There's finally some good news in the music business, but don't get too excited, it's not that good. Warner Music reports (before we hear about the full industry sales from 2011) that its sales were steady last year, at $780 million. In this case, steady is better than a drop, which is what most of the music industry has seen lately.

Warner says that digital revenue makes up 28% of the company's sales, a number that's jumped up 17% in the last year. iTunes and other downloadable services accounted for $205 million in Warner's revenue in the last quarter.

Streaming services are becoming more lucrative as well. While Spotify and other streaming services have only brought in $15 million so far, that share of the market is growing by 36%, much higher than downloadable music's 15% growth. In other words, streaming revenue isn't a huge deal yet -- but it might be very soon if trends continue.

Plus, analysts are saying that streaming revenue (which comes from customers who pay a monthly fee for an all-you-can-listen-to music service) often comes from those Napster users who didn't pay at all before, which means that it's brand new revenue for the music companies. Not as much revenue, obviously, as if those customers actually bought every CD they listened to, but a music industry that's been flagging for the better part of a decade will probably take what it can get.

Warner Music reporting more stable sales, propped up by iTunes and streaming services originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Warner Music reporting more stable sales, propped up by iTunes and streaming services originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Good news for Beatles and music fans. Later this week, Apple is hosting a free live stream of a Paul McCartney concert. McCartney will be performing from Capitol Studios in an event that celebrates the release of McCartney's latest album, Kisses on the Bottom. You'll need to fire up iTunes or your Apple TV on Thursday, February 9 at 7 p.m. PST, if you want to catch the concert while it happens.

The concert is exciting, but the bigger news is the inclusion of the Apple TV as a target device for this stream. It's nice to see Apple finally using the media device to deliver exclusive, live show. Let's hope this is not a one-time thing and Apple continues to bring new content to its self-proclaimed hobby.

[Via MacRumors]

Apple to stream live Paul McCartney Concert to iTunes, Apple TV originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple to stream live Paul McCartney Concert to iTunes, Apple TV originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I don't know about you, but I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when Apple was negotiating its iTunes deals with the major record labels. We can't go back in time, but we can get an occasional glimpse of what it was like from those who were there. Such a person is exiting Warner Music Group chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr., who recently sat down with AllThingD's John Paczkowski and talked about digital music and Apple.

Bronfman was optimistic about mobile devices like the iPhone and said mobile was "a massive opportunity for music." He acknowledged that the iPod kicked off portable music and the phone is the future. Though he supports mobile music, Bronfman regrets the deal Warner ultimately cut with Apple over iTunes pricing.

Apple from day one believed in music and content. That was the good news. The bad news is that they decided all songs where created equal, and I fought Steve on that. Ultimately, Apple got the better part of that deal. Ultimately, I wish we'd gotten more pricing flexibility.

I'm sure the recording companies would love to set higher prices, but, as a consumer, I'm pretty happy with Apple's pricing. Most albums are around US$10 and most tracks are $1.29 or less. This price point is low enough that most people can afford to buy the occasional album without putting a dent in their budget.

Former Warner Music Group Chairman discusses Apple upon exit originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Former Warner Music Group Chairman discusses Apple upon exit originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Since 2006, iTunes U has been a way to electronically distribute class lectures. Both Berkeley and Stanford have released courses on iTunes U, as have many other schools. Now, the iTunes U app offers lectures from a wide variety of high-powered schools, plus more.

Apple demonstrated a course overview, required credits, a syllabus, and office hours this morning. We also saw a place for posts from teachers so there's an easy way to update the class, and a spot where students can take notes. Tapping on an assignment automagically takes a student straight to the specific materials in iBooks, and there's even a task list for students to cross off items as they are completed.

iTunes U is a free application for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, available now.

iTunes U graduates into separate iOS app originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

iTunes U graduates into separate iOS app originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As noted by MacStories, the new version adds support for synchronizing the iBooks 2-savvy textbook format announced during today's education event.

