itunes
Latest
Apple gifts U2's latest 'Songs of Innocence' album to millions of iTunes users
U2 took to the stage of the Flint Center and closed out Apple's big iPhone and Watch event. The band debuted a track from its latest album titled "Songs of Innocence." As part of this release, Apple is gifting the 11-song album to all its iTunes customers, making it the biggest iTunes album release ever. "U2 has been an important part of Apple's history in music and we're thrilled to make 'Songs of Innocence' the largest album release ever," said Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. "We get to share our love of music today by gifting this great new album to over half a billion iTunes customers around the world." Current iTunes users and those who sign up for the service in the next five weeks will receive the album for free. It also will be available to stream via iTunes Radio and will be released on Apple's recently acquired Beats Music service. Show full PR text Apple & U2 Release "Songs of Innocence" Exclusively for iTunes Store Customers Biggest Album Release Ever in History-Gifted to Over Half a Billion Music Fans by Apple CUPERTINO, California-September 9, 2014-Apple®, Universal Music Group and legendary rock band U2 today announced the release of the album "Songs of Innocence," which Apple is gifting to iTunes Store® customers around the world, making it the largest album release ever with over half a billion copies distributed. The album features 11 new songs from the band and charts their earliest influences from 70s rock and punk rock to early 80s electronica and soul. The album is free for iTunes Store account holders in 119 countries and is available exclusively on iTunes® for the next five weeks. "From the very beginning U2 have always wanted our music to reach as many people as possible, the clue is in our name I suppose-so today is kind of mind-blowing to us. The most personal album we've written could be shared with half a billion people... by hitting send. If only songwriting was that easy," said U2 lead singer Bono. "It's exciting and humbling to think that people who don't know U2 or listen to rock music for that matter might check us out. Working with Apple is always a blast. They only want to do things that haven't been done before-that's a thrill to be part of." "U2 has been an important part of Apple's history in music and we're thrilled to make 'Songs of Innocence' the largest album release ever," said Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. "We get to share our love of music today by gifting this great new album to over half a billion iTunes customers around the world." "Songs of Innocence" features 11 new songs from the band and is their most personal work to date, charting their earliest influences from 70s rock and punk rock to early 80s electronica and soul and giving insight into how and why the band came together and the relationships in and around them, their family and friendships. Recorded in New York, London, Los Angeles and Dublin the album is produced by Danger Mouse, along with Paul Epworth, Ryan Tedder, Declan Gaffney and Flood. Apple is gifting "Songs of Innocence" to iTunes Store account holders.* Customers who sign up for an iTunes Store account in the next five weeks will get the album as a gift. "Songs of Innocence" is also available to stream via iTunes Radio℠ and will be available on Beats Music℠. Apple and U2 share a special connection in music. U2 was an important partner for the opening of the iTunes Store in 2003. Apple worked with U2 on the iPod® U2 Special Edition and created "The Complete U2" box set together. U2 continues to be one of the most popular bands ever on the iTunes Store. Apple has partnered with Bono and (RED) to fight for an AIDS-free generation by creating (PRODUCT)RED merchandise. More than $75 million has been generated by Apple for the Global Fund. * "Songs of Innocence" is available to iTunes Store customers in the 119 countries featuring a music store, with an active account, and who are 13 years or older (or the equivalent minimum age in the relevant jurisdiction). Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.
