Apple has announced details of the 2012 iTunes Festival, to be held at the Roundhouse in London, England. The event will consist of 30 nights of free concerts by over 60 artists, including the likes of Jack White, Norah Jones, and Usher; only a handful of artists have been announced so far. For 2012, the festival has been moved from July to September.
For a brief time on Thursday Apple was censoring appearances of the word "jailbreak" on the iTunes Store, reports note. One example included the Thin Lizzy album and song of the same name, which were suddenly renamed "J*******k." Other instances of the word, though, are said to have remained unaffected. By Thursday afternoon Eastern time, the extra censorship is observed to have disappeared.
Today in the MacNN forums, Forum Regular Nassifer has a question about the album artwork that shows in iTunes, read more here. "Is anyone else tired of waiting?" is the question posed by one Fresh-Faced Recruit who want's to see a MacBook Pro update.
People who bought an iPod classic, shuffle, touch, or nano between September 12th, 2006 and March 31st, 2009 are being notified that they could participate in a pending class action lawsuit, reports say. Emails are being sent out this week referring people to ipodlawsuit.com, for extra details, even though there has been no settlement or ruling. The suit was originally filed by Thomas Slattery in 2005, based on an incident in 2004, when RealNetworks released software called Harmony.
Warner Bros. has begun offering parts of its movie catalog in 1080p HD on iTunes. Shoppers can now buy titles such as 300, Batman Begins, Clash of the Titans, Happy Feet, Speed Racer, and The Dark Knight for $15.
A New York resident, Robert Herskowitz, has filed a class action lawsuit against Apple, accusing the company of double-billing for purchases on the iTunes Store. Herskowitz recently bought the Adam Lambert song "Whataya Want From Me." Submitted court documents claim that after discovering double-billing for the track, Herskowitz immediately contacted Apple, only to receive an automated message telling him saying "[Apple is] reviewing your request and will send you a personal response soon."
Apple has updated the App Store localization support in iTunes Connect with 10 more languages, a developer bulletin indicates. These include Norwegian, Turkish, Finnish, Danish, Indonesian, Malay, Thai, Vietnamese, Greek, and traditional Chinese. Through the expanded support, the metadata, keywords, and screenshots on App Store pages can now be rendered more appropriate to a region.
Apple has once again expanded the availability of iTunes Match, the company's music upload and streaming service, reports say. The service is now available in several more countries, including Austria, Italy, Greece, Portugal,and Slovenia. In Italy the service is priced at €25 a year.
Hulu may remove itself from contention as a pure Internet video service based on rumors overnight. The historically connected New York Post cited insiders who claimed the service would take the Fox authentication strategy, where customers must prove they have conventional TV access, and make it a broader policy. Fox's deal would see it soon talk to Comcast for a deal using the TV Everywhere imitative.
The UK's High Court decided in favor of ordering The Pirate Bay blockeD on Monday. Internet providers in the country must prevent their users from getting usual access to the site. The measure followed a November call from the music industry's Britsh Phonographic Industry to voluntarily block the site.
Apple has been discussing a possible deal to get Epix' on-demand movies on its media devices, a pair of tipsters clamed late Friday. The talks were to both support the Apple TV as well as "upcoming devices that stream content," which Reuters took to mean a future TV set. Any progress was early, one of the contacts said.
Most print publishing will be gone within the next 25 years, The Economist CEO Andrew Rashbass predicted in a presentation on Thursday. Paper magazines were at new highs, and his publication was hoping to keep demand hihg, but he told paidContent and others at Madrid's Paley Center international council that he was realistic about print going away. He was enthusiastic about tablet reading, which gave the company a possible avenue for a business model after years of uncertainty over a pure web version.
Spotify might be gearing up a more formal Internet radio option, a pair of sources claimed Thursday. While it already has basic radio features, the new method outlined to Bloomberg would be more akin to one like at Pandora or Slacker, where explicitly labeling it as radio would get government-regulated lower royalty rates. The method would also purportedly get it access to artists that normally wouldn't sign for the usual on-demand Spotify system.
