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Mauritius to Apple: Thanks for the iPhones, can we haz iTunes Store?
Recently, the people of the island republic of Mauritius have been able to purchase the iPhone 3G and 3GS through mobile phone provider Orange, but there's one major problem -- there's no access to an iTunes Store. This brings back memories of the original iPhone, when there was no iTunes Store to tempt iPhone owners with its wares. Can you imagine? No apps, no songs, and no videos for purchase directly from your phone? It boggles the mind. Here at TUAW, we're doing our part for the "Free the iTunes Store" movement in Mauritius. Reader Marc, who works for Mauritian Apple reseller Paoma, notes "Thousands of iPhones, no Apps! We are hoping to get Apple to take notice and include us. A Facebook page has been set up to document the movement and we have already been featured in many leading French-language Apple blogs." Well, Marc, now you have a leading English-language Apple blog taking up the cause as well. If you'd like to help iPhone users in Mauritius get their own iTunes Store, consider visiting the Facebook page and joining their group.
Donate to the Red Cross Haiti relief effort via iTunes
The people of Haiti are enduring the devastating catastrophe brought about by this week's earthquake. Relief is finally beginning to arrive but there is an overwhelming amount of work to do. You can support the American Red Cross by making a donation through the iTunes Store. it's quite easy: Just navigate to the donation page [iTunes link] and select the amount you'd like to send. Donation options range from $5US to $200. The Store confirms that 100% of your donation will go to The American Red Cross. Your iTunes Store account will be charged as necessary. Please do what you can to support the emergency relief efforts.
Apple adds 30-second samples to browser-based iTunes previews
Last November, Apple launched browser-based iTunes previews, which gave customers information on a song or artist before pushing them out to the iTunes Store. It's a handy, welcome change. And now this week, they've added 30-second song samples to those preview pages (check it out). Just as you do in the store, you can hear any track's sample by clicking the small "Play" button that appears when you mouse over its name. There has been speculation about the future of a streaming-based version of iTunes since Apple bought Lala in November. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that LaLa executives have been given key roles at Apple, and that members of the existing iTunes team will report to them. While playing with the new previews today, we explored the page's source for any hints of Lala, but found nothing. However, we did come across something interesting. Turns out you can easily turn any 30-second preview into an iPhone-compatible ringtone, and you don't even need GarageBand. First, find a snippet you're interested in. Then view the page's source. Scroll down until you see something that starts: audio-preview-url="http://a1.phobos.apple.com/us/r1000/016/Music/3a/7b/83/mzm.ekrigiqi.aac.p.m4a" Copy the URL (minus the quotes) and paste it into Safari's Downloads window. You'll get a file with a name similar to: "/mzm.ekrigiqi.aac.p.m4a" Now, replace ".aac.p.m4a" with ".m4r," drop it into iTunes and sync. You've got a new ringtone! Of course, you can't choose the 30 seconds you hear, and that use probably isn't intended by Apple. But if the preview happens to be what you want, there you go. [Via Mac Rumors]
Mac 101: Purchase a file in iTunes for someone else
The iTunes Store and App Store have mastered the art of the impulse purchase. "Only two bucks? Sure, why not?" The good news is that you can send a song, album, movie or TV show to a friend just as easily. Let's start with music. First, find the album or song you'd like to send. If you're sending a song, you'll see a drop-down arrow next to the track's "Buy" button. Click it to reveal the menu at right, then select "Gift this song." You're brought to a new screen (in the gallery below). From there you only need to enter some information, click continue and you're done! Your recipient will receive a nice email message with a download link. The process is the same for albums, individual TV shows, audiobooks (though the "Gift this audiobook" looks different) and movies. Note that you can't gift entire TV seasons (bummer) or iPhone/iPod touch apps. However, you can opt to share a link to an interesting app. With the app selected, click the same drop-down button to reveal the "Tell a Friend" option. The same is true of Podcasts - hit that "Tell a Friend" button to let everyone know what you're listening to. With just a few clicks, you can share your favorite content with anyone you want! %Gallery-81392%
The App Store Expense Monitor: Be scared. Be very scared.
