Last week, Apple's iTunes Store turned 5 years old. Now the blogosphere is buzzing with the fact that Apple said they had over "10 million" songs in their library, then later changed the page to say "6 million." That's a difference of 4 million songs unaccounted for. MacNN did the math and said that if they had 10 million songs, it would have accounted for a 66% increase in their catalog in only a month. MacNN has before and after pictures of the iTunes Store page showing the changes.
So... typo? Or is Apple doing some weird shuffling of their library?
Here's an interesting twist on the iTunes vs. record companies situation. Radiohead (disclaimer: I'm a Radiohead fan) is choosing not to sell their latest album on iTunes not because their record company is pressuring them out of the deal-- their record company is EMI, and they're more than willing to sell the record DRM free-- but because iTunes is forcing them to break up their album into songs that can be sold separately.
Usually, I'm all for selling separate songs-- why should I pay for a whole album when I'm only going to listen to three or four songs? But when a request comes from the artist like this, it seems like a different ballgame. I'd like to buy Radiohead's album on iTunes, and if they want it complete, then that's the way I'd want to buy it. But because Apple has fought to keep songs separate, Radiohead isn't selling it with them at all. You might say that I wouldn't feel the same way about other artists, and you'd be right-- if Vanilla Ice required me to buy the entire To the Extreme just to listen to "Ice, Ice Baby," I'd decide it wasn't really worth it.
But my personal tastes aside, the whole thing actually reminds me of Ed Burns talking about watching Godfather on the iPod-- the iTMS has fundamentally changed the way we purchase and consume media. The concept of "album" is losing meaning. For most iTunes purchasers, I'd imagine that's not a bad thing. But artists like Thom Yorke and Radiohead clearly aren't ready to see the album experience disappear, and they're willing to keep their music off of iTunes to fight it.
TUAW reader Jamie Phelps has possibly stumbled upon a nasty iPhone synching bug when keeping one's iTunes library on an external hard drive. While tips like our how-tos for setting up iTunes with external drives or even an AirPort Disk work pretty well even when synching iPods with them, Jamie found that his iPhone gets the brainwash treatment when he's away from the drive containing his external iTunes library. As the story goes, Jamie synched his iPhone with a few songs and playlists, made a couple new playlists and then synched again. Hitting the road, however, and getting away from his external iTunes library drive is when the bug rears its nasty head: plugging the iPhone in while on the go caused iTunes to wipe out the new playlists and songs from the second sync operation, basically reverting them to their state before the second sync. To verify, Jamie even got adventurous and tried this whole thing a second time, once again watching iTunes blow away changes from the previous iPhone sync when the external media library isn't mounted.
This is the first time I've heard of iTunes handling this kind of setup in a poor way; for as long as I can remember, iTunes has been clever enough to realize what's happening and and would either not sync anything to an iPod when away from the library drive, or it would actually sync any media downloaded or imported while away (as we've mentioned before, you can use the Advanced > Consolidate Library command to move all this new media once reconnected with the library drive). Since we don't really have any evidence of Apple deliberately changing this behavior for their iPods or iPhones, it makes sense for this quirk to be classified as a bug that will hopefully be squashed with an inevitable iPhone software update. But what say you, TUAW readers? Anyone else get bit? Sound off.
Princeton has made a deal with Virginia-based Ruckus to provide free music to all their undergraduate students. Ruckus, which has licensed 1.5 million tracks from various music labels, provides unlimited access to their library apparently in exchange for advertising to a captive audience.
Unfortunately, this deal leaves Mac and iPod users in the cold. The Plays4Sure DRM only works on Windows and a limited number of players. Princeton students will have to pony up a little extra money and a compatible player to have access to the Ruckus-to-go feature if they want to take their tunes off their PC and onto their player. On the bright side, if you can call it that, the Zune doesn't do Plays4Sure either.
It's Tuesday and it's time for another installment of the iTunes Tuesday Freebies. Every week I scour the iTunes stores, looking for the best free offerings around the world. Here are the freebies I found for you this week.
US Music
US: Silent Night by Sarah McLachlan Now we generally try to turn the spotlight over to new artists for our Single of the Week, but we're feeling the spirit of the season this month. Check back here each week to get a free holiday track from an established artist. Here, Sarah McLachlan turns "Silent Night" into the warm, ethereal majestic snapshot of devotion that we've always known this song to be.
US: Christmas Reindeer by the Knife If you tend to tire of the traditional holiday music fare, then the Knife have the cure to all of your Nat King Cole and Johnny Mathis-related ills. The Swedish electro-art-pop duo deliver us "Christmas Reindeer" - a pulsating clang of a tune dedicated to Santa's most trusted animals. Enjoy!
US: Anacona by La Sista This reggaetonera steps up to the microphone in a big way on "Anacaona," a remake of a song originally recorded by Cheo Feliciano. La Sista's own roots (she's of African and Puerto Rican descent) come through on this blazing tune, which booms with a heavy, buzzing bass line and Sista's own bold, dancehall-tinged rhymes.
Remember that iPod storage calculator iLounge released? It seems Christian Chladek, maker of such other widgets as the Morse Code Translator, was inspired to provide an iPod calculator in widget form. iPodage allows you to pick your iPod model and adjust all the vital settings to do some quick and dirty math on just how many tunes you can cram into your pocket for the road. For bonus points, the widget can even shrink out of your way should you need to reclaim some Dashboard space.
