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'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' trailer now featured by Apple
As announced last week, the first trailer for director J.J. Abrams' Star Wars: The Force Awakens is now being featured on Apple's iTunes trailers website. More like a teaser than a trailer, the 88-second clip provides a quick glimpse at the next Star Wars movie. Set 30 years after the Return of the Jedi, The Force Awakens is the 7th installment in the Star wars series. The movie stars John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver and others with Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher returning as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia . The trailer is available to watch on the iTunes Trailers website, the Apple TV and the iTunes Movie Trailers app for iOS. It'll also debut in select movie theaters this weekend. The movie is slated for release in December 2015.
Perfect Ten: Mobile apps to enhance your MMO lifestyle
We're living in the age of smart phones, when there are more cell phones than there are people on this planet. I can't go anywhere without seeing people constantly whipping out their little rectangular companions for the constant stream of information, social connection, and Candy Crush interludes. While MMOs aren't making great headway on these devices, in part due to the limited input scheme, several wise studios have made good use of the mobile market to give players a way to keep in touch with their games even while AFK. Today we're going to count down, count up, and count sideways 10 official mobile apps that will enhance your MMO lifestyle.
Watch the first trailer for 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' (update)
After angering fans earlier this week, Lucasfilm has confirmed the first teaser trailer for the new Star Wars movie will be available online this Friday. The studio previously announced that an 88-second teaser would be shown in just 30 theaters nationwide on November 28th in the lead-up to a general release in December. However, it's now saying that it will also be available through Apple's iTunes Trailer site. It's not clear if the iTunes launch was always intended, or if it's a reaction to the many fans that were upset they would be unable to catch a timely glimpse of the new movie. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is scheduled for release December 2015.
Is Apple about to offer higher quality music downloads through iTunes?
For quite some time, a portion of Apple's customers have wanted higher quality audio files from the iTunes Store. Apple uses AAC coding for the iTunes Store, which is lossy, but a shade better than standard MP3 files. Competitors are now pushing higher quality through download stores like HDtracks. Musicians are also getting into the act, wanting people to hear their music the way it was recorded, and Neil Young has stepped into the fray with his own Pono hardware and music download store. All these initiatives are banking on consumers wanting higher quality than what Apple provides. A sharp-eyed reader noticed a newly released album -- Knives to the Future -- from Project 86 as being a "24-Bit Master". That may be a first for the iTunes Store, or perhaps I just haven't noticed those listings before. 24-Bit mastering would certainly indicate a higher quality download that what's normally available. It may also just be Apple keeping pace with its own request to get music from producers for iTunes encoding with the best possible quality to begin with. In Apple's own notes to producers it says: "To take best advantage of our latest encoders send us the highest resolution master file possible, appropriate to the medium and the project." "An ideal master will have 24-bit 96kHz resolution. These files contain more detail from which our encoders can create more accurate encodes. However, any resolution above 16-bit 44.1kHz, including sample rates of 48kHz, 88.2kHz, 96kHz, and 192kHz, will benefit from our encoding process." Most studio tracks today are recorded in 24-bit. Chances are Apple isn't sending out higher resolution files yet, but rather taking them in that way. Apple has already said in several venues that it thinks iTunes downloads are the highest quality reasonably obtainable now. While not quite up to CD quality, Apple thinks the differences are imperceptible. Audiophiles differ. I expect the reference on the album mentioned is that the producers supplied a 24-bit master which Apple re-encoded to AAC. Of course Apple invented ALAC, or Apple Lossless Encoding, but Apple hasn't offered any ALAC downloads in the iTunes store, at least not yet. Audiophiles would surely like something better. I have a question in to Apple about its plans, but haven't heard anything back as of publication time. I'll certainly let you know if I hear anything. Apple has been so influential in music sales and hardware over the past decade that it would be nice to see the company step up with an option for higher quality downloads. Let us know in comments if you'd like to have Apple offer higher resolution audio files, or if you think things sound fine as they are.
