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New Jersey begins taxing iTS downloads like CDs and armored cars
The state of New Jersey is suffering from a slight $4.5 billion debt problem. Macenstein is reporting that amidst a recent sales tax increase and a frantic session of checking the sofa for change, Governor Jon Corzine has expanded the list of items which can be taxed to include, amongst other things, iTunes Store purchases. This means that all iTS downloads will be taxed at the same recently raised 7% rate of other newly taxable items such as storage space, tanning, health club memberships and security alarms.Interestingly, Dr. Macenstein also reports that he'll be trying to work around the new charges by changing his virtual iTS address to another state. C'mon Dr. M, you need to pay up for your tanning and limousine luxuries just like everybody else.
Newly resized iTS video content just a bad upsample?
It seems like not all larger iTunes Store videos are actually worth their new dimensions. Reader Paul did some investigating on the newly resized videos (i.e. - ones that were 320 x 240 before the new store, and are now 640 x 480), as a few seemed suspiciously like bad upsamples, rather than truly re-encoded masterpieces of H264 quality.Unfortunately, for this investigation Paul had to reveal he is an Anastacia fan, but that isn't important right now (just kiddin' with you Paul). Engadget has put together a good post with example screenshots (like the one above) of upsampled content that looks worse than its smaller predecessors. Some of the videos look great - like Paul's Anastacia examples, but others like Madonna's and Elton John's vids ultimately take the more jagged route.The thing I'm wondering is: who does the encoding? Apple, or the studios? This page at Apple's site for music labels interested in getting onto the store offers software called iTunes Producer to allow them to do the encoding, which makes me suspect this video upsampling issue could be the fault of the labels mistakenly assigning the video encoding and re-encoding work to some rookie intern.This is about all we know for now; Apple I'm sure is unavailable for comment, but check out Engadget's post for more screenshots and details of what's going on here.
Wal-Mart bullying Hollywood over iTS movie downloads?
Today's edition of 'yes they did/no they didn't' is brought to you by Wal-Mart, the New York Post and Reuters. As we knew, Wal-Mart is the largest DVD retailer (at least in America), with 40% of the market. Obviously, a player with that large of a stake in the game might not be too happy when a music download service with as much momentum as the iTunes Store announces movie downloads, and the New York Post printed a piece confirming just as much. According to the Post, Wal-Mart returned "cases and cases" of DVDs to Disney after suffering a panic attack over word of the iTS. Never one to stop at throwing product back in just one client's face, Wal-Mart then went on to throw a temper tantrum at the Hollywood studios, "overtly threatened to retaliate" by ordering fewer movies if they shook hands with the iTS. One has to wonder what happens when Wal-Mart doesn't get ice cream for desert.On the other side of this coin, however, Reuters printed comments from a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, saying "we are not dissuading studios from conducting business with other providers." Setting aside the discussion of who competition truly benefits, a Disney spokeswoman also stated she was not familiar with the NYP claims, though Reuters failed to mention whether this spokeswoman has anything to do with the shipping department.It's a twisted web these players are weaving, and we'll (do our best to) stay on top of who's saying what.[via Engadget]
Disney CEO confirms iTV has a hard drive under the hood
Mr. J is either going to be ticked that Disney's new CEO Rober Iger leaked a much-speculated feature of the upcoming iTV, or it's a clever piece of marketing to which he gave a thumbs up in the first place. Regardless, thanks to the iPod Observer, we now know the iTV, Apple's upcoming AirPort-Express-for-your-TV device they previewed at the recent September 12th It's Showtime event, will sport a hard drive so users "can download what you put on the device on your computer, on your iTunes, through the television set" (perhaps he could used more rehearsing when leaking big stuff like this).Now don't get ahead of yourselves - for a second there I too thought that "download what you put on the device on your computer" bit meant he was hinting the iTV might do DVR, but that wouldn't make any sense as it would cannibalize the TV shows and movies they sell in the iTS. Either way, stay tuned for more (hopefully less awkward) iTV detail leaks.[via MacMinute]
iTunes 7 music purchases don't play on iTunes phones?
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.Thanks Anthony
First impressions: buying a game from the iTunes Store
Scott beat me to buying a movie from the store and posted his first impressions, so I thought I would move on to the new games section (iTS link) of the store. The games work with 5G iPods (of which I am an owner) as well as the newly announced 5.5G iPods. I can't decide whether I'm surprised you can't play the games right inside iTunes, but this post isn't about my indecision, for I dropped some cash and bought my first game: Cubis 2 (iTS link). The way iTunes handles games is interesting, largely in part because you can't really do anything with them in iTunes - you can't even rate them or modify any of their metadata; they're only usable and playable on an iPod. Read on for all the details!
Apple announces iTunes 7
Scott nailed it right on the head ladies and gents: one of the big announcements of today's event was a much-updated iTunes version 7, bringing a slew of new shopping, organizing and playing options to Apple's media software. As of this writing, Apple hasn't made the new software available yet, so we're going to recap the announcement to help you stay on top of the essentials. Here's a rundown of what's new: The iTunes Music Store is now, simply, the iTunes Store. While removing 'Music' from the title certainly helps move the store's branding into the multi-media monster it has become, it sounds like they're stuck with the 'iTunes' (music related) branding Album & Cover Flow views - you can now view your library by album art covers, or use a snazzy 3D 'cover flow' (you mean, like CoverFlow?) to really show off New Source organization - each media type gets its own library and source, offering much easier access and organization Gapless playback - MP3, AAC and Apple Lossless files that are one cohesive album can now sound like one 640 x 480 video resolution for TV and - as everyone predicted - movie downloads from the likes of Disney, Pixar, Touchstone, Miramax. Movies adopt the same usage rights as TV shows (i.e. - no burning) Integrated iPod management - you can adjust what media is synced to your iPod from within iTunes, instead of having to clunk around in the preferences. We haven't seen what this looks like yet, but it sounds like a much better idea for obvious reasons Transfer purchases via iPod - now when Engadget and MacRumors reported this, it sounded like the entire library was transferable between registered computers. This feature, taken from the actual keynote slide, makes it sound like this will work only for iTS purchases Download manager - begin listening to and watching your media while it finishes downloading There's the wrap of what we heard so far. keep an eye out for a walkthrough as soon as we can get our hands on a copy of iTunes 7.
