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Stitcher updates its iOS app with offline mode for data-free radio
Stitcher is all about giving the people what they want and, only days after introducing its popular lists, it's back with an offline mode for its iOS apps. Despite boasting one of the smallest data footprints in the streaming game (0.2MB per minute), you can now download over 10,000 radio shows for unconnected listening. Beware -- the app will automatically update the shows on your custom stations, so if you plan on using it to save that precious data for other things, make sure to set it to only pull over WiFi. Along with that major enhancement, there's a new comments system and other improvements in Facebook sharing, searching and AirPlay compatibility. The PR says the update is live, but iTunes disagrees, so you'll have to wait a little longer before going off-grid.
iTunes Store opens in Hong Kong, Taiwan and 10 other Asia-Pacific territories
Our Apple-loving compatriots on the west side of the Pacific Ocean have been able to purchase the latest in iPhone and iPad software from the App Store for a while, but believe it or not, they've been shut out of the iTunes Store. Apple has just opened the virtual iTunes storefront in a dozen locations across the Asia-Pacific region. The "big three" Asian markets that will get access to music and movies for the first time today are Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. Other locations that are going live today are Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Macau, Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. All of the new stores will feature local content as well as the big international favorites. Apple chose to launch the new branches of the iTunes Store complete with iTunes in the Cloud and iTunes Match subscriptions.
Apple opens iTunes Store in Hong Kong, Taiwan and 10 other Asia-Pacific territories
Many Apple fans on the opposite side of the Pacific from Cupertino haven't had much of a choice to shop from iTunes, even though they've had the App Store for some time. There's now a much better sense of balance: Apple just flicked the switch on the iTunes Store for music and movies in a dozen countries and territories across the Asia-Pacific region. The company singles out our own Richard Lai's Hong Kong as well as Singapore and Taiwan, but we'd be remiss if we didn't mention that Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam are also getting the media catalogs, which include local content along with the international hits. It's a full catch-up as well, with iTunes in the Cloud re-downloads and iTunes Match subscriptions available in every new country. If you're a huge Andy Lau fan but wanted his albums from the most iPhone-friendly store possible, the wait is over.
iPod owners notified of RealNetworks-related lawsuit's class action status, given chance to cash in (updated: not Real)
Remember the 2005 lawsuit over Apple's effort to keep RealNetworks' Harmony DRM off of the iPod, calling the countermeasures an abuse that locked customers into Apple's FairPlay copy protection and the iTunes Store? You're forgiven if you don't -- the complaint was filed in 2005. Even with iTunes having gone primarily DRM-free over three years ago, though, owners of iPods bought between September 12th, 2006 and March 31st, 2009 are just now getting notices that they qualify for a slice of any damages if they register and Rhapsody's former owner the class action group wins in court. Of course, there's no guarantee that RealNetworks former Rhapsody users will win and get you music money to feed your iPod, iPod classic, iPod nano or iPod touch, but unless you're planning to sue Apple yourself, there's no penalty for a legitimate claim. Update: RealNetworks has chipped in to let us know that it's "not involved in any way" with the lawsuit, which is actually an independent complaint centered around the Rhapsody users themselves. RealNetworks hasn't embroiled itself in a legal fight with Apple to date.
Apple hit with class action lawsuit over iTunes double-billing
Apple has been hit with another class-action lawsuit for double billing customers in the iTunes store. New York resident Robert Herskowitz claims Apple charged him twice for the single "Whataya Want from Me" by Adam Lambert. Herskowitz says he contacted Apple and got an automated response telling him his request was being reviewed. The message he received from Apple wasn't so friendly. "Your request for a refund for 'Whataya Want from Me' was carefully considered; however, according to the iTunes Store Terms of Sale, all purchases made on the iTunes Store are ineligible for refund. This policy matches Apple's refund policies and provides protection for copyrighted materials." So, the lawsuit is underway, and Herskowitz is looking for others who claim they have been similarly unfairly charged. You can read the lawsuit online at Justia.