Spotify revenue outpaces iTunes revenue by 13% in Europe
In yet another example highlighting the changing landscape of the music industry, TechCrunch reports that revenue generated from Spotify in Europe is now 13% higher than revenue generated by iTunes Music sales in Europe. Kobalt, a company that helps collect music royalties on behalf of thousands of artists - including "half of this week's Billboard Top 10″ and musicians like Maroon 5, Lenny Kravitz, Dave Grohl, Max Martin, Bob Dylan, and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - says that in the last quarter in Europe, revenues from Spotify streams were 13% higher on average than revenues from Apple's iTunes for its customers. News that Spotify is slowly but surely generating more revenue than iTunes shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Just a few months ago, Spotify's Kevin Brown indicated as much during an interview with The Guardian wherein he said that it's "only a matter of time before Spotify is bigger than iTunes across Europe as a whole." And just recently, the Wall Street Journal relayed that digital music sales on iTunes this year are down 13-14% across the board. What's more, you might recall that 2013 marked the first year digital music sales experienced a decline since 2003. Apple of course has an ace up its sleeve with Beats Music, the on-demand music streaming service it acquired as part of its $3 billion acquisition of Beats. For those who haven't had the pleasure of using the Beats Music app yet, it's extremely similar to Spotify albeit with what is an arguably much more clean and intuitive user interface. Apple, though, has yet to truly integrate the Beats Music app into iTunes or into iOS. On that front, rumor has it that Apple is currently negotiating with music labels in an effort to lower the $10/month fee that typically accompanies on-demand music streaming services. As Spotify continues to grow, Beats Music continues to fly under the radar. That said, hopefully we'll see Apple use its muscle to push Beats Music to the forefront sooner rather than later. Given the immense iOS userbase, think of how many users Apple could attract by simply making the Beats Music icon standard on the iOS homescreen and offering users a free week or two of a Beats subscription. As we've noted before, Apple just needs to convince a paltry 1.25% of its 865 million strong user base to sign up for Beats and, just like that, they'd already have as many paying customers as Spotify.
Spotify reportedly earns musicians more cash than iTunes in Europe
If you ask some musicians, Spotify is a trap; they earn so little from the service that they'd rather pull their albums and risk additional piracy. That's not necessarily true in every case, though. Kobalt Music Publishing, which represents songwriters like Lenny Kravitz and Paul McCartney, claims that its artists earned 13 percent more royalties from Spotify in Europe during the first quarter of the year than they made through iTunes sales. That's a sharp contrast from the year before, when iTunes was still the dominant money-maker. Kobalt claims that it's all about volume. While songsters get far less revenue per person from Spotify, the sheer number of listeners (three times as many) makes up the difference.
How to speed up adding album art in iTunes 12
I am very dedicated to getting the proper album art on the hundreds of CDs I've put into iTunes. Until version 12 arrived, it was a pretty simple process. You could Google the album art, then simply drag the album cover from the web page to the designated spot after selecting all the album tracks and doing a "Get Info" (Command-I) from the File menu of iTunes. That all changed in iTunes 12, for reasons that escape me. Doing the same sequence now gets you a newly designed dialog box that wants you to load the graphic from a location -- no more drag and drop. It takes more steps to add the album art, and who knows why Apple made the change. Don't despair! The old tried and true method is still there, but hidden. Just hold the Option key down before you select "Get Info" to bring back the old GUI that lets you drag and drop your album art right into iTunes. You can see both versions below: the current "improved" design and the "hidden" old version that you can restore by pressing the Option key. I'm a big fan of doing things easily. Maybe Apple meant to make this change, or perhaps it was an oversight. It could be part of the big package of iTunes GUI changes that have troubled many users. The fact that you can still get to the feature by pressing the Option key indicates that the changes were by design. Anyway, the older and faster method is still around; you just have to know the "trick" ... and now you do.
