Apple iTunes LP format gets dissected, explained
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted Sep 14th 2009 10:08PM
posted Sep 14th 2009 10:08PM
Did you hear the news? Apple "resurrected" the LP! It turns out that a complete reversal of millions of music lover's listening habits has been accomplished by throwing some images, videos, interviews, and DRM-free 256Kbps AAC audiofiles into a WebKit package playable in iTunes. OK, so maybe we are a little jaded -- our busy 21st century lives generally don't afford us the time to stare glassy-eyed at our computer screen (any more than we have the time to stare glassy-eyed at 12-inch album covers while sitting on the floor of our incense-soaked Haight-Ashbury crash pads). But if you're morbidly curious about the inner workings of the new iTunes LP format, an experience accomplished via HTML 4.01, CSS and JS, hit the read link for the down-and-dirty tear down from web developer Jay Robinson. And who knows? You just might learn something.
[Via Daring Fireball]
[Via Daring Fireball]
Why not give us some lossless, Apple? Petty bandwidth costs cutting into your billions of dollars of profits?
Audiophile! Chris Hansen is coming for you!
Seconded.
Geez you're stupid Apple, this NEEDS to be lossless, you have your own lossless format and everything.
No excuses, pick up your game!
I won't pay for downloads until they are lossless.
It does need lossless.. If more albums were on there I would buy them. I think its cool.
++
Lossless or you won't see a dime out of me.
iTunes and its ecosystem set the DE FACTO platform for very good reason!
I think this it's time for me to come back to iTunes with open arms. Very nice, Apple!
I agree with all you guys. You can't "resurrect" the LP (who said it was dead anyway? Talk to any self-respecting audiophile and you'll see that they probably have a decent LP collection) without offering superb quality audio
Why? Because then you would be able to fit maybe that collection and ONLY that collection on the touch...but of course 64GB is enough for everyone....damn flash BS. You will get my 120GB iPod when you pry it out of my cold dead hands.
@Wolfticket:
Have you seen B & W's Society of Sound? http://www.bowers-wilkins.co.uk/display.aspx?infid=777
It's pretty cheap, lossless, well recorded music and introduces one to new and abstract music that you may not usually listen to.
I've been meaning to sign up for ages but haven't got around to it yet.
Apple has long had the option for record labels to use lossless on iTunes. But most/all end up choosing AAC. So, its not Apple's fault here. Its the record label. That said, Apple really needs to push for lossless.
The best thing apple can do is sell the songs at lossless quality then build a compressor into iTunes that will let YOU select the bit-rate at which you download it onto your iPod, iPhone or Palm Pre. So I can download the new Protomen albulm @ lossless and all my other music at whatever sounds best for the situation.
""our busy 21st century lives generally don't afford us the time to stare glassy-eyed at our computer screen""
isnt that what all of us are doing right now!!! if we didnt have the time to stare at our computers this website would not exist.
this looks oddly familiar....as if something before had already done something similar
for some reason I keep seeing a big "Z" flash in my head.
No, no, no. This hasn't been done before. This costs money and only works for purchased songs from iTunes.
HHHhhhmmmmm,
artist bio check
artist picture check
artist videos check
I just wish there was a device that could let me take these things wherever I go.
My God, you guys are hilarious. If this were Microsoft copying Apple back in 2006, you guys would be saying, "Yeah, sure, the Zune has a click wheel, but there's only so many ways you can make a MP3 player. Blah, blah, blah."
Or wait, how about that design on the ZuneHD? Hey, there's only so many ways to make a touch screen music player with one button. It's not like Microsoft copied Apple or anything. They would have eventually came up with this design on their own. Right, guys? Right?
@Detox: Huh? I said it clearly isn't copying the Zune. It costs money any only works for songs you bought on iTunes, whereas the Zune service pulls the same kind of stuff but for any songs you have, for free. They're completely different. If you think it's a copy then ok, but don't pin that on us.
@Detox: And besides that, pulease. Back in '06 you were probably claiming that the Zune was a copy of the iPod. I think some of this was making a point about ridiculous claims that Microsoft copied the iPod with whatever Zune/other service.
Just reminding you guys of the stupid justifications you can come up with when Microsoft copies Apple, but not the supposed other way around.