Apple TV now offers Genius recommendations for movies, TV shows
A silent update to the backend has introduced Genius recommendations for movies and TV shows to the Apple TV. No user action is required to access the new feature, as it's not part of a device firmware update. Instead, Apple has updated its own servers to send this information to the Apple TV from its iTunes Store equivalent. Based on AppleInsider's screenshots of the updated Apple TV UI, this feature appears essentially identical to the Genius recommendation features already present in iTunes on the Mac and iOS devices. With access to your library and purchase history, the Apple TV can now recommend TV or movie content based on what you've watched before.
Switched On: You tell me it's the institution
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. Apple rose to dominate sales of digital music by more or less mirroring the way consumers acquired music in the physical world -- that is, purchasing songs, but providing a greater degree of granularity. This worked well for music and has also held true for apps and best-selling books, but hasn't been as in step with consumer media acquisition habits for other content.For example, before Apple brought sales of video material to iTunes, most consumers did not generally own TV shows except for perhaps a few cherished series on DVD. They either watched them as they aired as part of a cable-like subscription or paid a flat monthly fee for the privilege of recording them on a DVR to be viewed after they aired. Furthermore, both Blockbuster physical stores and later Netflix's DVD by mail feature relied on a system of one-time consumption via rental or subscription that eschewed ownership of movies. And today, Vevo.com offers free streaming of many music videos that Apple still seeks to sell.
TUAW on SOPA and PIPA: What they are and why we're against them
By now, news about two bills making their way through the US legislative approval process, Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), has spread like wildfire across the Internet, along with widespread criticism of both bills. As part of that criticism, if you're reading this on January 18, 2012 and you try to click on either of those links above, you may notice that neither of them work as expected. That's because Wikipedia, one of the most-trafficked and most well-known sites on the Internet, has pledged to "go dark" for 24 hours in protest against both bills. If you hit Google for information on the two bills that same day, you'll likely find that the Internet's most popular website is also protesting the provisions in these controversial bills. We briefly considered following suit and taking TUAW offline during the same period, but we decided that it would be better to take the opportunity to educate our readers on the implications of these two bills, and why we think they're ill-advised. SOPA is the US House of Representatives' version of a bill intended to "promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes." PIPA is a broadly similar bill working its way through the US Senate, with the full title "Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act." Depending on how libertarian your mindset is, this type of phrasing either sounds perfectly innocuous or like the stamping of marching boots right outside your front window. The intent of both bills is to crack down on illegal sharing of copyrighted media content, colloquially known as "piracy," especially of films and music. Not coincidentally, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) are the biggest supporters of both SOPA and PIPA; the MPAA in particular has issued a somewhat melodramatic response to the criticism of these bills. PC World had a good overview of SOPA as far back as November -- things move slowly in the US legislature -- and Kirby Ferguson from the "Everything is a Remix" web series produced a short video, embedded below, which outlines the US Senate's similar PROTECT-IP Act, criticizing it as a lashing out against the fundamental freedom Internet users have enjoyed since day one. Essentially, both bills are designed to increase the United States' ability to enforce US copyright law outside its own borders, since the Internet knows no national boundaries. The bills specifically mention "rogue websites" that function outside the US -- and I think we all know who some of the biggest targets are -- which the various content producers have accused of being repositories of pirated copyrighted works. Court orders against such sites would be intended to block websites, financial institutions, ad networks, and search engines from linking to or having anything to do with "infringing" sites, essentially walling them off from the rest of the Web like a cyst -- or such is the intent. [Some of the most technically problematic portions of SOPA, including the ability to DNS-blacklist offending sites, are already working their way out of the bill. –Ed.] In reality, neither bill is likely to stem the tide of copyright violations in the slightest. The site blocking provisions in each bill are almost laughably circumventable -- in many cases, simply knowing the IP address of the offending site and inputting that rather than its URL is enough to get around the restrictions. What has the rest of the Internet (and us) up in arms are the rather Orwellian implications of these bills, which essentially amount to Internet censorship in the name of safeguarding the profitability of the entertainment industry. SOPA and PIPA threaten to undermine the Internet and transform it into something no one wants to see. Opposition to this bill isn't coming solely from vocal, idealistic neckbeards, either; SOPA