

And I really am finding it harder and harder to wait. How about you?

NBC done gone lost their rainbow peacock’d minds? Maybe, if Gizmodo is properly quoting their Chief Digital Officer, George Kliavkoff:

“We’d love to be on iTunes. It has a great customer experience. We’d love to figure out a way to distribute our content on iTunes.” [They want more money per show to] “reflect the full value of the product.” [And for iTunes to block you from loading pirated content onto your iPod.] “If you look at studies about MP3 players, especially leading MP3 players and what portion of that content is pirated, and think about how that content gets onto that device, it has to go through a gatekeeping piece of software, which would be a convenient place to put some antipiracy [sic] measures. We are financially harmed every day by piracy. It results in us not being able to invest as much money in the next generation of film and TV products.”

Huhbuwhat?!

NBC is currently turning down $1.99 per 22-44 minutes of The Office or Battlestar Galactica. 2 bucks for content previously aired on FREE television, which can be easily, legally (and much to their chagrin and previously failed efforts to block it) taped or PVR’d. They’re turning down that EXTRA money because they want MORE of it, and they want iTunes to prevent you from, say, shifting that FREE content from your PVR or media center to your iPhone without paying MORE of that EXTRA money?!

Dare I suggest the only reason the pirates exist is because of Big Media’s greed and short sightedness. The minute they charge fair prices for fair use, given the low barrier of entry and elegance of use of iTunes’ interface, the piracy disappears for everyone but zealots. (Never mind the marketing value of downloads alone — The Office being a prime example.)

Apple really can’t pull the trigger on their DVR patent fast enough.

What do you think?

Macnn/iPodnn (via The Inquirer) reports that unlike CoreLocation, which gives access to the Google Maps-like location-based services, Apple’s new iPhone SDK will be providing absolutely no access to iPod functionality or the onboard iTunes:

Any functionality related to music playback is inaccessible by the iPhone SDK, a new report claims. While the SDK allows access to many other functions of iPhone and the iPod touch, such as dialing, the camera and Internet access, The Inquirer writes that any components connected to iTunes are off-limits, preventing developers from accessing one of the most popular features of the phone

While this could be an anti-competitive move meant to keep VLC off the iPhone — or to protect consumers from the horror that would be RealPlayer Touch… — it may also cripple any Guitar Hero, Rockband, or iPod-style Phase gaming. (Unless Harmonix and other big game developers like EA are granted that oft-mentioned “special dispensation”…?)

Did it used to about the music, and Apple’s now telling us to just “sl@g off!”? Or are you happy they’re keeping developers’ tone-deaf mitts off your shiny (i)tunes? What do you think?

People don’t want to rent their music. So said Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Of course, the Jobsinator also said people don’t want to watch video on tiny iPod screens, and we see how far that got him…

So, while 100% unsubstantiated rumor at the moment, The Financial Times (via Apple Insider) is reporting a “tip off” that says Apple is now considering an unlimited music program similar to Nokia’s “Comes With Music”.

Under the terms of that plan, manufacturers would pay the recording industry a per-device fee (passed on to the consumer, ‘natch) that would allow for “unlimited” music over the course of a year. When the year’s up, consumers could either renew the subscription themselves or let it lapse and keep “50-60″ songs they’ve already downloaded.

What the cost(s) will be (guesses range from $5 a month to $100 per device), what kind of DRM (digital rights management) will be in place, what quality compression (128-bit like standard iTunes or higher 256-bit like iTunes+ and Amazon MP3) will be used, and basically every and all other details remain to be announced.

It is noted that, because of it’s existing cell phone billing arrangement, a more traditional monthly subscription model may also be made available exclusively for the iPhone.

The parties (Apple and the music industry) are reportedly still far apart when it comes to terms, but revenue streams makes for strange bedfellows (hi, AT&T!) so we’ll have to wait for another Special Music Event (starring Paul McCartney, of course) to know for sure.

Personally, I wouldn’t mind a subscription service. If the music industry had any sense (please, hold your laughter ’til the end…), they would provide radio-like free streams of low bit-rate music with an easy “buy now” button for higher quality. It would allow people to discover music again, just like the iTunes/Starbucks initiative, and give the rapidly dehydrating recording industry their own little sip of water…

What do you think? Buy or die? Rent over spend? How do you want your iPhone music?