Hands on with Voice Dream's ebook narration
As the school year heads back into session, many students have a lot of new reading on their plate. Parents whose children struggle with assigned books might be considering ways to augment that material. Over the summer, Amazon regularly offered to add Audible narrations to assigned reading titles for my kids. For example, I purchased E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime for US$9.99 (pre-tax) and picked up its companion audio track for just $4.99. The normal price is $9.95 on iTunes. The audio cassettes, incidentally, sell from $138.45, not including shipping. I needed to lend her my iPad 2 to access the Kindle app/voice integration (it is not available for releases that run on the original iPad), but on the whole it was a successful experiment. With that experience in mind, I decided to investigate more automated solutions. Voice Dream Reader ($9.99, additional voices available with in-app purchases) represents one of the better-reviewed text-to-speech apps currently available in the App Store. I obtained a promo copy and tested out excerpts from several books. At the suggestion of the developer, I tried both the default built-in voice and a purchased upgrade, the $4.99 Salli voice from Ivona. The upgraded voice was clearly superior to the default, with better intonation and inflection. And yet, despite that, each of the testers had difficulty listening to long-form reading material. No matter how excellent the synthesis, a lack of human performance really impacted the comprehension and enjoyment of text. I suspect this is a learning process, and one that our short testing framework could not accommodate, as visually impaired readers do quite well with synthesized material. However, for augmenting reading for learning, my real-world trials had me more focused on the synthesis of the speech than its content. My testers agreed. For them, the mechanical dictation became a distraction rather than a supplement. I found the app very well made. It easily imported the non-DRM ebooks I downloaded from Safari and added through Dropbox integration. Support for each book's table of contents made it simple to navigate to the portion I wanted to read, and word-by-word highlighting helped reinforce the content / audio integration. I suspect Voice Dream would work best for short material and for those who have trained themselves to efficiently process automated speech. As for my commute and my children's reading, the Audible tracks remain the winners, but I'm glad I was able to give the app a good try. For those who can best take advantage of automated text-to-voice, it seems to offer a solid choice.
Apple expands its musician lineup for 2014 iTunes Festival in London
Apple today announced that it has added several more artists to its upcoming iTunes Festival in London. The month-long music show will feature musicians such as Lenny Kravitz, David Gray and Jessie Ware along with the previously announced artists such as Maroon 5 and Pharrell Williams. Tickets for the festival are available via lottery and through local radio station promotions. Music fans also can watch the event remotely through the Apple TV, the iTunes festival iOS app (UK store) and iTunes on the desktop. The concerts will be held at be The Roundhouse starting in September. [Via The Guardian]
New music royalty rates may cost Apple
A pair of organizations representing music artists is pushing for the U.S. government to give the music industry more freedom in deciding what to charge for music, AppleInsider reports. In turn, streaming services like Apple's iTunes Radio and the newly acquired Beats Music could feel a bit of a pinch if rising prices leave too small a margin. Royalties on music are going through some growing pains at the moment, and really ever since streaming music services became the norm. Many of the current standards have been in place for decades, and long before the idea of on-demand music was even conceivable. A reworking of the laws in place is probably a good thing on all fronts, but how it could affect current streaming services remains to be seen.
Run, Forrest! Run to iTunes!
Run Forrest Run, the video game tie-in to the 1994 movie Forrest Gump, has made its way to Greenbow, Alabama - and the rest of the United States as well. Previously limited to the New Zealand App Store, Run Forrest Run has now been released stateside, allowing US residents to partake in the fun of an endless runner themed around a 20-year old film (or 28-year old novel, if you're of the opinion that the books are always better than the movies). [Image: Genera Mobile]
Elite: Dangerous prepares for beta 2, official app release
With Elite: Dangerous' first beta test now a thing of the past, it's time for the team to reflect and prepare for the next round of hot plasma space action. In today's newsletter, the team reports that it saw players from 122 countries in beta 1, with 4.2 million light years travelled collectively. The devs are working hard on beta 2, saying, "The key areas of focus for development now is extending the online mission system to deliver a compelling experience, the accessibility of the game for those that haven't been intimately involved in its evolution like our alpha and premium beta backers, and of course vast quantities of new content, polish, and optimizations." In other news, the official app for Elite: Dangerous will be available soon on the iTunes Store with an Android release to follow. Also, players excited for the game can get together at FantastiCon in the UK on August 16th, where Elite will be shown on the Oculus Rift and the team will be there to hobnob with fans.