opponents include not just Wikipedia and Google, but other organizations you may recognize such as AOL, Facebook, Twitter, the Mozilla Foundation, and the White House itself. Why the opposition? Let's take a step back and answer a question: Aside from "a series of tubes," what exactly does the Internet represent? The Internet has arguably done more for the free expression of ideas than any other invention in human history, including the printing press. I'm sitting in a swiveling office chair in my lounge in New Zealand as I type this, and these words will find their way onto the Macs, PCs, iPads, and iPhones of tens of thousands of readers all over the world. My benevolent corporate overlords at AOL have a few basic guidelines for the things I can and cannot write here, and my fellow TUAW editors have some guidelines of their own, but other than that, I can say pretty much whatever I want with a guaranteed global audience. That's an incredibly powerful set of circumstances, and it's one that virtually anyone with a computer and internet access can build for themselves. Anyone with a voice can broadcast that voice to virtually anyone anywhere in the world. That simply wasn't possible before the Internet; free exchange of ideas still existed, but the power to broadcast those ideas rested within the hands of a relatively smaller subset of society. That's no longer the case, and unless a rogue solar flare fries the electrical grid beyond repair, it will never be the case again. Here's a more pertinent example with more wide-ranging implications than anything I've said on TUAW. People have debated how much influence the Internet had on the Arab Spring riots of 2011, but if the Internet was even a minor player in the organization and communication of these movements seeking democracy in countries that have never known it, that's something worth fighting for. SOPA and PIPA are antithetical to the free expression of ideas underpinning the foundations of the Internet. The entertainment industry has been at odds with the Internet almost since its inception; the film, music, and television industries have never had customer convenience as their core principle, but rather tight control over the supply and distribution of their content. As recently as the 1960s, these three industries essentially had total dominion over the cultural landscape; with rare exceptions, you'd never see a film outside of a theater, or a television program not broadcast on one of the big three US networks, or be able to purchase for yourself a song you'd heard on the radio anywhere but inside a record store. This was a sweet setup for the entertainment industry, but not so great for consumers. Over the years, as technological improvements have made it easier to distribute such media content -- over both sanctioned and "rogue" channels -- the balance has tipped in decidedly the other direction. With few exceptions, I can go from thinking about watching a film to actually watching it within minutes. I don't even need to have a broadcast antenna hooked up to my television in order to keep up with my favorite TV shows -- and indeed, I don't have one. Using apps on my iPhone, I can hear a new song on the radio, identify it, find it in the iTunes Store, download it, and listen to it again, almost instantly. The entertainment industry has fought against that kind of user convenience every step of the way. In the 1970s and 1980s, it was all about trying to ban cassette tapes and VHS so that consumers couldn't record songs off the radio or movies off of broadcast TV. In the late 1990s, when DVDs and MP3 players first hit the market, the industry made sure to wrap DVDs in layers of copy protection and tried to ban digital music players (ask Apple how that one worked out). Remember the nearly decade-long, drawn-out battle between the RIAA and the rest of Earth? It sued Napster out of existence, pursued further suits against teenagers and old ladies, and tried its damnedest to thwart Apple's efforts at digital music distribution. As recently as a few years ago, songs sold on the iTunes Store were still encumbered with DRM restrictions -- at the insistence of the major labels and against Apple's wishes -- but those restrictions have since disappeared, and the iTunes Store is now the number one seller of music in several parts of the world. The film, television, and music industries have fought tooth and nail against technologies and distribution methods that emphasize user convenience over distributor control for the past 50 years, and they've funneled millions of dollars into Congress in order to get laws like the DMCA, SOPA, and PROTECT-IP passed. The end result of the DMCA itself has been a confusing, Balkanized landscape as far as online media distribution goes, and it hasn't affected piracy in the slightest. For all their intentions, neither SOPA or PROTECT-IP are likely to measurably impact piracy either; instead, they will make it easier for the entertainment industry to abuse its already outlandish influence over the US government, and it will make it easier for the US government to undermine the very foundation of the Internet. Here's how you stop piracy: You won't. Ever. There will always be people who want something for nothing, and no amount of trying is going to stop those people from looking for and finding it. Just accept it and move on. Here's how you reduce piracy: Make it easier for people who want to access and pay for your content. That means no more arbitrary restrictions on what devices we can view it on. That means making the same content available to everyone, worldwide, simultaneously or as close to it as feasible, and at a fair price that