Detox: we aren't talking about 2006. this is 2009 and the tables are starting to turn. get used to it.
i wish Rio still made players. my Rio Carbon was way better than an iPod Mini back in the day
Don't question them Detox, they're idiots who have nothing but disdain for Apple because of what they are able to accomplish. Out on the streets they are simply known has haters and they serve no purpose other than trying to bring the successful down. Sad really but it's their only way to make themselves feel superior because they lack in everything else.
Does the Zune album stuff work without wireless? If I need to be online to see it, I can't see myself using it very much, as I only really listen to music in transit.
Don't get me wrong, I think this LP stuff is crap too.
Can't wait until they get Milli Vanilli's Greatest Hits on there!
They won't release it
I blame it on rain....
I'm sorry but those guys could sing (well the ones in the recording studio anyway)
Don't laugh, but I'd really, really like to get a MIlli Villi greatest hits album. It'll bring back the memories and come on even if they didn't sing it the songs were good and they did sell millions of albums and won a ton of grammys so the Music Industry whitewashing is a bit ridiculous. And it's sad because the only ones who suffered were Milli Villi, but not the producers or anyone else involved in the scandal (as far as I know.)
256 kbs isn't resurrecting anything. Needs to be lossless.
oops..got beat on that :P
People keep saying that they need higher quality, and I can appreciate that audiophiles simply want more options... but higher quality is not a panacea.
iTunes has sold 8.5 BILLION songs... that's at an initially lower bitrate of 128kbps and then later at 256 kpbs aac.
How many more would they have sold if they had gone up to lossless, or to SACD or DVD audio quality? Not many more...
Audiophiles like yourself are an exclusive club... that's great because you get to enjoy your music that much more, but that also means that 99.99% of the music consumers aren't like you, and don't give a hoot about higher quality, especially when they'd mostly be listening to the songs on crappy iPod headphones in a noisy subway.
You're welcome to keep asking for higher quality... it helped push Apple to double the bitrate once before... but higher quality for higher quality's sake is not a panacea.
Muuuuuuse.
Love is our resistaaaaaaaance.
awesome album!
yeah i pre ordered the latest muse album, i got the whole album (apart from the LP bit)
- I think apple want me to buy it again
The real problem with ppl not buying entire albums is the pricing. Used to be with CDs a single was usually $3, whereas the entire album was usually $11 or $12 (after a couple of weeks) usually $16 new. Even if you liked only 3 songs on an album you'd go ahead and get the album for about $3 more. But now, if you like even 4 songs on an album, it's still way cheaper to buy the singles. They really need to drop the price of complete albums to $6 or 7.
Of course the real issue is the fact that nowadays, most (not all) artists just fill up an album with crap filler tracks that are no use listening to. For some reason I remember there being more hits on one album a couple of decades ago than we have nowadays, but that might just be that I'm only remembering memorable CDs in comparison.
Depends on who you listen to and your personal preferences. I can't find any filler songs on my favourite artists' albums, with the exception of U2.
i used to like U2. now i find them pretentious and annoying.
Ever heard of a band called "The Unicorns"? They released an album in 2003, and every single song on it was unbelievable. Good music isn't dead, it's just less apparent these days, and iTunes isn't helping anything in that department.
Like we REALLY need 256Kbps Paramore.
Whinny tweener rock sounds just fine at 128Kbps.
+1
Hell yeah.
Say what you want, but Haley Williams is gorgeous
Actually, it sounds best at 0 Kbps
people just want lossless for the sake of it, they probably listen to it through a set of $10 bargain bin speakers.
I have a pretty good setup (wharfedale diamond 9 series speakers) and to be honest theres no noticible difference between flac and 320kbps mp3. This is running through the optical line in my macbook too. To me, the size difference isnt worth it, lossless is about 6x the size of a 320kbps mp3 and i cant even tell the difference. Im not an audiophile but im damn fussy about quality
Right, but these are 256kbps...
256kbps ACC. Theres a big difference between mp3 vs AAC and WMA
... 256Kbps AAC, which is arguably better than 320Kbps MP3.
with hard drive prices at < 10cents/gigabyte, why not?
what about those with Flash based devices where storage is cheap. I dont care about desktop storage, ill filled 1.5TB so im hardly worried about that but portable storage aint so cheap
i mean to say storage isnt cheap. typo there. Wish there was an edit button!