Apple has won a patent on the original concept and interface for the iTunes Store, Patently Apple notes. "Broadly speaking, the invention relates a graphical user interface suitable for reviewing, browsing, previewing and/or purchasing media items. The graphical user interface can be presented to a user at a client (client machine). In one embodiment, the graphical user interface is presented to the user by an application program that runs on the client," part of the patent reads.
Amazon drew flak on Thursday after it was accused of and later confirmed inflating its Amazon Prime video catalog. The company acknowledged to Fast Company that it counts each individual TV episode as a show, leading to even just one long-running TV series representing a large part of its catalog. A roster of 17,000 titles claimed by Amazon amounted to 1,875 titles, all but 150 of which were movies.
Within the last 24 hours or so, Apple has started to require extra security for Apple IDs, notes The Next Web. People downloading new apps in iOS or in iTunes are reportedly being asked to pick three security questions, as well as enter a backup email address. After the process is complete, an email is sent to verify the backup address.
New rumors mixed with more concrete details has pointed to Apple actively testing iTunes 11. Test build screenshots slipped to 9to5 purportedly have a central iCloud panel that would control all iTunes-related iCloud features, such as iTunes Match or device backups. The build would also have iOS 6 compatibility, although it might not be necessary and could be preceded by a 10.x update instead.
Apple edged closer to having a complete iTunes in the Cloud on Saturday with previous holdout Universal adding support. Movies from the studio can now be re-downloaded on any device with an Apple ID, or streamed directly to an Apple TV. The expansion adds hundreds or more videos to those from existing supporters like Sony Pictures.
Beats Audio co-creator Jimmy Iovine gave some of the first signs of a possible buyout of MOG in an interview on Wednesday. Although stopping short of confirming the deal directly, he mentioned to Bloomberg that Beats was "looking at this area." His company wouldn't try to encroach on iTunes' pay-per-track formula, which was largely secure, but saw a deficit in the subscription field.
Spotify's ability to lure paying subscribers in the US might be disappointing labels if a rumor proves true. Those near the labels have supposedly told the New York Post that there were fewer paying for the $5 or $10 tiers than the industry had hoped for. Free users either weren't staying subscribed for long, weren't leaping to the $10 Premium tier, or weren't renewing, one of the unnamed contacts said.
Over one million pay TV customers stopped their subscriptions in the US last year, a Convergence Consulting Group research report (PDF) published this month found. The total number was 2.65 million since 2008, as users look to online streaming services such as Netflix. Researchers estimated the 2011 figure at 1.05 million.
Pioneer has taken the covers off to new additions to its Elite range of AV receivers. Both the Elite VSX-42 and the Elite VSX-60 sport AirPlay support for lossless iTunes and iOS streaming, as well as support for DLNA (1.5) and Bluetooth audio streaming with an optional Bluetooth adapter. They also come with vTuner Internet radio, which is extended in the VSX-60 to include support for Pandora and Sirius XM.
"Weird Al" Yankovic accelerated a trend that may see musicians get better pay for their Internet content after suing Sony Music Entertainment for at least $5 million. The suit, filed in New York City on Friday, followed a similar pattern to the Eminem dispute, where the Straight Outta Lynwood producer and his company Ear Booker alleged that Sony had deprived him of sales revenue at iTunes and elsewhere by counting them as sales rather than licenses, which would give him a 50 percent cut of what the publisher receives. He also argued that fiscal stake in YouTube Sony has in return for its content deal also means he should get a proportionate amount of money for plays on his videos.
Dropcam, makers of the Echo wireless camera home monitoring system we had a chance to review earlier, has now shipped what it calls the smallest HD Wi-Fi video monitoring camera. The Dropcam HD is paired with a free Android (free, Google Play) or iOS (free, App Store) app that lets users see what it sees from wherever they are, as well as through any browser. It offers 720p video quality and is powered through a USB port.
Avatron's Air Display update has been approved and added to the App Store ($10, iTunes), enabling users to take advantage of the new iPad's Retina display. Users who run the wireless display app from a Retina device can now enable the HiDPI display mode that had been hidden in Mac OS X Lion, bringing the maximum output resolution up to 2048x1536.