It's been an exciting day for Apple fans, especially those in education, as the company has released a new version of iBooks, a full-on textbook initiative and all-new apps iBooks Author and iTunes U.

iTunes 10.5.3 now available, adds iBooks 2 textbook sync originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

iTunes 10.5.3 now available, adds iBooks 2 textbook sync originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Italian Apple blog Ispazio pointed out [Google translation] an interesting new iTunes App Store feature late last week: pop-up windows that appear with a click, making most descriptive information available without having to reload a full page. This feature is available in the Mac and Windows versions of the App Store.

By hovering over an icon in the App Store, a small "info" icon appears, denoting that more information is available for viewing prior to purchasing an app. Clicking the "i" immediately displays a pop-up window with several tabs displaying a description of the app, the "What's New" information describing updates, and screenshots for iPhone and iPad if applicable.

The person perusing the information needs go no further than the pop-up to purchase the app, although they can click a "Go to this app" link if they wish to see a larger view of the particular features of an app.

The pop-ups are an easily-overlooked, but very useful new addition to the App Store. They also work with movies and TV shows, where a "play" icon replaces the "info" icon and the description includes a video preview. The movie and TV show play icons have been available for a while, but the app pop-ups are definitely new.

[via MacRumors]

App Store adds pop-up information windows originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

App Store adds pop-up information windows originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Steve Jobs Moment of Silence audio track lets you remember Steve Jobs's legacy and make a donation to pancreatic cancer research. The audio file is a silent recording that's eight seconds long. Each second is a reminder of the eight years that Jobs spent battling the cancer that eventually took his life.

The track costs 99-cents and the proceeds will be donated to the the Pancreatic Cancer Action network, the Lustgarten Foundation and the Hirshberg Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research. You can purchase the audio track using this iTunes link.

[Via Creative Bits]

"Moment of silence" track to benefit pancreatic cancer organizations originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

"Moment of silence" track to benefit pancreatic cancer organizations originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Boxing Day is celebrated in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and Apple has taken advantage of this holiday by launching Boxing Week.

iPodNN says that Canada is the only country participating to date, with albums discounted to $6 to $8. In the U.S., there also is a sale going on with this year's chart toppers with albums dropped to $7.99, and most regions have a Beatles sale going on with the band's studio albums dropped to $9.99. They're a great way to maximize any iTunes gift card received during the holiday season.

Apple offers Boxing Week, other sales originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 23 Dec 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple offers Boxing Week, other sales originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 23 Dec 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When I was grabbing the free episodes of Pan-Am early this morning, I noticed with much delight that Apple has extended its album-completion program to include television shows.

Complete My Season allows you to pick up the remaining episodes of a TV season at a reduced price if you've already purchased one or two episodes.

It's a feature that's been around for music since March 2007. While you're more likely to cherry-pick tracks from a music album, Complete My Season is useful for trying out a new TV series and deciding if you want to continue or not. Or, in my case, discovering that BBC America decides it loves to speed up episodes of your favorite show in order to cram in more commercials.

Apple introduces Complete My Season originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple introduces Complete My Season originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iTunes Match went partially live internationally in several markets on December 15, with iTunes accounts in New Zealand, Australia, the UK, Canada, and other countries offering iTunes Match signups in users' account preferences. However, that launch appeared to be premature, since iTunes Match wasn't advertised on the main page of those countries' iTunes Stores and signing up for iTunes Match didn't actually do anything.

Apple began offering refunds to customers who signed up for the service after its premature launch, but only hours later the service has indeed gone live, with links appearing on the main page of the iTunes Stores in countries where the service has launched. The above screenshot is from the New Zealand iTunes Store, and clicking on the iTunes Match link immediately offers the expected signup option.