iTunes sees 13% drop in music downloads
With free music more accessible than ever before, music downloads are on the decline. Specifically, The Wall Street Journal reports that music downloads on iTunes are down by 13-14% since the beginning of the year. Digital music sales at Apple Inc.'s iTunes store have fallen 13% to 14% world-wide since the start of the year, according to people familiar with the matter, underscoring the fragility of the music industry's nascent recovery. Not blind to the changing times, Apple earlier this year acquired Beats Music for $3 billion. While Apple hasn't yet integrated the Beats app into iTunes, Apple is reportedly working hard behind the scenes to get, surprise surprise, favorable pricing from the music industry. Recent reports have indicated that Apple has been trying to convince record labels to agree to a $5 monthly rate for on-demand streaming, a significantly lower price than the standard $10 fee associated with most other on-demand music services. While it remains to be seen how those negotiations play out, Apple, on account of its immense iOS subscriber base, is in a unique position to get record labels to capitulate to lower pricing. With hundreds of millions of consumers already using iOS devices, Apple can make a case that it can make up for lower monthly fees with tremendous volume. As we've noted previously, if Apple can convince even 2% of existing iOS users to pay for a monthly subscription to Beats, it will already have as many paying customers as Spotify. It remains to be seen, though, whether Apple plans to make Beats Music part of the iTunes app or continue to let it live on its own as a standalone app. To that end, the Journal claims that Apple will be relaunching Beats "next year as part of iTunes."
Where is my sidebar in iTunes 12?
Apple support boards are chattering today about the graphical changes in iTunes 12. The beloved, or in some cases tolerated sidebar is pretty much gone. Your music, movies and devices are now a row of icons at the top left of the iTunes window. This new version iTunes was released earlier this week in preparation for Yosemite. The changes to iTunes, some welcome, some unwelcome depending on your point of view, are part of trying to unify the look and feel of OS X with iOS 8. The problem is, after years of getting used to the "way things work," someone comes along and changes it. Jony Ive most likely in this case. All is not lost, however. Your playlists can still appear in a left-side column as usual, making them quite easy to manage. When you click on the music icon at the top, you will see the word 'Playlists' near the top-center. That will restore the playlist sidebar. This also works in movies and TV shows. Just click the 'Playlist' button. Of course Apple might relent. After vaporizing the camera roll in iOS it will be back in iOS 8.1 which will be released Monday. There was quite an uproar about that change, and apparently Apple relented. So if the loss of the consistent sidebar in iTunes bothers you, there is hope.
Bono apologizes for that U2 download you didn't ask for
Apple and U2 may have touted that Songs of Innocence iTunes giveaway as a breakthrough music deal, but not everyone appreciated seeing an album forced into their collection. And apparently, front man Bono is now well aware of this -- he just used a fan Q&A on Facebook to offer an apology of sorts. He's sorry that U2 got "carried away" with its idea, and claims that the band was worried that years of work "might'nt be heard" if it had a typical launch.
The iTunes Store is about to get a flatter look
Apple has flattened the design of just about every interface it makes, but the iTunes Store has remained largely impervious to those changes -- reflections, drop shadows and extruded buttons abound. All that is likely to change soon, however. According to 9to5Mac, those trying out the iTunes 12 beta are now seeing a super-flat iTunes Store layout that mirrors what you've seen in iOS, OS X Yosemite and iTunes 12 itself. The carousel highlighting new content is no longer full of pseudo-3D effects, and most of the buttons have been reduced to simple wireframes. A few elements are reportedly missing as of this writing, but it won't be surprising if the new-look storefront gets some stage time on October 16th.
Apple's old DRM policies are about to go on trial
Once upon a time, music purchased in Apple's iTunes store was saddled with a DRM technology called "FairPlay." It did just what you'd expect: keep unauthorized computers and devices from playing music purchased on the service. It's gone from Apple's music store now (but can still be found in eBooks and apps), but it's still making waves: Apple is facing a $350 million anti-trust suit claiming the DRM was used to stifle market competition.