consumers won't balk at. No more geo-restrictions on online content -- this is the Worldwide Web. No more distribution delays to overseas territories. No more region coding on DVDs and Blu-rays. No more DRM on electronically-distributed media. And for God's sake, no more forcing me to sit through two minutes of anti-piracy propaganda every single time I insert a DVD. In short, stop punishing the people who want to pay for your "intellectual property." Oddly enough, Apple's already provided the tools to do this, from the distribution method down to the devices the content's viewed on. But in countries like the one I live in, content makers still Don't Get It. Let's try to do the simplest thing imaginable: I want to watch the latest episode of 30 Rock. It's a show made in the States, but I live in New Zealand. And... go. Right off the bat, I know I can't watch it on broadcast TV. Because of various Byzantine workings of the entertainment industry that I as a content consumer couldn't care less about, New Zealand won't broadcast the latest episode of a US TV show until weeks or months after its US airdate -- and that's assuming the show is aired here at all. To the Internet! NBC.com streams episodes for free on its site... but not to me, because I don't live in the US. Hulu is the same story. The show will find its way onto the iTunes Store a day later... but not the NZ iTunes Store, because it doesn't sell TV content. I have to switch to the US Store, which thankfully isn't as geographically limited as the rest of these digital distributors -- so long as I have my US-based credit card handy, I'm golden. But that episode of 30 Rock will only work on a PC, Mac, or iOS device. My poor PlayStation 3, which I use as my media center, just has to sit there feeling sorry for itself unless I insert a DVD or Blu-ray instead -- but I have to make sure it's a DVD or Blu-ray from the United States, because media manufactured in New Zealand won't work on my US PS3 thanks to region coding. (I can stream media to my PlayStation, but not DRM-encumbered video like the TV shows from iTunes.) If I want to watch a DVD made in New Zealand, I have to put it in my wife's MacBook, which has its DVD drive set to Region 4. If my wife wants to watch one of the DVDs we bought in the States on her MacBook, she's out of luck, because industry-mandated firmware encoding on her MacBook's SuperDrive will only let her switch DVD regions a set number of times before locking the drive down to whatever region she picked last. If I want to watch a film I purchased on DVD on my iPad, according to the entertainment industry that's just tough cookies. According to my personal code of ethics and Handbrake, the entertainment industry is on the losing side of that argument. I'm sure this is a bit of preaching to the choir, but isn't all of this more than a little ridiculous? I follow this stuff and write about it on a daily basis, yet even after reading over the past few paragraphs my head is spinning over the needless complexity of it all. And I pay for this? Here's what a "pirate" has to do: find a magnet link to a torrent, click it, and walk away. Depending on the speed of his connection, he's probably watching Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin yuk it up about 15 minutes later -- on any device he wants, with no restrictions and no BS. Do you know how much I would pay for that kind of no-nonsense, unrestricted access to content? At least as much as basic cable costs. At least as much the iTunes Store charges for its DRM-wrapped digital bit buckets. Instead, content producers keep finding new and improved ways of making their content more difficult to access, and they try to push through legislation like SOPA and PIPA -- wrongheaded bills that will do nothing to prevent piracy, but are exactly the foot in the door the US needs to make its version of the Internet look a lot more like the locked-down version you get in places like China, Saudi Arabia, or Iran. At the same time, I don't have much sympathy for an industry that's making hundreds of billions of dollars per year, giving a huge slice of those profits to studio and network CEOs, then complaining that teenaged pirates are stealing billions from them every year, when instead of embracing distribution methods like iTunes that make things easier for content consumers they go crying to the government and demand that basic freedoms be curtailed in the name of (theoretically) greater profits for themselves. The day the entertainment industry makes it simple for consumers in every corner of the world to have easy, equal, and simultaneous access to content, at a fair price, and with the ability to view it anywhere at any time without restrictions, watch how far the piracy rate drops. That initial drop is as good as it's ever going to get. You can write the rest off forever, because those are the people who were never going to pay for your content no matter what you did, and no amount of legislation is ever going to change that. In the meantime, stop punishing the rest of us. We need more freedom, not less. Photo: Paul Stevenson | flickr cc
Apple brings iTunes Store to Brazil, Latin America
Apple is extending its sphere of influence south of the equator today, with the launch of the iTunes Store in Brazil and a whole slew of Latin American countries. According to Cupertino, the platform will launch with a catalog of over 20 million songs, from both Brazilian and international artists, as well as a selection of more than 1,000 films for rent or purchase. Also included in today's release are users in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela. Find more details in the full PR, after the break.