A gang of 11 people of have been imprisoned or given suspended sentences in the UK after being convicted of scamming the Amazon and iTunes music stores out of royalty payments, according to Digital Trends. The scheme involved uploading music to the services and then buying it with stolen and cloned credit cards. To avoid being detected by credit card holders, the gang would never spend more than £10 in a transaction. It nevertheless managed to pull in almost £500,000, costing Amazon and Apple somewhere between £750,000 and £1 million after compensation was paid to the victims of credit card fraud.
Apple has begun pushing out iTunes 10.6.1 via Software Update, resolving some stability issues that had caused the program to unexpectedly quit when performing certain operations such as syncing photos to devices. The update also resolves other minor bugs such as incorrect descriptions of interface elements as described by VoiceOver and WindowEyes, a syncing issue with certain kinds of iPods, and an ordering problem seen with TV episodes on Apple TV.
An attempt at two high-profile lawsuits has accused Apple and Sony of violating a patent for online stores. Pretoria, South Africa citizen Ben Grobler has alleged that both the iTunes Store and PlayStation Network (now Sony Entertainment Network) are copying technology for a "Data Vending System" patent granted in the US in 2004. Their systems of selling, storing, and managing copyrighted apps and media was drawing on the technology, Grobler said in a Northern District of California court.
Apple has won a trademark on the current iTunes logo from the US Patent and Trademark Office, Patently Apple remarks. An application was first submitted almost two years ago, on June 17th, 2010. The logo is now covered under five different International Classes, dealing with fields like retail, entertainment, and telecommunications.
New RIAA music data has shown streaming music starting to get mainstream acceptance in the US. Although the number of those paying for subscription music services like Rdio, Slacker, and Spotify in 2011 was small at 1.8 million users, it represented an 18.9 percent boost over the year before. Revenue was up by a smaller rate, at 13.5 percent, as the faster paid subscriber rate was partly offset by free or low-cost users signing up.
Apple has quietly added $124.99 and $174.99 price tiers as options on the App Store, developers note. The change was announced via an email sent to iTunes Connect users. The new tiers can apply to both apps and in-app purchases; Apple notes that developers take home $87.50 or $122.50, respectively, after Apple's 30 percent cut of revenue and other deductions.
The person who won Apple's contest to be the downloader of the 25th billionth app from the App Store was a Chinese woman named Fu Chunli from Qingdao, reports Chinese Mac site MICgadget. She became the lucky winner by downloading a free version of the Disney game Where's My Water? and received as a reward an iTunes gift card worth $10,000 US. The company invited Fu to the Beijing store to collect her prize.
HTC on Monday bought a 20 percent stake in SyncTV for what could be a sign of larger content ambitions. The deal comes partly in return for patent licenses from SyncTV's parent Intertrust Technologies and gives it access to SyncTV's techniques for digital copy protection. The exact aims weren't mentioned other than a "broad strategic technology partnership" between the two sides.
Google Play's Movies section may be steered into offering full movie sales against Google's own will. Multiple movie industry contacts described a situation to CNET where Google was interested in offering the service, but primarily as it was required to get any rentals from certain studios. Movie rentals were "tiny," the informants said, hinting that Google wanted to get what it could.
Slightly too late for the launch, Apple has updated its iTunes Movie Trailers app (App Store) to take advantage of the new iPad. Updating to 1.1 boosts both the interface and video to take advantage of the much denser display resolution. Apple hasn't said what video resolution it's using for streams; the new iPad can handle 1080p natively, but earlier models would have to drop back to 720p at most.
Avatron has just detailed that its Air Display app ($10, iTunes) will be updated to support the new iPad's 2048x1536 resolution for its wireless secondary display technique. The update process did encounter challenges, however, as adding four times more pixels slowed frame rates. While resolving this problem, the Avatron programmers were able to improve the frame rates on older iOS devices, and especially the dual-core iPad 2 and iPhone 4S.
Satellite TV provider BSkyB threw itself into contention with Internet video providers on Wednesday through its own pure Internet TV service. Called Now TV, it will supply on-demand movies, sports, and other forms of entertainment both to computers as well as game systems, smartphones, and tablets. The aim was to catch the 13 million UK residents who didn't have traditional paid TV, CEO Jeremy Darroch said at The Guardian's Changing Media Summit.