Mega Man Soundtrack volumes on iTunes, Amazon, more soon
Tired of humming songs from the NES Mega Man games to yourself? If a particular tune from Mega Man 1-5 won't stop knocking around your skull, you can now jam away to the real deal by grabbing volumes of the Mega Man Soundtrack, available via iTunes for $9.99 - 10.99 and Amazon from $7.99 - 8.99. And hey, at least this way your neighbors will be hearing the full song. These volumes offer both NES and PS1 versions of some tracks, though not all are included in both styles. If your preferred Mega Man tracks do not fall in the above spectrum, there's still hope: Capcom Unity's Brelston notes that music from numerical games up to Mega Man 10 are planned to arrive "through the end of the year." [Image: Capcom]
Dawn of the Immortals drops a launch trailer
If you've been looking forward to Dawn of the Immortals, we've got half of good news for you. The game has launched on the iTunes store for potential players using iPhones or iPads. If you're using an Android device, though, you're going to have to wait just a little bit longer. Halfway to good news, then. But it's still reason enough for the game to put out a launch trailer. Dawn of the Immortals sells itself as a fully 3D MMO on your phone or tablet, with an emphasis on action combat and a customizable pet system. If that sounds like something you'd like to carry along with you, jump past the break and check the game out on iTunes.
Apple's new online content network should deliver your files faster
If you're an iOS or Mac user, your downloads and streams are going to improve in the near future -- if they haven't already. Apple has quietly switched on its own content delivery network (CDN), letting it deliver files directly instead of leaning on services from Akamai and Level 3. The change gives the folks in Cupertino a ton of headroom, according to Frost & Sullivan analyst Dan Rayburn. In addition to offering "multiple terabits per second" of bandwidth, Apple has clearly struck Netflix-like connection deals that link it directly to internet providers. If all goes well, you should get speedy app updates and media streams even when the internet is extra-busy.
Instagram quietly (and slowly) launches Snapchat rival, Bolt
We knew Instagram's effort to nab a bit of Snapchat's thunder was imminent thanks to leaked promo banners, and now, the app has officially arrived... for some. Bolt, the filter-driven photo app's own ephemeral messenger has hit iTunes and Google Play for folks in Singapore, South Africa and New Zealand. The software's claim to fame is speed: instead of having to fiddle through a series of options, tapping a contact's picture both captures and sends a photo -- no further swiping required (tap and hold records video). So long as they're in your favorites list, of course. There's also an undo feature that allows you to retrieve a message in the first few seconds by shaking your phone. While Bolt doesn't require a Facebook or Instagram account, you will have to sign up with your phone number for sorting through your contacts. For now though, most of us have to find solace in just reading about it, since a select few locales are privy to the initial rollout. Instagram's word on that particular strategy is situated after the break.
Apple announces details for 2014 London iTunes Festival
Apple today announced the details for its eighth annual London iTunes Festival, which will be held this September at the Roundhouse. Over 60 performers will be present at the 30-day event and include Maroon 5, Pharrell Williams, Beck, Sam Smith, Blondie, Chrissie Hynde and more. Tickets are available for free and distributed via competitions or giveaways held by Apple and local media partners. Music fans that are unable to win a ticket can watch the festival performances via a live or an on-demand stream using an iOS device, an Apple TV or a Mac via iTunes. You can view additional details on the event at Apple's iTunes Festival website. Show full PR text Apple Announces Eighth Annual iTunes Festival in London iTunes Festival Returns to the Legendary Roundhouse for 30 Days with the World's Biggest Artists Including Maroon 5, Pharrell Williams, Beck, Sam Smith, Blondie, Kylie, David Guetta, 5 Seconds of Summer, Calvin Harris, Chrissie Hynde & Many More LONDON―July 21, 2014―Apple® today announced that Maroon 5, Pharrell Williams, Beck, Sam Smith, Blondie, Kylie, David Guetta, 5 Seconds of Summer, Calvin Harris, Chrissie Hynde and many more of the world's biggest artists will be headlining this year's iTunes® Festival. Returning to the UK for an eighth year―following a week of incredible live performances in March at SXSW―the iTunes Festival will feature over 60 acts throughout September at the legendary Roundhouse. iTunes performances can be watched live or on-demand by millions of iOS users around the world on their iPhone®, iPad® or iPod touch® and iTunes on their computer or in stunning HD with Apple TV®. Tickets are free for competition winners only. "The iTunes Festival in London is back with another stunning line-up of world class performers and tremendous new acts," said Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. "These live shows capture the heart and soul of iTunes and we love bringing them to our customers in the Roundhouse, as well as to the millions of people watching all over the world for free." Music fans from across the world can win tickets to the iTunes Festival through competitions run by local media partners. In the UK, fans can win tickets by entering ballots on iTunes, as well as through select media partners including Global Radio and the London Evening Standard. Since the inaugural Festival at London's Institute for Contemporary Arts in 2007, over 430 artists have performed in front of more than 430,000 fans and tens of millions more online and on-demand. Now in its eighth year, the iTunes Festival has played host to performers including Adele, Coldplay, Elton John, Foo Fighters, Justin Timberlake, Kings of Leon, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Muse, Sir Paul McCartney and many, many more. For updates, tickets and additional information, please visit: www.iTunesFestival.com, or join the conversation @iTunesfestival and #iTunesfestival. Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.
