Howtos, Rants, and Reviews : itunes

Amazon 100 Albums for $5 - A good way to steal business from iTunes

willburns1 — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 16:58:00 GMT

There are several things that people don't like about iTunes. Probably the biggest thing is the DRM that iTunes places on all of their music, and even though it's easily removed it's still annoying. Something else that bothers me about iTunes it that they never have sales or deals on music. This is where I think places like Amazon are going to excel in the music business.

Amazon will run deals on there downloadable music letting you pickup some great albums for half as much. Right now they are running a deal where you can choose from 100 different albums for only $5 each. These albums are all really good and for a fraction of what you would pay on iTunes.

100 Albums for $5

New Apple iTunes Cloud Rumors – Coming Soon with Wireless Syncing!

willburns1 — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 16:25:00 GMT

According to BGR, and their “reliable Apple source”, there is going to be some pretty exciting new features to iTunes and its rumored cloud capabilities. There are three main features that BGR outlines. First is that the streaming service will stream music and movies from Apple's servers to your computer and mobile devices. Second is that you will be able to stream music and movies from your home computer to another computer or mobile device. The last feature is wireless iTunes syncing with devices.

The first feature will work just as you might expect it would. It will allow you to stream purchased music and movie to your computer and devices. This allows you to listen to content without the need for a lot of local storage. The second feature will allow you to turn your home computer into the content provider, allowing you to stream your own content to your other devices. Last but not least, the one everyone wants wireless syncing. According the BGR the syncing feature will be seamless. Allowing you sync iPhone apps, changes to your calendar, notes, and contacts.

All this is well and good, but what about wireless syncing of music and other content on your phone? How nice would it be to have your pictures and videos wirelessly synced to your computer? I assume it would take up too much bandwidth and just take too long to make it a practical choice.

I have a .mac account so my contacts, notes, and calenders already sync wirelessly to my computer, so that isn't anything new for me. I think the feature I am most interested about is the ability to stream your own content to other device! It will come in handy if you want listen to music not synced with your device or watch a movie that you don't have space for.

Via BGR

LALA Music Streaming Service Shutting Down! My Predictions Concerning Cloud Bases iTunes!

willburns1 — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 18:06:00 GMT

So I went to LaLa.com this morning to listen to a band I had never heard of and they had this message up that LaLa is going to be shutting down. They are no longer going to be accepting any more users and people who already have a LaLa account can use the service until the end of the month.

Apple bought LALA last year and everyone is assuming they are going to turn iTunes into a cloud based music service. I assume the new iTunes will be a cross between what iTunes is now and what LaLa was. The main differences between LaLa and iTunes music store is the ability to listen to any song all the way though once, and the ability to purchase songs for online playing only. Instead of paying $.99 for a song you could pay $.10 - $.15 for a song and play it as many times as you want but only online. I would love to see Apple allow you load the music onto your iPhone,iPad, and iPod Touch, much like the music service Rapsody does for other devices.

This could be really cool to say the least! If they allow you to purchase songs for less and still give you the ability to store or oven stream them from your idevices that would be really cool. I am sort of against the whole purchase without owning idea, but for some types of music I wouldn't mind it. Perhaps current pop songs that you listen to for a couple of weeks and then forget about.

All of that is just speculation on my part, Apple has not announced anything to reflect this at all. This is simply what I think Apple should do and perhaps might do. The end of LaLa comes at an interesting time as WWDC is on June 7 just a week after LaLa goes offline. So people are starting to say that cloud based iTunes might be announced then. We will have to wait and see!

Hipstamatic – Unique iPhone Camera App

willburns1 — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:56:00 GMT

Have you ever used one of those plastic toy cameras like the Holga? You know the ones that bleed light and can create some really unique pictures! Or are you a fan of analog camera’s the way you have to look through the viewfinder to see what you’re taking a picture of? Well the Hipstamatic is sure to turn you into an indie kid and your iPhone into a cool analog camera.

There are tons of photo applications on the apps store. What makes the Hipstamatic unique is when you open the app you see a view finder and what looks like the back of a camera. Just like a toy camera the viewfinder is more of a guide than what is actually going to be in the photo. You can put different lenses on the camera to get different effects, as well as different flashes.

The application comes with three different lenses that all have their unique effects and the different flashes. Hipstamatic also has in app purchases that allow you to add more lenses and flashes to your collection.

The photos taken by the app are indeed very cool looking and do look very similar to photos taken with toy and vintage camera equipment. The app is $1.99 and is sure to make it to your first app page on your iphone after you try it.