Rebels aren't taking 'Star Wars: Tiny Death Star' offline -- Disney is
Let's say you're perpetually late to the party and are only just now getting around to checking out Star Wars: Tiny Death Star. Well, sadly your 11-month tardiness isn't doing you any favors here: Disney is pulling the app from both Google Play and the App Store, as spotted by Gamezebo. An anonymous source told the site that Tiny Death Star and Star Wars Assault Team are getting the axe with the intent to retire them and focus on other titles instead. Ian Marsh, co-owner of Death Star developer NimbleBit, revealed to Gamezebo that the delisting is as much a surprise to him as it is to everyone else. Speaking to Pocket Gamer, he said that he hadn't been told of any of this by Disney before it'd happened and that Mickey and Co. likely no longer felt the game was worth the cost of upkeep anymore. Death Star was a "significant source of revenue" for Marsh and his team, which he says makes this sting that much more.
Apple supporting Breast Cancer Awareness Month with City of Hope iTunes donations
Apple updated iTunes with a new page that allows users to make a donation to City of Hope, a non-profit charity dedicated to combating cancer, diabetes and other life-threatening diseases. This initiative starts today and continues through October as part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Users will be able to make donations through their iTunes account in US$5, $10, $25, $50, $100, and $200 amounts. Apple will transfer 100 percent of the donated amount to the City of Hope charity. This initiative isn't' the first time Apple has used iTunes for charitable donations. The company accepted emergency relief funds for the Philippines typhoon in 2013, Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and the 2010 Haitian earthquake. [Via TechCrunch]
O2 now lets you charge iTunes credit to your phone bill
O2 already has a number of deals in place that allow its customers to buy digital wares and charge the cost straight to their phone bill. It now has a new partner in Apple, as the carrier's "Charge to Mobile" program has been expanded to include iTunes vouchers this week. Direct-carrier billing is supposed to be about convenience, but O2 contract and pay-as-you-go customers need to jump through a few hoops to take advantage of this new way to pay. It's handled through an O2 subsite -- o2vouchers.co.uk -- where you select an iTunes voucher of up to £30 that'll be emailed to you when the payment goes through. You then volunteer your mobile number, and you'll be sent a text you must reply to in order to approve the transaction. When the code eventually hits your inbox, you can use the credit in iTunes, iBooks and the iOS/Mac App Stores. A slightly more convoluted process than you were hoping for, we imagine, but at least you can get a fiver off a £25 voucher from now until this introductory promotion closes at the end of next week.
Bono talks 885 million iTunes accounts, new music format, and "haters"
Over the weekend, U2 frontman Bono sat down for an interview with Dave Fanning on the Irish radio station 2FM where the two discussed a wide range of topics. While the interview mostly centered on the band's new album, Bono took some time to touch on a few Apple related items. And if there's one thing Bono isn't, it's boring. With respect to the backlash resulting from Apple making U2's new album Songs of Innocence available for free to iTunes users, Bono was quick to brush off any criticism. The same people who used to write on toilet walls when we were kids are now in the blogosphere. The blogosphere is enough to put you off of democracy [laughs]. But no, let people have their say. Why not? They're the haters, we're the lovers, we're never going to agree. Bono explained that the entire point of the promotion was to get the album heard by as many people as possible and that it was mission accomplished. The album has already been downloaded by 77 million users and the band's Singles album is now in the top 10 of 14 different countries, all thanks to the Apple deal. People really who would not ordinarily be exposed to our music have a chance to listen to it. Whether they hold that to their hearts, we don't know. Whether those songs will be important to them in a week's time, we don't know. But they have a chance, and that's gotta be exciting for a band that's been around as long as we have. As for the backlash, Bono expressed that it was all overblown. Yes, it worked, and the only thing was this technological blip which was for some people [the album] didn't just stay in the cloud, it hopped into their phone. Apple is very sorry about that. They sent people a way to delete it. It's wonk. I mean, really. Come on. ... I can say to them, no one has deleted more U2 songs in the last 5 years than the 4 members of U2. Later in