All Articles Tagged iTunes

I bought a bunch of music on April 6th at $0.99 in advance of the April 7th variable price shift. (Unlike Amazon and Walmart, Apple pre-announced the new pricing back in January). Now much of the music I bought, including many old, no longer popular tracks, is listed at $1.29. Looking at those prices today, I admit they make me think twice about buying again. According to Billboard (based on Gizmodo), I’m not the only one feeling that way:

One day after the price jump, there were 40 $1.29 songs in the Top 100, and 60 at 99 cents. The $1.29 songs fell an average of 5.3 places, while 99 cent songs moved up 2.5 places on average. The total average chart drop of pricier songs since the prices went up is about three places.

Unfortunately, Big Music is still making more money total on less sales of higher priced tracks, so they may not care. Historically, they’ve shown zero foresight when it comes to pricing themselves to compete with “free” pirated music, which was the whole crux of Steve Jobs’ iTunes pitch to begin with. See Rolling Stone from 2003:

We don’t see how you convince people to stop being thieves, unless you can offer them a carrot — not just a stick. And the carrot is: We’re gonna offer you a better experience … and it’s only gonna cost you a dollar a song.

Also still unexplained is where all that $0.69 music is that we were told would more than make up for the price hike on the higher end.

What do you think? Will you buy less music at $1.29 than you would have at the old $0.99 price point? Or is $1.29 a fair, modern market price for your favorite tracks?

While in the old days, this would no doubt have come from Creep McShady in a trench coat around the corner of some noir-esque alley, now its online fraudsters who’ve gamed Apple’s iTunes gift certificate generation algorithms, unable to sell directly due to fear of Apple tracing the accounts, who’ve found a new target for their schemes. Says Apple Insider:

Third party iPhone App Store developers have received propositions from a scammer offering to buy large volumes of their iPhone applications and then split the resulting revenue with them, apparently using fraudulent iTunes gift certificates to make the purchases.

Of course, the developers faces every bit as much chance for retaliation from Apple, perhaps more so because this could end their careers as iPhone developers.

Yeah. Not a good idea.

iPhone OS 3.0 is the gift that just keeps on giving, this time revealing features in iTunes 8.1 we hadn’t seen before. Now, when you hook an iPhone running the 3.0 beta 1 software up, under the Summary tab you have a new option: Encrypt iPhone backup.

Checking off the option opens a pop-up window for you to enter your password.

We’re not sure yet what form of encryption Apple is using, though the Steve Gibson is us hopes it’s something with a really, really strong security focus. Especially for those in enterprise or government who might have a need for it.

(And when the time comes, using a really gnarly password like the kind GRC.com’s perfect passwords generates would be a great idea for the truly security conscious.)

The word has gone out: Apple is now allowing you to do more than just rent movies in HD, they’re letting you buy them. You’re looking at spending a bit extra for the HD version – $19.99 to be precise. They’re pushing preorders for a few movies (Quantum of Solace and Twilight) but there are also a few you can buy right now (Saw V, for example. Sadists rejoice!).

The movies also come with an SD version bundled in for your iPhone and iPod. Which is great and all, but how’s-about Apple provide us with an iPhone that doesn’t need such primitive down-scaled resolutions. iPhone HD looking more likely to anyone? If it comes, we’re still doubting it would be the 720p that these videos come in (our money’s on iPhone HD with 480p), but it would be a sight better. We’re still hoping against hope here, but maybe 2009 could be the true “Year of HD,” …4 years late, but still very welcome.

Ready. Set. Software Update!

Yes, as expected this morning, Apple has released iTunes 8.1 (and Front Row 2.1.7) with support for the new iPod shuffle 4G with VoiceOver, also tied into the updated Apple Remote app [iTunes link] released earlier today for the iPhone and iPod touch.

Anyone got it yet? Is it really faster, stronger, and better for you? Let us know!

[Thanks to Blake for the tip!]