Apple lines up Pharrell, Maroon 5, Blondie and more for 2014 iTunes Festival
Apple may have broken from tradition to bring an iTunes Festival to the US earlier in the year, but that didn't mean it wouldn't spoil us Brits with another month-long series of concerts. As in previous years, Apple has gone hard, bringing another healthy lineup of music stars, including Pharrell, Maroon 5, Kasabian, Sam Smith, David Guetta, Calvin Harris and over 50 other bands and singers to Camden's iconic Roundhouse venue in September. Those concerts will be streamed live online, with fans from over 100 countries able to view them from their computer, iPhone, iPad, iPod and also via their Apple TV boxes. If you live locally, you can, of course, also apply to watch your favourite act live, as Apple is handing out tickets as part of a traditional online lottery. To enter, fill in your details at the source link below or lookout for special promotions on Global Radio or in the Evening Standard paper.
Paul McCartney banks on apps, not albums
Paul McCartney went through a rift with streaming services, but the former Beatle has been always been keen to keep his albums available on iTunes. Now, Sir Paul is following a growing trend for releases and reissues: apps. Five of McCartney's classic albums (Band on the Run, McCartney, McCartney II, RAM and Wings over America) are now available as iPad apps, complete with bonus material. On top of the extra videos, photos, interviews and remastered tracks, the standalone downloads are priced at $7.99 -- $5 less than the regular deluxe versions. Of course, you'll have to contend with streaming the tracks through each app rather than hopping around the complete set in your mobile library. The move is nothing new though, as Lady Gaga, Björk and others have taken a similar route with companion software and added content. It's no secret that artists are having a hard time paying the bills from record sales, so packaging music as paid apps seems a tactic to fill the void. [Photo credit: Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images]
iTunes Pass links your credit to iOS' Passbook app (update: now available in the US)
Scratch-cards are fun. Inputting lengthy serial codes, less so. We're not sure why Apple's testing this out in Japan first, but iTunes Pass marks another effort in the direction towards smoothing mobile payments -- something that country knows plenty about. Spotted on Apple's Japanese iTunes page by 9to5Mac, the company describes how users can now deposit money directly to their iTunes account inside bricks-and-mortar stores. Apple sales assistants will scan the Passbook card (seen above) and the payment will go through then and there, ready to be used instantly. The Passbook app can already be installed from the iOS iTunes Store app in Japan and as 9to5Mac notes, with only eight stores, the country could be the easiest way to gauge the service before deciding whether to take it global. Oh yeah, and it's completely different to Apple's 2009 iTunes Pass. Update: The new Passbook card has now appeared in the US.
iTunes Extras now available on Apple TV, will launch with iOS 8 in the fall
Apple's iTunes Extras feature has offered customers a behind-the-scenes look at rented movies for some time, but up until now it only existed on the desktop. Thanks to an update that went out today, you'll now be able to view iTunes Extras on your Apple TV. To get the additional content, your device must be running software version 6.2, which was released last week. The iTunes Extras material, including deleted scenes, images and director's commentary, will automatically be added to your previously purchased HD movies. Additionally, movie studios will now be able to add more content to extras at any time. This update is good news for film buffs who use Apple's set-top box, but it still leaves iPhones, iPads and iPods devices out in the cold. That will change when the company releases iOS 8 this fall, though, so iTunes Extras is slowly making its way to every important platform.