A reader linked us to an Apple Discussion thread where a number of users have listed problems with playing purchases from the iTS through iTunes 7 on their Motorola SLVR and ROKR iTunes phones. It seems these users can play regular music they ripped from CDs, as well as purchases made through iTunes 6 - just not songs bought through the new iTunes 7. The thread hasn't reached biblical lengths just yet, but there are enough comments on the thread that I felt it warranted a post at TUAW.
One commenter posted a link to this Apple Support doc which offers instructions for when this same problems happens to an iPod, and some of the procedures can easily be adopted for an iTunes phone (such as restoring/erasing the phone and deauthorizing, then reauthorizing iTunes). However, some users have already commented that the doc's solutions aren't fixing the issue either.
Are any readers experiencing the same hiccup? If you have any thoughts on what's going on, please share your thoughts in the comments and, if you're up to the task, drop the frustrated peeps over in Apple's Discussion thread a line too. I'm sure they'll appreciate it.
Love or hate him, Weird Al has unquestionably cranked out some of the most notable humor and satire of the late 20th - and now 21st - centuries. The Digital Music Weblog (a sister site) has discovered Mr. Weird is at it again with "Don't Download This Song," a tongue-in-cheek anthem about the dark road of lying, cheating and stealing that file sharing can lead down.
Weird Al is using a small marketing site to pimp the song, complete with a music video and a download link (yes, of course it's free), as well as the upcoming album the song is featured on.
Grant at TDMW cites a favorite line of Christopher Springman at Public Knowledge: "Cause you start out stealing songs/then you're robbing liquor stores/and selling crack/and running over schoolkids with your car." Personally, I don't think the record labels care where you're getting your cash, just as long as you use it to pay their outlandish monopoly prices.
Feel free to grab the song, as the RIAA can't nail you for downloading this one. At least, I think.
That Apple + Coca Cola promo we mentioned in June has been made a reality, but only in Europe - at least for now. MSNBC is reporting that iTunes has launched "the deepest alliance of its kind" to promote the iTMS on Coke's website in the UK and Germany, as the company will also be giving away 70 million songs on its products in a promo that sounds just like the Pepsi partnership of a year or so ago. Interestingly, Apple declined to comment on whether shaking hands with Coke meant that they had to stop drinking from the Pepsi fountain.
It sounds like all you TUAW readers in the UK and Germany can keep your eyes out for the promotion to hit Coke's website and products sometime this month. Happy downloading!
How many times have you found yourself out and about somewhere when 'the iTMS itch' strikes? You know, that catchy song playing over the mall speakers, or a kid's headphones at the airport blaring loud enough for you to jam along. But how are you supposed to scratch that itch if your computer and iTMS account are sitting at home?
Fortunately, 22Moo, an Australian hardware and software company, hopes to lend you a hand with the PodBuffet, an iTunes Kiosk they're developing that is powered by a Mac mini with a 15" touch-screen LCD and a "customised application for timed access to iTunes". Their press release doesn't reveal much more information, so we're assuming they're working out a method for allowing those itchin' for a fixin' to purchase music and load up their iPod on the go, without having to deal with any of that library-linking silliness. 22Moo's site isn't very forthcoming either, so here's hoping these kiosks don't join the ranks of countless other vaporware.
Tired of browsing the (often late) New Release emails from the iTMS to find out whether an artist you actually care about has released a new album? Sick of adding an 'Artist Alert' for each of the hundreds of artists cataloged in your vast library? Well pound those keys no more, frustrated iTMS shopper, for the newTunes widget has arrived. This widget tells you when new music you actually care about has been released by watching for new and upcoming work from the artists already in your library.
Don't you love it when computers actually do the work for you, instead of creating more work for you to do? newTunes is freeware and can be had from Apple's Dashboard downloads section.
For those out there who find the 100 song cap (amongst other things) on iTunes phone a deal breaker, Engadget
Mobile might have found your
saving grace. A forum at MotoModders has
the details and simple steps you can take to run a simple hack on any iTunes phone (except the v3i) to raise the song
cap to 1000. Unfortunately, there's one catch: the little app
you have to run is Windows-based, so you'll need a PC or Boot Camp to actually do this (sorry, Parallels doesn't support USB devices - yet).
Obviously
this is a hack, so don't blame us or MotoModders if something goes wrong. However, if you do try this, please post your
thoughts and let us know if it really works.
Last week, Apple's iTunes Store turned 5 years old. Now the blogosphere is buzzing with the fact that Apple said they had over "10 million" songs in their library, then later changed the page to say "6 million." That's a difference of 4 million songs unaccounted for. MacNN did the math and said that if they had 10 million songs, it would have accounted for a 66% increase in their catalog in only a month. MacNN has before and after pictures of the iTunes Store page showing the changes. 
Here's an interesting twist on the iTunes vs. record companies situation. Radiohead (disclaimer: I'm a Radiohead fan) is 
TUAW reader Jamie Phelps has possibly stumbled upon a 
It's Tuesday and it's time for another installment of the iTunes Tuesday Freebies. Every week I scour the iTunes stores, looking for the best free offerings around the world. Here are the freebies I found for you this week. 
Remember that iPod storage calculator 
A reader linked us to an 
Love or hate him, Weird Al has unquestionably cranked out some of the most notable humor and satire of the late 20th - and now 21st - centuries. The Digital Music Weblog (a sister site) has 
That Apple + Coca Cola promo 
How many times have you found yourself out and about somewhere when 'the iTMS itch' strikes? You know, that catchy song playing over the mall speakers, or a kid's headphones at the airport blaring loud enough for you to jam along. But how are you supposed to scratch that itch if your computer and iTMS account are sitting at home?