Apple today accidentally pushed a new app, iTunes Producer 2.6, out through OS X Lion's Software Update feature, AppleInsider remarks. Producer is used to submit content for sale on the iTunes Store, and is normally restricted to content publishers and/or people with access to the iTunes Connect service. The v2.6 update may simply have been flagged incorrectly on Apple's servers.
Partly HTC-owned Beats Audio was rumored Monday to have bought MOG. A single source for Business Insider claimed a quiet deal had been struck last week with no mention of terms. While unverified, MOG was unusually non-committal on whether or not it had been acquired, saying only that it was open to deals.
TVE (Trans Video Electronics) has filed a suit in the District Court of Columbia accusing Apple of violating two of its patents related to the way Apple distributes digital video in iTunes. The two patents (US 5,991,801 and US 5,594,936), which were awarded in 1993, relate to a ‘global digital video news distribution system.’ One of the patents also relates to the delivery of an ‘on demand’ video service.
Google's difficulty competing with Apple in media may be a virtue of problems with its own internal culture based on investigations brought to light on Tuesday. CNET understood that executives behind Google's VP of global content, Robert Kyncl, complained that the content strategy was "fragmented" and working in separate directions. Content partners have complained both that Google's actual content lagged Apple's and that the Android and YouTube teams didn't appear to be coordinating with each other.
Intel is in the midst of developing its own online TV streaming service and hardware to match, leaks disclosed Monday. It would create a form of virtual TV that would sell access in cable- and satellite-style bundles, the Wall Street Journal understood. While possibly a white box service that would let others put their own badge on top, Intel would sometimes run under its own name.
A minor new feature of iTunes 10.6 is the ability to choose higher bitrates when downcoverting files for sync, notes AppleInsider. On an iOS device's summary page, the "Convert higher bit rate songs" checkbox now includes a drop-down menu offering 128, 192, or 256kbps AAC options. Previously iTunes limited downconversion to 128kbps.
Warner Bros.' home entertainment president Kevin Tsujihara used time at a Morgan Stanley technology conference to outline in more detail how his studio would steer viewers towards converting their videos from DVD and Blu-ray discs to the UltraViolet format and cloud video access. It would start with in-store conversion like that planned by Walmart, he said, but stores would eventually automate this and provide digital copies automatically. The discs themselves would eventually provide the option, which he implied would be like ripping a CD and would upload the movie itself.
The 1080p video now sold on the iTunes Store manages its resolution without filesizes being as large as expected, Ars Technica notes. A 1080p video contains 2.25 times as many pixels as a 720p clip, but Ars remarks that the higher-resolution files are generally no more than 1.5 times as big. One example is Hugo, which is 3.99GB in 720p but only 4.84GB in 1080p.
Users trying out the new Apple TV software update v5.0 have uncovered a significant change in the way the unit (both the previous 2011 version and the new 2012 edition) handle "iTunes digital copies" that are often found on purchased Blu Ray and SD DVDs of movies. Once the digital copy is transferred to iTunes, other devices can just stream the movie from iCloud -- effectively an "iTunes Match" for movies at no additional charge.
The BBC is reportedly developing a video download store that is expected to serve as a competitor to iTunes. The service, referred to as Project Barcelona, is said to allow users to download BBC television shows, including new programming and older content.
In addition to the announced Apple TV and iOS apps that were mentioned and showcased at today's new iPad unveiling, Apple has also updated numerous other iOS apps, mostly to add support for the new Retina Display on the iPad but also in some cases adding support for iTunes Match, bug fixes or new minor features. Among those updated that were not previously announced are Find My Friends, Find My iPhone, iTunes U, iBooks and Remote.
[Update: Video is now available on iTunes] Apple has posted an official video stream of today's iPad press event. The focus of the event was a third-generation iPad, but Apple also introduced several other products, including a new Apple TV and the first iPad version of iPhoto. iOS 5.1 is mentioned only briefly.
To go along with iOS 5.1 and the third-generation iPad, Apple has released iTunes 10.6. The software's main addition is support for 1080p video, which is now sold on the iTunes Store, and can be recorded by both the new iPad and the iPhone 4S. Apple TV owners can view 1080p content.