The TUAW Daily Update Podcast for July 10, 2014
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get some the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the player at the top of the page. The Daily Update has been moved to a new podcast host in the past few days. Current listeners should delete the old podcast subscription and subscribe to the new feed in the iTunes Store here.
iTunes U on iPad will let teachers create courses and take your questions
Right now, iTunes U on the iPad isn't a complete educational tool. You can read textbooks, but not much else -- you still need to use old-fashioned email to ask the teacher a question, for example. It's going to be much more useful on July 8th, when Apple releases a major overhaul to the app. The new iTunes U lets teachers create and manage courses entirely from the iPad, plucking source material from other apps and even the device's camera. Students, meanwhile, get some much-needed interaction -- you can now ask questions from the app, or join in class discussions.
On T-Mobile, you can now stream music without hurting your data plan
Streaming music on your phone would be fantastic -- if it weren't for all those pesky data caps. T-Mobile's latest UnCarrier move addresses this particular pain point: Starting today, you'll be able to listen to all of your favorite jams on popular streaming music services without it counting against your data plan. The catch? It's limited to a few of the most popular offerings, such as Pandora, Spotify, iTunes Radio, iHeartRadio, Slacker, Rhapsody and Samsung's Milk Music. T-Mobile exec Andrew Sherrard explained that the aforementioned services encompass 85 percent of what users listen to, so the list covers the vast majority of the carrier's consumers. That said, Sherrard said that the company plans to reach out for feedback via a social media campaign, so make your voice heard if you're interested in getting services like Rdio or Google Play Music added to the list. If your favorite program is included, feel free to start filling up those playlists to your heart's content.
When Apple in 2000 quickly shifted its focus to music
If you pay attention to the cynics out there, Apple's $3.2 billion acquisition of Beats reeks of desperation. Apple, the argument goes, completely missed the boat on streaming music and is now just grasping at straws with Beats in a last ditch effort to reclaim musical relevancy. Some even take things further, arguing that Apple's acquisition of Beats is nothing more than a lame attempt to up the company's cool factor. In truth, Apple's acquisition of Beats reflects highly on Tim Cook and Apple's executive team insofar that it underscores the company's tacit admission that 1) the music industry is changing drastically and rapidly and 2) that previous efforts to fight subscriptions with iTunes Radio and various iTunes exclusives just aren't enough. Sure, Apple could have been more in tune with the rise of Spotify. And sure, iTunes Radio was a bit too little too late. But Apple's strength doesn't lie in its ability to never make a mistake, but rather in its ability to recognize mistakes and completely change course when necessary. So it goes with subscription music, a service Steve Jobs spoke of derisively for years on end. Apple today can't ignore the growing impact of streaming services and it's going all in with its largest corporate acquisition to date. Notably, this isn't the first time the company has pulled an about-face rather suddenly. Indeed, Apple's first foray into music with iTunes and the iPod is in some ways analagous to Apple's Beats acquisition. Philip Elmer-DeWitt referenced this a few weeks ago, directing us to an interesting and informative podcast from Ben Thompson of Stratechery. The year was 1999. Steve Jobs was on stage at Macworld introducing the latest iMac with Firewire, Quicktime and iMovie. He told the faithful that iMovie was going to be to the Mac what desktop publishing had been 15 years earlier. Internally, the whole company -- hardware, software, marketing -- was aligned with making Macs the best computers for making home movies. Fast forward 14 months and Jobs is on stage telling the faithful he has a new vision for the Mac. It's called the Digital Hub, and it's going to start not with movies but with music. Notably, Thompson (as a graduate business student) spent a summer as an intern at Apple University where he studied this particular strategy shift in detail, talking to a number of the key people involved in the process. According to Thompson, the rise of Napster caught Jobs off guard and had him scared that the company might have missed the boat on music entirely. "It was one of the scariest moments of Jobs' comeback at Apple", Thompson explained. "He realized, 'Crap! This ought to be Apple's domain.'" "So Apple completely changed everything," Thompson added. "They took all these people off of iMovie. They reorganized everyone. All the stars from iMovie got demoted. There was a ton of internal upheaval... and they went out and bought SoundJam. They didn't have time to build their own. The market need was so pressing they went out and bought something and adapted it." The end result, of course, was an incredible string of successes. The iPod was released in 2001 and once it became Windows compatible in 2003, the entire digital music industry exploded with Apple reaping the bulk of the profits and acclaim. It remains to be seen how Apple plans to integrate Beats Music into the fold, but if history is any indication, Apple never succeeds by being the first, but by being the best.