I know that we're between Christmas and New Years, but it seemed more like Halloween when I checked out The App Store Expense Monitor from WetFish Software. It scared the Yuletide right out of me, taking me from Ho Ho Ho to OMG No!!! This free Mac application looks into your iTunes library, finds the apps you bought under all iTunes accounts on your computer, searches for the current prices of the app, and then gives you the bad news in some detail. It's scary how all those innocent little $.99 US charges add up, but it might not be as bad as it seems. Regardless of what you paid for an app, the Monitor finds the current price and uses it to total up your cost. If you have a bunch of apps that you got when they were free and they were later were changed to a paying basis, your total won't be accurate. That should be okay for most people. But if you want to make your accounting perfect, and you remember what you really paid for an app, you can edit the prices; quite a nice feature. It's also possible to also export the information to a .CSV file for viewing in a spreadsheet, which would be a very nice feature if it actually worked. The program tells you that you can sort the information ranked by developer, name, category or price, but in actuality, your resulting spreadsheet file is two columns wide with most of the information jammed into column A. Not very useful... Update: The output CSV file appears to use semicolons as delimiters, as pointed out below, rather than the commas that are customary in the US. Adjusting your import settings to match will improve your results. In setting up the App Store Expense Monitor, I found another stitch dropped in the attention to detail department. The program expects to find your apps in the ~/Music/iTunes/Mobile Applications folder, which is not where they live in the current version of iTunes. You'll need to change the path to point to the ~/Music/iTunes Music/Mobile Applications folder. That's not the biggest deal, but an oversight like this should have been caught and corrected, even in a free program. Update: Sorry for any confusion over the paths noted above. It looks like it's my machine that is idiosyncratic, as our commenters and my fellow bloggers report that the first path is indeed correct on their machines. Regardless of the minor glitches, the App Store Expense Monitor is still quite useful in giving you an idea of what you spent on all your apps, while affording you a reality check on the implications of tapping that Buy Now button. [via lifehacker]
Apple's 12 Days of Christmas iPhone app
As we reported last week, Apple is again rolling out their '12 Days of Christmas' promo for almost all of Europe. From December 26 to January 6 anyone with a iTunes account in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, Finland, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, and Ireland can download a free song, music video, app, television show, or film from 'some of the biggest star performers' on iTunes. To help you remember to download the daily giveaway, Apple has created a '12 Days of Christmas' iPhone app [UK iTunes link]. It uses push notifications to alert you when the new download is available and also allows you to connect to Facebook and recommend the download to your friends. So if you live in Europe, get downloading! The promo starts December 26th, but the app is available now!
iTunes U breaks 100 million downloads
Apple's iTunes U has broken the 100 million download mark. iTunes U is a part of the iTunes Store featuring free lectures, language lessons, audiobooks, and more from over 175 higher education organizations including Princeton University, UCLA, Harvard University, MIT, NYU Medical School, Oxford, Cambridge, Georgetown, DePaul, Duke, and Yale University. According to Apple, one of the most popular universities on iTunes U has been Open University (iTunes link), the UK-based educational organization dedicated to distance learning whose programs include Arts and Humanities, Business and Management, Childhood and Youth, Health and Social Care, Law, Psychology, and Science. OU says they have around 150,000 undergraduate and more than 30,000 postgraduate students. In related news, if you've never watched Steve Jobs' Stanford University commencement speech give it a download [iTunes link]. It's emotional, it's raw, and it's when he revealed to the world he had cancer. You can also read the text of his speech here.
Apple allows Google to use Lala
We're not sure how Apple plans to utilize its recent acquisition of Lala, but BusinessWeek reports today that Apple does plan to let Google keep utilizing the service. Google unveiled its own music search service in late October, which is backed by Lala. "We have enjoyed a good relationship with Apple for many years, and that continues to be the case," R.J. Pittman, Google director of product management, told BusinessWeek. "We are agreeing to continue to leave the service as it is." An Apple spokesman declined to comment to BusinessWeek regarding the issue. There is already speculation that Apple's Lala purchase could lead to a web-streaming model for iTunes, which would directly compete with Google's service.
Apple introduces discounted iTunes movie bundles
The iPhone Blog reveals that Movie Bundles [iTunes link] are now available through the iTunes Store. This sort of feature has been available for years in brick and mortar stores, where you can buy two more more related movies packaged together at a discount. They start out at $9.99USD with the most expensive being $34.99USD for an HD action pack of Jason Statham movies. The bundles are also available in the Canadian iTunes Store as well. [Via MacRumors]
All about the new, improved App Store in iTunes 9.0.2
Our eagle-eyed blogger David Winograd sent out a breaking news post Friday night to let all of you know that there were changes afoot in the iTunes App Store. Sure enough, those changes appear to have migrated through most, if not all, apps by now. In my opinion, the new design makes more sense in the overall iTunes 9.0.2 layout than the "old" design did. The app icon is now very large (blue highlight in above screenshot), so apps with poorly designed icons will need to be retooled by developers in order to create something that grabs potential purchasers with one glance. The app screenshots in the old version of iTunes were apparently confusing to a surprising number of users. The new design now shows two or three full screenshots of each app in action (see yellow highlight above), with a visible scroll bar at the bottom of the screenshots indicating whether the user can scroll to the side to see more. The old version simply showed one screenshot and required clicking on the picture to move to the next screen image.