Hipstamatic iTunes Store

SkiFree Windows 3.1 Game now Free on iPhone

willburns1 — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:02:00 GMT

You remember the SkiFree game for windows 3.1? I do and I remember it being awesome. Now you can get the same game on the iphone. It's a very simple game, all you have to do is make it down the hill while hitting the rainbow colored jumps. If you tap or swipe on the iphone while in the air you do flips that get you points.

The game is brings back so many memories and is definitely a blast from the past. The game however doesn't feature the snow monster which was my favorite part. I use to go down the mountain after the race was over just to see how far I could get before the monster came and got me. Gizmodo said that Skifree without the snow monster is “like a Rolling Stones reunion tour without Keith Richards.” and I would have to agree with that statement.

The game developers are planning on adding the awesome snow monster, the slalom mode, and other easter eggs from the original game in the future. Pick this game up it's free it's sure to bring back memories of Windows versions past and old school computer gaming.

SkiFree on iTunes

Record Music from your Computer instead of Downloading

willburns1 — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:17:00 GMT

Everyone has those super popular songs that they just want to listen to while they are still popular. I don't feel like paying for these songs just to listen to them for a couple weeks and then forget about them. These are the kind of songs I would download to have when I wanted to listen to them. Don't get me wrong I buy a lot music probably more than people who don't download music, but there's always a handful of songs I want and don't want to pay for.

Downloading music is wrong and it comes with the whole getting sued thing, which is not fun. So if you want to get those pop songs that are great fun for a couple weeks without paying for them then there's a simple and effective way of going about it. I use two pieces of software to effectively record and add songs to iTunes.

The first program you will need is something to record your system audio. There are many applications out there that can do this, the one I use for Mac is called WireTap. It can tap into a specific program's audio and record it and the music has a pretty good quality. The program can even record and split an audio clip based on duration or silence which allows you to record several songs in a row and have the program split them up for you.

Now you have to find a website that has the song in it's entirety in order to record it. I like going to lala or ilike to listen to the full version of a song for free. They only let you play the song for free once but you can add it to an online playlist for a couple cents each. You can also clear LaLa's cookies in your browser so you can replay full versions of songs again. You will have to do this everytime you want listen to the full version of a song once you have played it. LaLa also lets you make a playlist of songs that you have not played yet which will play back to back allowing you to record them all in a row. Youtube is also a good place if the song has a music video. There are many other websites some probably better than the ones I mentioned. Just do a little research and I'm sure you will find the song you want.

Now that you have the song recorded you have to put it into iTunes. If you only do one song at a time putting the song title and information might not be that big of a deal. If you do a whole album or several songs you might want to get a program called Tune Up. Tune Up will find a song's title information using the wave signature just like shizam does on the iPhone. It will also get the album art and other track information.

Tune Up and WireTap are both Mac applications but there are sure to be Windows equivalents that can accomplish the same result. This a non-downloading way to get your favorite songs into iTunes with all there appropriate information with little effort. It will still take more time than downloading the songs but at least you don't leave a downloading paper trail.

EverPlay – Small,Compact, and Fast iTunes Replacement

willburns1 — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:19:00 GMT

iTunes is truly to a great application but can be a bit heavy if your not trying to reload an ipod or iPhone with music and videos. I have heard people talking about how they don't like iTunes because it's just too heavy and sometimes takes a long time to open and uses system resources. I hear what they are saying and my response is if it truly bothers you go for a good substitute Like EverPlay.

Everplay is a small, compact, and simple application that taps into all your iTunes playlists and songs and displays them in coverflow. You can see your album art in coverflow as well as having the ability to select a playlist from a drop down. It also has a search feature to quickly find any song or artist. EverPlay also places a transparent control window that displays the album of the current song as well as some play controls, a handy and cool little feature. EverPlay also has Last.fm integration which allows you to share your music library likes and play music from Last.fm, Something iTunes is rumored to get at some point.

Things I don't like about EverPlay is the fact that you can't see a playlist in an actual list. You click on the playlist from the drop down and it loads all the albums into coverflow that are in that playlist, but there is no way to actually see the list of songs in the playlist. Something I would want to do but that's just me. With both iTunes and EverPlay applications sitting open and idle EverPlay actually used more memory than iTunes was. I am not sure if this translates to the speed of the application but as far as system resources are concerned EverPlay actually takes up more.

EverPlay is a great little application that will change the way you listen to your music. It's simple and compact and a great way to take a break from iTunes. If you are on Windows or Linux as well as Mac there is another iTunes alternative I should mention. Songbird is an iTunes alternative that is kind of like a music player integrated with a web browser. There are all kinds of web applications you can add to songbird that allows you to do all kinds of things in the application. I am not sure it's a good light weight iTunes alternative but an alternative all the same.