the interview, Bono even likened the band's deal with Apple to punk rock, explaining that the point of punk rock was to be "in your face" and that punk rock back in the day thrived on being right there in front of you even if you weren't looking for it. Ah good ole' Bono, an unquestionable master of spin. As for reports that Apple and U2 are working on a new type of music format to increase music sales, Bono during Sunday's interview shed a bit more light on the matter. But to really break this open, why can't we see what we're looking at. Why can't we dip into artwork. like we used to? Why can't I use my phone or my iPad to disappear into a world created by artists with photography? If we want to listen to Miles Davis in a silent way, why can't we have the photographs of Herman Leonard playing in the background while we do it? Or, with another click find out what mood he was in when he made that? Or with lyrics, why can't we read Bob Dylan's lyrics while we're listening to his music at a certain point in time? Interestingly, the new artistic-themed music format Bono is so jazzed about will, according to him, include high-res studio master downloads to boot. And truthfully, it's not a bad idea. But it sure sounds awfully similar to iTunes LP, an interactive album format from Apple which never quite impacted music sales in a discernible way. Of course, the utility of iTunes LP was limited insofar as the content was only viewable from within iTunes and on the Apple TV. iTunes LP on iOS would likely be much more impactful. Also of note is that this music format is supposedly years in the making. In fact, Bono claims the idea stretches all the way back to 2009 and had the blessing of Steve Jobs. So 5 years ago I began a conversation with Steve Jobs at my house in France and I said to Steve: "How is it that for a person who cares about the way things look and feel more than anyone else in the world that iTunes looks like a spreadsheet?" Burn. He was not happy. That was before they managed to even get a full screen photograph up. So he made a promise to me that we would work on this together, and with the team at Apple we've been doing it for years, and it's not ready yet for Songs of Innocence, it will be ready for Songs of Experience. And it's very exciting. And it's a new format, and you can still get the Mp3 format, and you can rob it or whatever you want but you won't be getting the full experience. It'd be like you walking down the streets in Dublin in the 70s with a copy of the Rolling Stones album Sticky Fingers; just the vinyl, and not the Andy Warhol designed sleeve. You wouldn't feel like like you had the proper package. Another interesting tidbit: Bono gave us an update as to the total number of iTunes accounts. The last time we received an official figure from Apple was this past April during an earnings conference call when Tim Cook boasted of 800 million accounts. According to Bono, that number today stands at 885 million. And while we have no confirmation from Apple, it stands to reason that Bono, thanks to U2's recent deal with Apple, is likely to be aware of the most up-to-date figure. "They have 885 million iTunes accounts," Bono told Fanning, "and we're going to help them get that number to a billion." Bono ventured on to discuss the music streaming business model, emphasizing that it's a great way to get musicians paid for their work. [One billion users is] 1/7 of the earth's population. If 1/10 of those people were to be part of a subscription service like Spotify has, and I'm a huge Spotify fan, at $10 a month... Do the math. That's a billion a month. That's $12 billion dollars. That's bigger than the entire music business coming out of one company. Even if it was 5%, now musicians are suddenly in a game that people are ready to pay for, their lives are changed. And forget about touring bands, what about the songwriters? Cole Porter, where would he be now? He didn't sell t-shirts... so that thing that U2 is for free music is bollocks or people who are too blind to read the newspaper properly. On the streaming front, we're still waiting to see how Apple plans to integrate Beats Music into its product lineup. Most recently, an Apple TV update introduced a new Beats Music channel but aside from that there's been no news. Now what would really be interesting is if Apple introduced the aforementioned enhanced album features as part of a $10/month Beats Music subscription. That might be a great way to not only attract new users but to get Spotify users to defect -- a tall task given how many people are used to Spotify and absolutely love the service. As a final point, Bono discussed briefly why U2 enjoys collaborating with Apple, specifically pointing out that Apple, more so than any other tech company, is concerned with ensuring that musicians are getting paid for their work.
