Apple’s Livingroom Strategy

Apple has released the first piece of their “10 foot experience” — the Apple Media Center, and Eirik Solheim is pondering what is missing…

What I miss in the Apple Front Row Experience as far as I can judge from the Apple web site at this point are:
- PVR functionallity with an electronic program guide
- A system for including broadband services
(Like Microsoft Online Spotlight or Beyond Media SnapStream Spotlight)
- Extenders (I guess it’s just a question of time before Apple integrates video streaming in their Airport)
- Support for HD content

To me, this whole thing is like watching a massive storm developing… It’s moving slowly, but it’s going to be enormous.
Read more

First Look at (5G) Video iPod

iLounge has up a pretty detailed first look at the new “Fifth Generation” Video iPod.

Here’s my take…

As per usual for newly announced Apple products, my drool factor for this thing is awfully high, but also as per usual, it’s a real mixed bag of an announcement.

On the upside, it’s an iPod, so of course it’s sleek and sexy. It’s thinner, it has a bigger screen, it’s available in black (without U2 even), it (predictably) came in at the previous generation’s price point. And hey, it has video!
Read more

How-To save iTunes music videos

Have you ever wanted to download one of the one of the iTunes Music Store videos and save it on your local machine? Now you can!

UNEASYsilence has a little script that will turn the iTMS link into a downloadable Quicktime video file that you can save locally.

You can find the script and instructions here.

First Impressions of iTunes 5

Now that I finally got the silly thing installed, I’ve had a little time to play with it…

Some first impressions –

Damn this thing is ugly. Burnt Aqua Unified? Were these corners done with pinking shears? It just all looks… Ummm… Out of place. Oh well. Looks ain’t everything (if they were, I’d probably never have another date.)
Read more

Please quit iTunes before beginning this update

Generally Apple has their act together when it comes to usability (at least on their Mac software.) On the other hand, when they decide to hork it up, they do it well…

It being the weekend, I figured it was time to try the new iTunes 5 — where I trust Apple the least is in brand new products and updates, so doing a software update requires some planning; fix permissions and get a good backup beforehand.

So, having done my due dilligence, I ran Software Update. Check off the products, agree to a bunch of license agreements, download, download, download. Uh-oh, an alert…

“Please quit iTunes before beginning this update”
Read more

Digital Rights Management Explained

I had a long conversation with a friend last week, explaining how “buying” music from iTunes Music Store basically wasn’t “buying” it at all…

The fact is that most people just don’t realize how little they actually get for their money when they purchase DRM’d music (or other materials.)

Fortunately, the EFF has just come out with a dandy little guide explaining in simple terms what you’re not getting for your money:

EFF: The Customer Is Always Wrong: A User’s Guide to DRM in Online Music

In other words, in this brave new world of “authorized music services,” law-abiding music fans often get less for their money than they did in the old world of CDs (or at least, the world before record companies started crippling CDs with DRM, too). Unfortunately, in an effort to attract customers, these music services try to obscure the restrictions they impose on you with clever marketing.

This guide “translates” the marketing messages by the major services, giving you the real deal rather than spin. Understanding how DRM and the DMCA pose a danger to your rights will help you to make fully informed purchasing decisions. Before buying DRM-crippled music from any service, you should consider the following examples and be sure to understand how the service might limit your ability to make lawful use of the music you purchase.

(via BoingBoing)

iTunes 4.9 with podcasts (sorta)

Apple has released iTunes 4.9.

Unless you’ve been in a hype-proof cave somewhere for the past two weeks, you probably won’t be suprised to learn that it does indeed come with podcast support.

Well, half-assed podcast support, anyway.

Apple offers a list of 3000 or so “blessed” podcasts via the iTunes Music Store, or you can add a podcast manually, if you can figure out the interface.

There is no support for doing some of the handy things a decent podcast client (like iPodderX) can do, like choose a playlist to automatically add a program to, convert it to AAC, or make it bookmarkable (the latter being exceedingly useful for spoken word podcasts.)

Even the stuff that is supported appears to be a bit wonky; it took me 3 times of shutting down and restarting iTunes 4.9 before clicking on the “Podcast Directory” button under Podcasts actually took me to the Podcast Directory, instead of the front page of iTMS.

Once I picked a Podcast and set it to download, it failed due to network issues — perhaps they weren’t ready for initial demand?

I assume they’ll get it all sorted out by and by, but in the meantime, I won’t be deleting my copy of iPodderX anytime soon.

Color iPods Only

According to iPodlounge, Apple has dropped all black and white full-sized iPods, and is now offering only color on iPods other than the mini and shuffle. A moderate price reduction has also been implemented.

The simplified lineup features a new 20GB color screen model for $299 (the same price as the older monochrome version), a 60GB model for $399 ($50 cheaper), and an updated iPod U2 Special Edition with a color screen for $329 ($20 cheaper). The company has apparently dropped the 30GB iPod photo model, which sold for $349.

Apple also said that starting today iPods will offer “an easy to use Podcast menu, including bookmarking within a Podcast and the ability to display Podcast artwork in color” to coincide with the release of iTunes 4.9.

I’ve been seriously jonesing for a 60 gig iPod for awhile now — I’m glad I held off…

iTunes Enhancements

iPodlounge has been working overtime at their whiteboards, and they’ve came up with a list of ten excellent suggestions for improvements in the next version of iTunes.

But all is not perfect in the world of iTunes; while most users are delighted with iTunes’ feature set, some believe that iTunes is lacking certain newly essential functions. Steve Jobs has already demonstrated podcasting support, which will be included in the next version of iTunes, but what else does the program need? In cooperation with our readers, we’ve looked closely at what’s missing in iTunes 4, so here are ten ideas for new features in iTunes 5.

A couple of these are “who-cares” items for me, but some of them (such as the “Works” arrangements) I’d gladly pony up some upgrade cash for.

DIY iTunes Movies & Video

If you’re tweaked about having videos in iTunes, but getting them from iTunes Music Store just isn’t enough for you, you might want to check out this tip for creating iTunes-viewable movies from certain sources.

Mac only, tho.

« Previous Page — Next Page »