Something's changing in the iTunes App Store
Jason Grossman, author of Irene's Spirit, just tipped us that the look of the iTunes App store seems to be changing. At least that's the case for his app, and we'll be keeping an eye out to see if the rest of the store follows suit. Instead of the gray background with descriptions on the right and pictures that can be clicked upon to change the picture, now the background is white, the pictures are all displayed using a scroll bar, with the review summary on the left and, as usual, reviews at the bottom. Now to get the description of the app, you click on a More button on the right of the screen that brings up the author's description, and which devices and OS are required. Let us know, in the comments, if you see others magically changing.
Apple provides a Holiday Sampler for free
Hard to believe anyone who does the Christmas thing would be lacking in basic music like Silent Night or We Wish You a Merry Christmas, but do you have Sarah McLachlan or Weezer singing your carols? Now's your chance to pick up those classics for the low, low price of nothing on the iTunes store now. Here's the link to the iTunes store and here's a nifty web-based page to peep the list. Go, download, drink some eggnog, warm your toes by the fire and try to have a happy holiday! Update: yeah, US-only, it seems. Update 2: commenter below says UK also! The rest of you get a virtual lump of coal. [via Holy Kaw!]
More on Apple, LaLa and the future of iTunes
There's an interesting article at The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) today (subscription required) suggesting that Apple's recent acquisition of LaLa could mean a web-streaming model for a future version of iTunes. The speculation began last week, and today more information has emerged. Quoting a source "...who has been briefed on Apple's plans," the WSJ reports that LaLa executives have been given key roles at Apple, and that members of the existing iTunes team will report to them. The article also reiterates the $85 million price tag, which TechCrunch recently disputed. While a streaming model makes sense for both Apple and consumers -- Apple could sell music through search engines, etc. while customers could eliminate space-hogging libraries from their computers -- such a move would be a radical departure for Apple, which has insisted that customers want to "own" a physical copy of their music. Lala's service scanned your hard drive for songs you own to stream at will (think a web-based version of Apple's Home Sharing). Songs you don't own could be streamed for $0.10 each with a download "upgrade" available. All of this would require huge amounts of storage and bandwidth from Apple. Perhaps that's what the new North Carolina server facility is for. As for Apple, mum's the word. "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not comment on our purpose or plans," said Apple spokesman Steve Dowling. [Via Mac Rumors]
Is the Leonard Maltin Movie Guide app ready for its closeup?
Long before people went to the Internet for film information, movie buffs annually bought the latest revisions of huge paperback books like The Leonard Maltin Movie Guide and Videohound's Golden Movie Retriever. These were, and are, massive reference books; the current version of Maltin comes in at 1664 pages, and the current version of Videohound at 1700 pages. You needed a strong coffee table to hold these massive tomes. Today there are many ways to get movie reviews, with IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes probably being the most popular sites. But there is a real virtue to reading reviews written by someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of film and a lifetime career of reviewing them. That's why I was very happy to find that the Leonard Maltin Movie Guide [iTunes Link] $2.99US, has morphed into an iPhone/iPod touch app, adding features that could never be found in books like streaming preview videos, and a tie-in to Netflix and iTunes along with the ability to email reviews from the app. Upon launching the app you are presented with a scrolling list of Maltin's current picks. You can tap on them to bring up a full review, links to information on the director and major actors, and a streaming video preview of the film. If you have an Internet connection you can see the videos. If not, the option isn't even presented. I really like that, since unlike many apps that won't work without connectivity, the main database is always available for any iPhone/iPod touch running OS 3.0 or better.
