Every year Apple has a special music event, and every year Beatles rumors follow along with it. This time, the event date of 9/9/9, the release of Beatles Remastered on CD and Beatles Rock Band has the rumors running faster than ever. Will iTunes join the fray, or will Big Music try to make their money on physical media and games before allowing digital downloads?
Current is adding fuel to the fire, however, with a purported screenshot of the Beatles being featured on iTunes — a slip of the old server, so to speak.
But is it real, or just really fake? iTunes ads are easier to whip up on photoshop than lolcats, after all.
With Apple’s September 9, “It’s only rock and roll, but we like it” event fast approaching, and its promises of new iTunes 9 social media and app management features, here’s something else, just like @sethclifford, we’d love to see added to the list: “WhisperSync”. More specifically, for MobileMe to do a little over-the-air syncing of our location in a podcast, audiobook, or lengthy video so we can switch between the iPhone, iPod touch, or iTunes and always be at the same location in our media, regardless of where we continue listening or watching.
We can do this now, of course, but it requires a tethered USB sync between our iPhone and/or iPod touch and our computer. Amazon’s Kindle, however, does this transparently and automagically over the air using WhisperSync, and yes, we want Apple to iClone it. (Well, we don’t care about the likely-trademarked name, we just want the tech!)
So, next time we finish our run and hit pause on our iPhone’s player, we can wash off, grab a tasty beverage, flop down into the couch, and keep listening right from our Apple TV.
According to NPD, Apple’s iTunes now sells 25% of all music in the US. That’s up from 21% last year, and 14% the year before. Zoom. Zoom. Walmart, by contrast, is at 14% combining their real-world stores and online distribution.
In the strictly digital domain — which continues to gain share — iTunes accounts for 69% of downloadable music, with Amazon trailing at 8%.
Those numbers, in case they don’t smack anyone immediately in the face, are HUGE. Despite the jump to $1.29 for – quote unquote – premium music, the shift to DRM-free, combined with on-device downloads for the iPhone and iPod touch, might just be enough to keep the juggernaut rolling. Next up, we’ll see how Digital-45s and “cocktail” do for them…
MediaMemo reports that multiple music industry sources have been informed that Apple’s annual Special Music Event, typically involving iPod and iTunes, will take place the second week of September — and since Apple usually holds these events on Tuesdays, that would make September 8 the day to watch.
Widely expected to be seen at the event is Apple’s third generation iPod touch, rumored to be getting a camera like it’s big iPhone brother, and perhaps the same “S stands for Speed” performance chipset. Chatter has also spread about the iPod nano getting a camera, as well as iTunes 9 speculation involving app organizing, Blu-Ray support, and social network integration. And let’s not forgot iPhone 3.1 we saw iPhone 2.1 last year, after all).
The two biggest mysteries will, of course, be whether or not Apple chooses to debut their near-deafeningly rumored iTablet at the event, or hold off for another event (annual MacBook event perhaps?) or next year, and whether or not a newly returned Steve Jobs takes once again to the keynote stage.
TiPb will, as always, provide ongoing coverage leading up to, during, and post event. (We can’t wait either!)
It was just last month we reported about Cocktail, which would feature new interactive booklets, sleeve notes and other features alongside music downloads in an attempt to lure consumers into making more full album purchases. Now, while it looks like “Cocktail” does exist, it seems that none of the record labels had any hand in creating it. According to this story, record labels first approached Apple 18 months ago to see if they wanted in on this new CMX format and Apple politely refused. Apple then created “Cocktail” in order to compete with Sony, Warner, Universal and EMI.
One senior record label insider said: “Apple at first told us that they were not interested, but now they have decided to do their own, in case ours catches on.
While most of us here at TiPb have no major quarrels purchasing our music digitally, there are a lot of people out there who feel when purchasing digital albums over the internet you are not getting the full album experience. Would this new format make purchasing digital albums any less painful for you? And would you rather go with Apple’s “Cocktail” or the music industry’s CMX?
BGR reports a source saying Apple is readying iTunes 9, which will include support for visually organizing apps on the iPhone, and for playing back Blu-Ray media.
iPhone 1.1.3 introduced the ability to add icons (limited to WebClips at the time, expanded to native apps with iPhone 2.0), and to move them around by tapping and holding until they began to jiggle. While this works well enough for a few icons once and a while, it makes totally re-arranging the 11 home screens made available in iPhone 3.0 a tad laborious. Suggestions for, even concept videos of, adding a more robust solution via iTunes have been floating around the web for a while now and would be a welcome addition indeed.
Steve Jobs had famously called Blu-Ray a “bag of hurt” due to licensing, but changes in those licenses and perhaps Apple’s priorities — which previously seemed to want to promote their own download service over physical media — could make it happen. Unless there’s more expansive and integrated support for the “digital copy” feature as well — where an iPhone/iPod version of the movie is included on the disk — it’s not really an iPhone friendly addition.
Also rumored were some kind of Twitter/Facebook/Last.fm social features.
It’s that time again — time for us to pick out some of the hot topics on TiPb’s forums. In order for you to reply to any of the following threads please be sure to register. It’s a painless process that will only take a moment of your time. We promise!
This next thread was started by Behshad, and he wants to know when AT&T finally gets around to activating MMS – will you even use it? Personally I’ve gotten used to using email to send pictures, especially coming over from Windows Mobile and Sprint 2 years ago. But if it’s there, I’ll use it. How about you?
Lastly, we’d like to point out a newer forum you can find on our forums – iPhone App Announcements. This is a great place for you to check out to see what new applications developers have to offer and you may even find some free promo codes in there as well! And if you are a developer, feel free to post about your new application and chat with some of our forum members to get some feedback!
Apple has just released yet another new pricing model onto the iTunes Music Store: D45s [iTunes link]– two songs for one lower price ($1.49 to $1.99).
Confession: I’m old enough to remember the original 45s, those lovable little vinyl (Google it!) records with a hit song on one side, and something ranging from awesome to ridiculous on the other.
Those days are gone, as are the days of $0.99 fixed pricing (though admittedly albums were alway a volume discounted exception), but Apple’s hoping the Digital 45s prove to be as popular as the record companies no doubt hope they’ll help move more music through the age old bundling scheme.
Apple Insider reports that D45s will be exclusive to iTunes only through July 27, at which point other digital music retailers will be able to offer them as well (which, until Amazon MP3 bothers to roll out internationally, means they’ll likely stay exclusive to iTunes in most countries outside the US and UK…)
So, if you’ve been dying to get your jukebox fix, 2009 style, head on over and drop the needle hit the buy now button…
Went into the App Store and what did I see, why an updated Remote app for iTunes and Apple TV! One of the first apps in the App Store at launch, the latest update for Remote [free - iTunes link] turbo charges the cool factor with support for gesture-based Apple TV control. Very slick:
Hold down “Menu” to bring up main menu. Swipe to move around.
Tap to play or pause music or video.
Drag left or right and hold to rewind or fast-forward music.
Flick left or right for previous or next music track.
Flick left or right or drag and hold to rewind or fast-forward video.
Flick down to show chapter markers, then flick left or right to skip through video.
Drag two fingers left for 10 second reply.
Tap “Exit” or “Options” for those actions.
If you hit exit, you get similar functions, art display, etc. to the previous version of the Remote app. Hitting Options brings up a new overlay menu on the Apple TV. Speaking of which…
The new Apple Remote app’s gesture features require iPhone 3.0 and the latest Apple TV software update, also released today (which seems to have gotten a UI over haul as well). Get that, or you won’t get the nifty new interface.