The Criterion Collection comes to iTunes
With virtually no fanfare -- or even a press release -- The Criterion Collection has made 46 of its 680 films available on iTunes. Among the films released are art house classics any lovers of cinema will recognize, including The Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman, Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa, and The 400 Blows by Francois Truffaut. Criterion is known for its releases of some of the world's greatest films (plus, strangely, this one by Michael Bay), and it publishes them with the utmost care and quality given to the film-to-digital transfer. The company first released films on Laserdisc in the 1980s before moving to DVD and Blu-ray in the following decades. However, with the move to iTunes, The Criterion Collection loses one of its most appealing features: the extras. Gone are the multi-track commentaries, behind the scenes featurettes and documentaries, and pretty much anything else that sets the collection apart. Perhaps it's that lack of extras that is the reason for the average US$14.99 price of each Criterion Collection movie on iTunes. That's in line with most other new releases on iTunes, and a far cry from the premium price a Criterion DVD or Blu-ray commands.
WSJ: Apple negotiating for streaming movies on iTunes Store
The Wall Street Journal suggests that Apple and major film studios are currently negotiating for the right to offer streaming movies from the iTunes Store. According to "people familiar with the matter," the deal would allow users to stream movies they've bought from iTunes to portable devices like iPhones and iPads without having to use a Mac or PC to transfer them over first. This is broadly similar to the deals already in place for music via iTunes Match, which allows multiple downloads of purchased music to any device associated with a user's iTunes account. While Apple says iTunes Match isn't technically music streaming, this new rumored movie service would be, and it may build off of tech and knowledge Apple gained when it acquired Lala. Anyone who buys movies on Blu-ray or DVD is already familiar with how much of a pain it is to get those purchased films onto an iOS device. While you can always rip the DVD and encode it in a compatible format using third-party tools like Handbrake, customers and iOS device users need a better solution than that. The studios have already achieved limited success with their own UltraViolet program, which allows access to films online for customers who purchased a DVD or Blu-ray. The WSJ correctly notes that movies purchased from the iTunes Store aren't compatible with UltraViolet, however, so it's not a universal solution.
Massachusetts Attorney General investigating iTunes scams
We get several emails every week from readers claiming to have been hit with fraudulent charges on their iTunes accounts. It seems as though scammers have found a neatly exploitable hole in iTunes accounts, but they may have bitten off more than they can chew with their latest victim. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said her stolen credit card info was recently used to make fraudulent purchases on iTunes, and she wants answers from Cupertino. According to Threat Post, after having her credit card info stolen during a New Hampshire skiing trip, the thieves tried to purchase a laptop from Dell, who noted the transaction was fraudulent and contacted Coakley about it. Apple was not so diligent; thieves quickly emptied Coakley's account via iTunes transactions. While Coakley's response (seeking answers from Apple) may seem a bit reactionary at first, the slow trickle of reports we've received over the months concerning fraudulent iTunes purchases signifies that this problem is far greater in scope than one person's stolen credit card. We keep hearing the same stories again and again: "Purchases showed up on my account that I had nothing to do with. Apple hasn't gotten back to me. What do I do?" It's been happening often enough that there's clearly a real issue, and it's something that Apple, as operator of one of the world's largest repositories of credit card info, has a responsibility to address.