Apple managers reportedly ignored Spotify, even as engineers preferred it over iTunes
A recently published Buzzfeed article sheds some light on the circumstances that led to Apple's recent US$3 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics. As the story goes, even Apple engineers working on iTunes preferred using services like Spotify while the higher-ups at Apple were somewhat oblivious to and perhaps dismissive of the service's growing popularity. Past and current employees in the company with direct knowledge of iTunes and Apple's services Ping and iTunes Radio told BuzzFeed that Apple engineers involved with those products often preferred to use Spotify and Pandora. "Everyone's excuse was it's because we work on iTunes, running and closing the app after every code change," one source said. "But it's really because Spotify has all the free music with a real social platform." In their personal time, sources said, employees used Spotify and Pandora. The reason offered for Apple's willful disregard of music competitors is one we've heard many times before -- the money coming coming in from the iTunes spigot was flowing, so why mess with the status quo? And in a piece of the story that may very well be hyperbolic, one of Buzfeed's sources relayed that some members of Apple's upper management "...didn't even know that Spotify was an on-demand streaming service", instead assuming it was a radio service à la Pandora. What's also interesting is the claim that Apple's experiment with Ping ultimately failed because Apple wasn't interested in creating a music network but rather in rolling out a "purchase pusher." Indeed, Apple's iTunes Radio appears to have been created in a similar vein. Though Eddy Cue recently said that iTunes Radio has tens of millions of listeners, the service has reportedly not resulted in as many song purchases as Apple was hoping. Not helping matters is the service's less-than-stellar UI and a weaker song recommendation engine than Pandora. Recommendations have been a problem for Apple and iTunes. According to a source familiar with the development of iTunes Radio, Apple thought it could use a consumer's iTunes purchase history to determine what they'd want to listen to on iTunes Radio. Employees agreed that Apple didn't seem to have an interest in how the song collections created by iTunes Radio sounded, or whether they were cohesive. As a result, users trying to create an iTunes station of '90s hip-hop might end up hearing a song more than once, or some random show tunes and country songs, culled from their recent, sporadic purchases. Nonetheless, and almost comically, Buzfeed's sources claim that some folks within Apple believed "iTunes would be a Spotify killer" while simultaneously dismissing Pandora as a viable threat as well. In acquiring Beats, Apple presumably intent on pole-vaulting back into the spotlight as a music provider that matters. If Buzzfeed's sources regarding Apple's bizarre obliviousness to Spotify and its lukewarm efforts with iTunes Radio are in fact true, the Beats acquisition increasingly looks like one Apple had to make, if only to bring on board a team that knows the music business inside and out. Over and above that, Apple also gets an on-demand subscription service that, at the very least, is just as good as Spotify. It remains to be seen how Apple plans to integrate Beats into the Apple ecosystem, but if history is any indication, Apple should focus more on creating a compelling subscription service and less on leveraging Beats solely to increase digital downloads. Having said that, it stands to reason that having Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine on board all but ensures Apple won't make the same mistakes it made with Ping and iTunes Radio again.