International users are reporting that iTunes Match is now operating as expected, so after 18 hours or so of confusion the international launch does indeed appear to be underway. Apple has not yet updated its international sites to include information on iTunes Match as of this writing, but unlike yesterday international users are successfully using the service after signing up for it.

iTunes Match (actually) going live internationally originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 15 Dec 2011 17:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

iTunes Match (actually) going live internationally originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 15 Dec 2011 17:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Although options to sign up for iTunes Match started appearing in several international markets yesterday, many suspected that the launch was premature since iTunes Match wasn't showing up on the main page of respective countries' iTunes Stores. It turns out the "launch" was indeed premature, as iTunes Match remains unavailable outside of the United States and Brazil.

Users who signed up for iTunes Match in other countries such as Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Canada, and other markets where the service was prematurely unveiled will be offered refunds for the signup fee, according to iPodNN. International users who signed up for the service were justly concerned that since iTunes Match is a yearly subscription, an unknown portion of their first year's subscription would be essentially invalid; the refunds Apple is offering address this concern.

It's unclear why iTunes Match was kind of but not really launched internationally, but it does at least confirm that Apple is working on expanding the service to markets beyond those where it's currently available. Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing how long it will be before iTunes Match officially launches internationally, but here's hoping it's sooner rather than later.

Apple refunds iTunes Match purchases for international users after premature 'launch' originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple refunds iTunes Match purchases for international users after premature 'launch' originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Update: GigaOM reported that the rollout was premature. Those outside of the US and Brazil who successfully signed up for the program will have their money refunded, and Apple has told these customers that Match will not function outside of those countries.

iTunes Match has started rolling out in markets outside the US. International users have said that signups are now available in the UK, parts of Europe, and Australia. Here in New Zealand, I can confirm directly that iTunes Match is available as a signup option in my NZ-based account, for a fee of NZ$39.99 per year (compared to the US$24.99 per year it costs in the US store).

Signup links aren't showing up in the main pages of the iTunes Store for international users; instead, you have to navigate to your "Account" page to see an option for the signup. Some sites, such as Mac Rumors, have suggested this means iTunes Match has been accidentally revealed early to international users and therefore may not function as expected.

UK users will pay £21.99 for the service, while Europeans will pay €24.99. Australian users pay similarly higher fees at AU$34.99 per year.

iTunes Match allows users to mirror their entire iTunes libraries in the cloud, enabling near-instantaneous playback/download of any song in the user's library on any connected device.

iTunes Match international rollout begins (updated) originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 14 Dec 2011 20:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

iTunes Match international rollout begins (updated) originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 14 Dec 2011 20:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The iOS App Store and the Mac App Store have been getting a lot of press lately. Now it's time to for the iTunes music store to share the spotlight. Starting this week, iTunes music and movies are available in Brazil and 15 other Latin American countries including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela.

The store will launch with 20 million songs and over a thousand movies for purchase or rent. Brazil has the added honor of being the first country in Latin American to have iTunes Match. For US$25 per year, Apple's iCloud-linked service scans your iTunes library, matches songs and makes them available in the cloud. You can then download the songs to your iOS device on demand.

[Via MacRumors]

iTunes Music, Movies stores arrive in Latin America originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 13 Dec 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

iTunes Music, Movies stores arrive in Latin America originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 13 Dec 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nevertheless, if you're going to download it now, 10.5.2 should be offering the following changes and improvements:

Several improvements for iTunes Match

Fixes a distortion problem playing/importing some CDs

Enjoy!

Thanks Brian!

iTunes 10.5.2 available for direct download originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

iTunes 10.5.2 available for direct download originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple recently aired a new iTunes ad called "Covers." It's an animated compilation of The Beatles album covers set to the song "Magical Mystery Tour." The ad presumably is celebrating The Beatles one-year anniversary on iTunes.

Last week Apple also released the free Yellow Submarine animated ebook on the iBookstore. Yellow Submarine was also released to celebrate The Beatles one year anniversary on iTunes (which was actually back on November 16th).