Starbucks and Apple launch Pick of the Week
Starbucks and Apple are expanding their "Pick of the Week" program to include books, music, apps and videos. For several years, Starbucks and Apple have offered a "Song Pick of the Week" program. The program offered a free select iTunes music track that was downloadable by any Starbucks customer. The pair recently expanded the "Pick of the Week" program to include applications such as Shazam Encore. And starting now, the Pick of the Week will include books. The first offering is an extended sample from The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. You can snag a copy of this extended book sample by visiting a participating US Starbuck location and redeeming the free Pick of the Week card available at the register.
Closed captioned TV episodes appearing in iTunes
AppleInsider reports that some TV studios are beginning to add closed captioning to their shows on iTunes. As of this writing, captions are showing up on "Sons of Anarchy," "New Girl" and "The Secret Circle." The update is limited to episodes from the current season of these shows. Apple TV has offered closed captioning for many movies for quite some time, and Netflix, which is available through Apple TV, does as well. To enable closed captioning on the Apple TV, go to Settings > Video. There you'll see the option to toggle the service on or off. In the past there have been complaints about the small amount of material that is subtitled on Netflix and on the Apple TV. The captioning has to be provided by the content creator, unfortunately, so Apple and Netflix can't do much about it. By the way, Lion also supports closed captioning in movies, videos, podcasts, QuickTime content and the DVD player.
Starbucks giving out free apps in the US
Now when you go into Starbucks, you could walk away with a free paid application instead of a bonus music track. According to Cnet, Starbucks recently launched a "Pick of the Week" program that lets you download a new app each week. The free app offer works the same way Starbucks free music track offer has for years. You buy a coffee or snack and grab a free card at the checkout register. On the back of the card is a code that you enter into iTunes to redeem your free application. The promotion kicked off with Shazam Encore, a premium version of the music-identifying app that normally sells for US$5.99. Each week there will be a new free application for you to download while you sip your latte grande.
'Kraftwerk Who?' Pioneering '50s Synthesizer unearthed in French Barn
So there Dr. Mick Grierson was, wandering around a French barn, minding his own business when all of a sudden he happened upon an antique: one of the earliest modern synthesizers. Grierson, a professor at Goldsmiths University in London did what any expert in the field of electronic music would do, and whisked it back to the motherland for restoration. The Oram "Oramics" Synthesiser (sic) was built by Daphne Oram in 1957, a year before she co-founded the BBC Radiophonic Workshop to research and develop electronic music. Political wrangling within the corporation forced her to leave in 1959, and she retreated to a farm in nearby Kent to tinker with her invention. After her departure, the Workshop shot to fame for creating the original electronic theme to Doctor Who. In order to create music on the Oram, a composer painted waveforms directly onto 35mm film strips which were fed into the machine. Inside, photo-electronic cells read the light pattern and interpreted it as sound. Check out the video to see the arrival of the machinery back into England where it'll be on display all the way through December 2012. If you're really interested you can tap Dr Grierson's homebrewed Oramics iPhone app (linked below for your downloading pleasure) to create your own futuristic theme songs, '57-style.