Apple’s new iPod shuffle 4GB with VoiceOver comes with a little something else: the requirement for iTunes 8.1, which is yet to be released. However, in somewhat uncharacteristic style for Apple, their iTunes product page already has a teaser up for just what we can expect in the (presumably immanent?) new version:

• Speed improvements: iTunes gets a speed boost. Now when it comes to loading large libraries, browsing the iTunes Store, and syncing your devices, iTunes responds faster than before.
• Genius sidebar for movies and TV shows: In addition to music, the Genius sidebar now introduces you to movies and TV shows you might also enjoy.
• Import as iTunes Plus: Automatically import music from your CDs as higher quality, 256-Kbps iTunes Plus files. Watch a tutorial to find out how to

Looks like only tangential love at best for the iPhone — not even any Genius for Apps feature! Anyone find anything particularly compelling?

Ok, well Apple is really not selling $200 iTunes gift cards for only $2.60 so keep dreaming. But according to Music Ally Chinese “pirates” have hacked the algorithm that generates the iTunes gift cards and so now fake cards are flooding the market for as low as $2.60 in China. When we say flooding we literally mean flooding the Chinese market:

Apparently six months ago, a $200 card went for around 320 RMB (roughly $47), but the price has since plummeted to around 18 RMB ($2.60) as more sellers pile in.

With the iPhone 3G getting ready to make an appearance in China it should be interesting to see just how Apple responds to this. Apple will more than likely make a quick change to nullify the pirates ability to create these cards but it’s not like you can do away with the ones already in circulation as there is no easy way to decipher a bogus card from one that is legit (unless they have some super secret Apple wonder-ETL and ad-hoc query/number-crunching monster we don’t know about).

[Via Music Ally]

You can’t use an iTunes gift certificate to buy applications on the Canadian App Store. I’ve experienced this myself, but never really looked into it before now. But it’s true. There’s even a thread about it on Apple’s Discussion Board.

Highlights include the difference in iTunes App Store Terms of Service between the US:

“10. PAYMENT METHODS. The Service accepts credit cards, payment through your PayPal account, and iTunes Cards, iTunes Store Gift Certificates, and Allowance Account balances as forms of payment.”

And Canada:

“10. PAYMENT METHODS. The Service accepts credit cards as the form of payment.”

Further down, we get what’s purported to be a response from Apple on the issue, which includes:

Due to tax laws and commerce restrictions for software in Canada, customers residing in Canada may only purchase games and applications using a credit card.

So, not only do we get hosed on data rates, don’t have access to US TV networks on iTunes (nor Hulu, etc.), not only do we have to pay more to “upgrade” music to iTunes Plus, but if by some miracle some kindly soul gives us an iTunes Gift Certificate, we can’t even use it on apps? Second class North Americans much?

(Yeah, okay, fine: #firstworldproblem)

Anyone have any deeper insight into these tax and commerce laws/restrictions of which they spake?

(Thanks to @deabush for pointing the ToS out to us as well!)

Interesting concept video for using iTunes, rather than the iPhone itself, to manage home screen icons and layout. Single icon, multi-icon selection, icon and space lock and unlock, whole screen moving, sort by name, sort by last usage, etc. are all visualized and it makes a rather compelling case.

Would you rather (or additionally) handle icon/app management via iTunes? As we move to more wireless/over-the-air syncing and operations, do we want to have more reasons to stick with the tether, or could a MobileMe-like service include it?

Also, while it looks solid on 2 screen, what if you’re rocking 9 screens, will it scale?

(Via MobileCrunch. Thanks to Phil from WMExperts for passing it along!)

For the last few months I’ve been conducting an experiment, trying to figure out whether it better suited my needs to sync my iPhone 3G to my desktop computer, to my laptop, or to embrace the (potential) future and try to sync only over-the-air with the cloud (online services and storage).

First, a little about the contenders.

• My MacBook is purposefully kept light. Aside from whatever temporary I’m working on at the time, it has almost nothing on it, including no media unless I’m actively watching it. It’s speed on-the-go with limited capacity.
• My iMac is heavy duty and also serves as my media machine. It’s connected on one end to a Drobo and serves an Apple TV in the living room on the other. It’s pure power and content, but absolutely no portability.
• My cloud is, well, the cloud — everything I keep on my MobileMe, iDisk and Apple keeps ready for me on their massive iTunes servers.

A month with each of them (Round Robin interuptus notwithstanding) and what were my results? Which have I stuck with (for now)? Read on to find out!

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