Apple reveals iTunes top sellers from 2009
It's December, and that means list season. Early this morning, Apple released the top sellers from the iTunes stores across several categories. The top music, television shows, movies, audiobooks, podcasts and apps sold in 2009 are displayed on a special page in the store [iTunes link], called "iTunes Rewind 2009." Here are some highlights. The top three songs sold were "Boom Boom Pow" by Black Eyed Peas, "Right Round" by Flo Rida and "Poker Face" by Lady GaGa. I've never heard the first two, but "Poker Face" is a huge hit with my 6-year-old. It's nice to see kids music do so well. As for podcasts, I'm very happy to see my beloved Adam Carolla podcast [iTunes link] among the most popular. The top-selling games (note that apps and games were separated) included The Sims 3, The Oregon Trail, Need for Speed: Undercover and Madden NFL 10 (Boom!). Top-selling apps included ReelDirector, which we reviewed here, Star Walk, MLB.com's app and a number of GPS apps. For some insight on this year's winners as well as the editor's picks, check out the latest episode of the iTunes Weekly Rewind podcast [iTunes link]. [Via the Loop]
"Preview All" added to albums in iTunes
Apple has made iTunes a bit more useful for surveying entire albums. A TUAW reader directed our attention to the addition of a 'Preview All' button for albums on the iTunes Store. The store has always given prospective buyers the ability to preview individual tracks. While 30 seconds of sound may not be an adequate representation of an entire song, it is at least enough to make sure that the song you're buying is the one that's been stuck in your head for days. For previewing entire albums, however, AmazonMP3.com has, since its launch, provided a better solution for previewing entire albums. TUAW's own first look at Amazon's would-be iTunes killer in September of 2007 noted the convenience of the site's 'preview all' button versus the need on iTunes to select each track to preview individually. Why it's taken a bit over two years for iTunes to catch up remains a mystery, but let it. Hit the 'Preview All' button and let the music play (in 30-second increments). Thanks pisbonanza for the tip!
Rumor: Comcast, NBC deal to hinder Apple
Last week, cable giant Comcast purchased a controlling interest in US television network NBC, resulting in a media behemoth to rival Disney. The results remain to be seen (Must See TV ... it's Comcastic!), but it's been suggested by AppleInsider that the switch could affect Apple's rumored TV subscription model. Last month we heard a rumor that Apple was working on a deal to offer iTunes customers a subscription for content. For $30 per month, Peter Kafka mused at the Wall Street Journal, customers could stream all the content they want. You'll also remember that NBC and Apple had a spat a while ago that resulted in the network pulling their content from the iTunes Store. They eventually made up, but Wall Street Journal analysts believe that a Comcast-owned NBC would be less likely to participate in an "all-you-can-eat" subscription model. If Apple charged me X amount of money per month for unlimited access to the iTunes library of television and movies from any approved device, including Macs, iPhones, iPods and, of course, Apple TVs, I'd be a happy customer. Yes, I want to have my music files physically on my hard disk. But if the shows and movies I wanted to watch all lived on a server farm in Cupertino (or North Carolina), that'd be fine with me. I'd save a lot of disk space. There'd be nothing to sync, or forget to sync, before a vacation. I wouldn't have to cough up three bucks just to watch The Office, and and Apple would maintain its revenue stream. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
Apple launches iTunes Preview for external browser links
This is the kind of thing that probably should have been done a long time ago, but Macworld is reporting that Apple has launched iTunes Preview, a page that appears when you click an iTunes link (like this one) and your browser sends you over to iTunes. Previously, you just got that placeholder page that said "One Moment Please" and asked if you wanted to open the link in an external application, but with iTunes Preview, you get a nicely laid out page with information and reviews (and your browser still opens up the iTunes store). Currently it only seems to work with music -- movies and television only get a small thumbnail, and applications get the same old gray page. But that'll probably change before long -- it's much smoother to see what you're clicking through to, and of course there's the added bonus for people who don't actually have iTunes installed. As MacWorld points out, there are actually no "preview" buttons on the page -- you can't listen to music there, only click through to the iTunes store. But like I said, it's better than a blank window and a browser popup asking for your permission. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see this grow a lot more in the future.
More HD movies hit iTunes' virtual shelves
Apple has added many new HD movie titles to iTunes, according to former TUAWian David Chartier's post for Macworld. David, who is an HD-aficionado, noticed that the iTunes Store just recently stocked both classic and new release HD movies, bringing the HD movie collection to nearly 300 titles. The new HD content is sold at a premium price (typically $20), and as far as we can tell that pricing stands regardless of whether or not the movies offer iTunes Extras. A few titles, mostly items that were already available on iTunes, sell for less -- such as Terminator 2 [iTunes link] for just $13. Until now, Apple has offered some of its HD content as exclusive Apple TV rentals. Items could be rented from Apple TV units that were not available to rent from the normal iTunes Store. It's unclear at this time whether Apple will continue this policy of exclusive Apple TV rentals, or will expand the iTunes store-based rental system to match the Apple TV offerings.
Navigon updates US iPhone navigation app, live traffic updates are a go
A little later than previously alluded to, but Navigon's finally rolling out live traffic update to its MobileNavigator iPhone app. Same prices as mentioned before, it'll regularly be $24.99, but for the next four weeks, it's only gonna ring up at $19.99 for lifetime use, no monthly fees. Not that TomTom needed anything else to think about, of course. Full presser after the break.