iTunes Connect down for maintenance for most of July 13 (updated)
The Mac App Store, iTunes Store, and App Store have all been experiencing fairly serious connectivity issues over the past several hours. Many speculated this was a sign that OS X Lion was about to debut on the Mac App Store, despite plenty of evidence suggesting it won't hit until July 14 at the earliest. Now MacRumors has heard from developers that Apple intends to take iTunes Connect down for most of July 13 for "scheduled maintenance." iTunes Connect will be undergoing scheduled maintenance on Wednesday, July 13 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. PDT. During this time, iTunes Connect will still be available. However, pricing changes made between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. PDT will cause the app to become unavailable for purchase until maintenance is complete, at which point the app will become available at the new price. To avoid interruptions to the availability of your apps, do not make price changes during this time. Lastly, customers may not be able to purchase apps in the Mexico, U.K., Australia, Switzerland, Japan or Norway storefronts during the scheduled maintenance. If this really is "scheduled maintenance," it seems odd that we're just now hearing about it, only nine hours ahead of the downtime. There's no official link between this downtime and the issues Apple's online storefronts have been experiencing today, but the timing certainly doesn't appear to be coincidental. This downtime will be an inconvenience to developers, just as today's intermittent App Store issues have inconvenienced potential buyers. None of this makes for a particularly inspiring prelude to the OS X Lion launch; Lion is around 4 GB in size, and with at least tens of thousands of downloads likely on the first day of availability, the Lion launch day is likely to be Apple's most bandwidth-intensive day ever. Here's hoping the company can get its affairs in order tomorrow. Update: MacStories postulates that the maintenance could be to adjust prices internationally, which have grown disproportionally with international currency fluctuations. An interesting theory, and we'll update you when iTunes Connect is done with maintenance.
Shazam Encore updated with lyrics, how about iTunes?
Shazam has released another update for its paid Encore app, this one adding full lyrics of over 25,000 songs on the service from provider LyricPlay. It lets you stream the lyrics in real-time as the song plays, so you can sing (or even just read) along. It's not exactly a reason to shell out for the US$5.99 app -- I'm still using the free version to identify music that I listen to, and it works just fine for that purpose. But it's a nice addition to the Encore functionality, and it's good to see that someone has worked out how to make song lyrics available to listeners in a simple and easy way. In fact, this makes us wonder just where iTunes is on this issue. We've seen rumors for a long time that iTunes has been trying to add a lyrics feature (and there are plenty of ways to just do it yourself if you'd like to do that). But especially now that Apple has figured out something as complicated as iTunes Match, surely lyrics shouldn't be that hard to do, right? Unfortunately, the RIAA is still against it, and they've actually shut down any relatively easy solutions for quickly bringing lyrics into iTunes. It's a real shame -- especially for any music purchased from the iTunes Store (and because of the way iTunes Match works, all of your music will probably come from the App Store soon), we should really have access to the lyrics as the songs play.
Podcasts down in iTunes desktop store (update: it's back!)
Want to download the latest Engadget Show from the iTunes Store on your Mac or PC? Well, you probably can't -- right now, at least. That section appears to be down for most of us at the moment, with the Podcasts tab presenting a "not enough memory available" error message on each click. We've confirmed the error on iTunes 10.2.1 and 10.2.2.12 -- the latest version -- and aren't able to get past the home page. We're sure Cupertino is working on a fix, but you may need to put your podcast obsession on hold, or jump on your iOS device for all that tech talk in the meantime. Update: We're also unable to download apps from both the Mac and iOS App Stores. After clicking to download an app in iOS, it appears on the home screen briefly, then disappears. We're also prompted to re-enter passwords with each attempt, so this may be related to an authentication issue. Jump past the break for the App Store error. Update 2: The outage extends to all iTunes Store content, including music, movies, TV shows -- the works. Time to go out and enjoy the sunshine? Update 3: As of 3:15pm ET things look to be up and operational again. You may now recommence stuffing your devices with datas. [Thanks, Jeff]
App review: Seamless for iOS and Mac (video)
If you're the kind of person who's always listening to music and wouldn't be caught dead headphone-less, pause that song for a quick second and check out Seamless. This lightweight app links your iPhone's Music player to iTunes on your Mac in a pretty clever -- not to mention Cupertino-esque -- fashion. The whole crux of it is the "transition," which simultaneously fades out a song on one end while bringing it to full blast on the other. All it takes to get started is a quick $1.99 download for your i-device and free Mac-centric companion app. Does it work as advertised, or is it really just a gimmick? Head past the break for a quick rundown of just how seamless this utility really is.