Apple airs new Beatles-themed ad: Covers originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple airs new Beatles-themed ad: Covers originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray believes that for all of Apple's success with iTunes Match so far, the company is probably still only breaking even on the service. Sure, $24.99 a year from all of the service's users is a lot of money flowing in, but there's a lot going the other way as well, from server costs to music royalties and all of the other charges with running such a complicated service.

Munster believes there are 135 million active iTunes users in America, so if only a small fraction of those subscribe to the service, there's a nice chunk of change coming in to Apple. But at the same time, Apple isn't expecting huge earnings from Match; it's essentially a promotion to help get people into the iTunes system and a solid mechanism for keeping them there. Apple would much rather sell you devices to listen to your iTunes library, therefore it's not quite so concerned about how you get that music in the first place. As a result, Munster's guess that Match isn't a huge moneymaker for Apple is probably correct.

Piper Jaffray: iTunes Match likely breaking even for Apple originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 09 Dec 2011 05:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Piper Jaffray: iTunes Match likely breaking even for Apple originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 09 Dec 2011 05:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Next Web, who provided the translation, said the December 8 launch will include all of Central and South America. Mexico already has an iTunes Music Store.

However, to start with, customers are restricted to using international credit cards and will pay in dollars. Veja stated local currency should be available within the next six months. This isn't that unusual, as until recently China had similar restrictions with the App Store.

Apple reportedly to launch iTunes Music Store in Latin America in December originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 30 Nov 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple reportedly to launch iTunes Music Store in Latin America in December originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 30 Nov 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Welcome, iTunes Match users. After you've coughed over your 25 bucks and waited all night for your music library to reconcile with the great iCloud in the sky, you may have noticed those mysterious cloud status icons scattered through your tracks. Apple's tech note summarizes the icons; Macworld's thorough rundown gives more status detail and recommends that you add the iCloud Status column to your iTunes list view for diagnostic purposes.

In my library, I saw a fairly substantial number of 'ineligible' icons, mostly on tracks that I had imported from my CD collection years and years ago. Some of my most vintage files show a 'Date Modified' in 1999, and were encoded into MPEG-1 Layer 2 (yes, an MP2 file) with MPecker or SoundJam MP (get off my lawn). Most of these, however, were recognized just fine by iTunes Match; more recent files seemed to have trouble.

Checking the standards of the iTunes Match process, Apple's tech note shows that only certain music files are fit for matching. If your music was encoded below a bitrate of 96 kbps, iTunes Match will simply skip over it. When I took a closer look at my problem tracks, the issue was clear: in an attempt to save some disk space way back when, I had opted to go with variable-bitrate (VBR) MP3 files when ripping these CDs. This took somewhat longer, but kept quality reasonably high while creating smaller files.

Present-day me is now somewhat irked with past-me; how to get these vintage tracks synchronized with iTunes Match? I figured out a way, which was independently pointed out by Lex Friedman last week.

As Richard enthusiastically realized in June, one of the most helpful features of iTunes Match is how it 'normalizes' any tracks that exist in the iTunes store catalog up to 256 kbps AAC files, the same quality as iTunes Plus music that you buy from the store. While he was interested in lowering the storage requirements of his audiophile-friendly (and massive) ALAC files, this fix works in the other direction: getting low-bitrate or variable-bitrate files up to the standards of current-day digital music.

Step 1: Sort your library by the iCloud Status or cloud icon column. Just click on the column name to sort the track list, and then scroll to the end where all the ineligible songs are. You can take this an album at a time, to keep it simple. In the image above, you see an album's worth of ineligible songs. You can click a track and choose Get Info (⌘-I) from the File menu to verify that the problem is inadequate bitrate.

Step 2: Double-check your iTunes import/conversion settings. You'll find these under the iTunes preferences, in General, when you click the button marked "Import Settings." For our purposes, AAC 128 kpbs "High Quality" is fine, and chances are that's the default setting you already had. Click OK and close the Preferences dialog.

Step 3: Select all the tracks in the album you want to iCloud-ify. Right-click or control-click any of the selected tracks and choose "Create AAC Version" (also available under the Advanced menu in iTunes). Watch the tracks convert before your eyes.