How to get the new U2 album 'Songs of Innocence' out of your iTunes
Apple capped its iPhone 6 & Apple Watch launch event last week by announcing it would give away copies of a brand-new U2 album to all iTunes users -- but some people aren't happy about it. In apparently shocking news to the folks from Cupertino, not every single person in the world is a fan of the Irish rock band. Many were upset when the album suddenly appeared in their iTunes library, and, depending on a user's settings, sometimes downloaded itself onto mobile devices. There is a way to hide albums from view in iTunes, but if you just can't live with Songs of Innocence being tied to your account, Apple has pushed out a tool to eradicate it from your account forever. Go to this webpage, click remove album, enter your account info and poof -- it's gone, although you may still need to delete any downloaded copies. We hope next time Apple will ask before shoving a new LP into our libraries -- unless it's Detox.
Apple launches a special page just to help you delete that U2 album
During the iPhone 6 announcement event Apple announced a special surprise for every iTunes user -- a free copy of U2's new album before it was available outside iTunes. It was supposed to make people happy and excited, but many users were upset to discover an album they didn't purchase show up in their iTunes without their permission. Some users were just ticked off to now have a U2 album on their computer, regardless of how it got there. They just wanted to know "how can you delete Songs of Innocence from my computer?" Apple has heard the cries of these users and created a special page that will allow you to easily delete the album from your iTunes. The simple launch page features almost no graphics, simply the minimalist album cover, text, and a "Remove Album" button. It's a sad page, with the air of disappointment to it. A desolate reminder that haters are going to hate, and privacy is still incredibly important to iOS users. Gifts are wonderful. They just don't want someone putting them in their house without their knowledge.
How much did Apple pay to give U2's new album away for free?
Apple and U2 have had a close relationship for a long time, and to help top off Apple's iPhone and Watch media event this past Tuesday, the band flew in from across the Atlantic to play a set for attendees at the Flint Conference Center. Even more impressive is that Apple is providing U2's new album -- Songs of Innocence -- to 500 million iTunes users across 119 countries for free. For free. Even if you're not a U2 fan you can't deny that this is a helluva gesture from Apple. More interesting, though, is how much did Apple have to pay U2 and their label to convince them to forgo traditional sales channels and instead opt to release a brand new album -- their first in 5 years -- for free. The New York Times relays that the deal was anything but cheap: To release U2's album free, Apple paid the band and Universal an unspecified fee as a blanket royalty and committed to a marketing campaign for the band worth up to $100 million, according to several people briefed on the deal. That marketing will include a global television campaign, the first piece of which was a commercial that was shown during the event. Bono, U2's lead singer, alluded to the deal himself at Apple's event. After the band performed, he and Mr. Cook playfully negotiated over how the album could be released through iTunes "in five seconds." Mr. Cook said it could if the album was given away free. "But first you would have to pay for it," Bono said, "because we're not going in for the free music around here." If there's one thing Apple has in spades, it's cold hard cash.
Business side of Apple's exclusive launch of U2's 'Songs of Innocence' album
As part of its iPhone and Watch unveiling, Apple also released U2's "Songs of Innocence" album for free to all its iTunes users. Though U2 will benefit from Apple's promotion of its latest release, the band is not giving its album away for free. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Apple that is footing the bill for this massive release in a carefully negotiated business deal. Using the influence of Jimmy Iovine and leveraging its traditionally close relationship with U2, Apple likely had the negotiating clout to forge a favorable deal for the U2 release. The Cupertino company reportedly is paying Universal Music Group a lump sum, below wholesale prices, for the right to distribute the album as an iTunes exclusive for the next five weeks. As part of the agreement, Apple also will use a track from the album as part of a $100 million television advertising program for its new iPhone 6 and Watch devices. U2 debuted this favored single, "The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)," as the closing act for Apple's announcement event. While Apple promotes the "Songs of Innocence" release through iTunes and TV, Universal will capitalize on this free advertising to promote U2's earlier albums, which are facing declining sales. In the end, iTunes users get a free album, U2 gets some free advertising and Apple gets to boast about the Biggest Album Release Ever in History.