Step 4: Once the conversion is done, you'll have two copies of those songs in your library: the older VBR tracks, and the just-converted AAC 128 tracks. iTunes Match automatically kicks in and begins scanning the 'new' tracks, and (since they now meet the minimum criteria for matching) they're matched!

If they exist in the iTunes store, the iCloud versions of them will be the store's iTunes Plus 256 kpbs version; if not, they'll be the 128 kbps AAC versions you just created. You can tell the difference by looking in the iCloud Status column, which will helpfully say 'Matched' or 'Uploaded.'

At this point, for your tracks with 'Uploaded' status, what you've got is what you've got: VBR originals and AAC re-conversions, which may be a bit lower quality than the source files. If you have the disk space to keep both, you can, or give the AACs a listen and see if they sound OK to you. The other alternative is going back to the CDs to capture those files at a higher bitrate.

For the tracks with 'Matched' status, however, you can revitalize them to current standards by actually -- gulp! -- deleting your local copies and downloading the matched versions to replace them. Macworld has a walkthrough of using Smart Playlists to do this for the entire library, or you can go an album at a time if it makes you nervous to delete huge tracts of tracks (or if your Internet connectivity is metered and you can't safely download gigabytes of music at one go). Simply delete both your originals and your local matches -- careful NOT to check the box to delete from iCloud -- and note that the matched tracks stay listed, with a little download icon next to them. Click it to grab the full-glory version of the song back from iCloud, or optionally just leave it in the cloud until you need it again to save yourself some disk space.

Got any killer tips for working with iTunes Match that you want to share with the world? Whisper them into our comments or hit our tip line.

One trick for getting iTunes Match to recognize older tracks originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 20 Nov 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

One trick for getting iTunes Match to recognize older tracks originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 20 Nov 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple's iTunes Store in China received a major upgrade this week. The store now accepts payment in the local currency, the renminbi (RMB), and lets users replenish their iTunes account using bank cards from over a dozen Chinese banks.

Previously, the Chinese iTunes store only accepted US dollars which made it difficult for Chinese customers to make purchases. Most iOS owners set up their iTunes account and only downloaded free apps. Now Chinese customers can add money in 50, 100, 300 and 500 yuan increments.

Not only will this bring in additional revenue for Apple, it may also curb iOS app piracy which is booming thanks to apps that help iOS owners circumvent Apple's App Store restrictions. This change may also cut back on "black card" usage by Chinese iOS owners. These cards use compromised credit card accounts to add money to iTunes accounts.

In the past, China has been the source of illegal iTunes activity. In 2009, Chinese hackers broke the iTunes gift card algorithm and flooded the market with fraudulent cards.

[Via Penn Olson and AppleInsider]

Chinese App Store customers can now pay with their own currency originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 18 Nov 2011 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Chinese App Store customers can now pay with their own currency originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 18 Nov 2011 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple has released a third beta of iTunes 10.5.1 to members of its developer program. According to Apple, "iTunes 10.5.1 beta 3 includes a number of important stability and performance improvements for iTunes Match, and is a required update for all subscribers to iTunes Match beta."

This beta update comes just after developers' iTunes Match libraries were wiped "as we prepare for the launch of iTunes Match," Apple said in an email to developers. This latest beta comes less than two weeks after the release of iTunes 10.5.1 beta 2, while 24 days passed between the release of the initial iTunes 10.5.1 beta and its successor.

Accelerating beta releases from Apple are usually indicative of an imminent public launch, but it remains to be seen whether 10.5.1 beta 3 has shaken out enough of the bugs to warrant more widespread release.

Once the service goes live to the public, users who pay US$24.99 per year will have access to virtually all of their music, anywhere, and anytime.

iTunes 10.5.1 beta 3 released with more fixes for iTunes Match originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 13 Nov 2011 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

iTunes 10.5.1 beta 3 released with more fixes for iTunes Match originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 13 Nov 2011 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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