Check out both EverPlay and Songbird if you are seeking an iTunes alternative. EverPlay has a free demo with the full application costing $20. SongBird is a 100% free.

Apple Event September 9, 2009 – What did Apple Reveal?

willburns1 — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:12:00 GMT

Apple had their big “Rock and Roll” event today and here is what they rolled out with.

iPhone 3.1

The iPhone and the iPod Touch both get an update to OS update today that have some pretty good features. The new Genius function on iphone and touch will make application recommendations based on which apps you already own. They have also change the ringtone capability, which will allow you to download over 30,000 ringtones. They will cost $1.29 instead of the $2 like before. The OS update is live now I just checked it and it will update from iTunes. It’s free for people running 3.0 already.

iTunes 9

iTunes received many improvements today.

Genius Mixes
The new Genius will make mixes based on a song and will play them continually. It doesn’t just make a playlist and play only those songs. Jobs said it was like having a personal radio DJ that plays what you like.

Home Sharing
This is something that has been needed for a long time. It allows you to actually copy drag and drop music from other machines on your local machines on your network. You can have up to 5 machines that can share music at a time.

Application Management
You can now organize your applications for the iphone from iTunes. It will show your iphone and the pages of apps and will allow you to rearrange them and then sync then to the phone the way you have them arranged. You can also drag and drop apps from the iphone to iTunes and in the reverse to add and remove apps from the phone. This is something that has been on my wish list for a long time.

Store Improvements
The iTunes store has gotten some interface improvements and a new look. I am not going to go into very much detain but there is more content that can be viewed about artist and albums.

Ipod Touch, Nano, and Classic

iPod Touch
First the Touch gets a little faster and the new OS update and new price points.
•   $199 – 8GB
•   $299-32GB
•   $399-64GB
They talked a lot about games and showed some of the new games that are coming out for the Touch and iPhone.

IPod Nano
The ipod nano gets a video camera that shoots H.264 VGA video 640 by 480 pixels at up to 30 frames per second with AAC audio. It also gets voiceover support, which will tell you what is playing over the headphones. They also added a voice-recording app since the Nano now comes with a microphone. It's about time they also added a FM radio tuner that is built right in. The new price point is 8GB model for $149 and the 16GB for $179.

iPod Classic
iPod Classic gets more memory for the same $250 of the old model. Its now 160GB for $250.

iPod Shuffle
Gets new colors and I think they were saying that new headphones can use the inline controls for the shuffle like they have built into their headphones, which is cool.

Apple Event Tomorrow September 9, 2009– What can we expect to see?

willburns1 — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:15:00 GMT

There’s an Apple event tomorrow and there is a lot of speculation to what we can expect from the special event. Every Apple event comes with it the rumors and expectations of new products and upgrades to the Apple line of products. So what can we speculate will be revealed at the event tomorrow?

What Techcrunch Thinks

According to Techcrunch we can expect a couple of things. One is that the iPod Touch and Nano will get 3.2 megapixel cameras. Pictures of the devices have been floating around the internet for some time now. Techcruch does not expect to see the ipad, Apple’s tablet, to be revead because they say it will happen later and closer to Christmas. They do expect to see Steve jobs there however, Apple had said he was going to be at an event later on this year and I think this might be it. They also thing that the new itunes with the social media aspects built in might be revealed. Techcrunch is also saying that they think the iPod Classic might get discontinued as well.

What I Think

What do I think? I think TechCrunch might be right. I would be super surprised to see the ipad revealed at this point in time and think they will do it later. I don’t think Apple is going to discontinue the classic just yet however, I think it still has a place in the ipod lineup. I think they most definitely will release the iPod Touch and iPod Nano with the 3.2-megapixel cameras. I also agree that iTunes is going to get the social media upgrade.

iTube Widget – Plays Music Video of current iTunes song from Youtube

willburns1 — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:36:00 GMT

iTube will play the music video of the current iTunes song. It will sync up the playtime so the video will be somewhat close to where the music is. I thought it was interesting to see the music video for songs that I didn’t even know had music videos.

The only thing that I don’t like about this application is you can’t pause iTunes and listen to the audio from the video. A lot of music videos have content at the beginning of the video so the playtime sync is off and the video isn’t always close to the music.

It’s still kind of cool to see the music video playing even through the video is not synced with the audio. This is one widget that would be a good candidate for embedding on the desktop. I wish iTunes came with the option of showing the music video in the corner of the screen like it does the album art. Checkout itube at their website for more information on the Mac Widget.

How to Clean up your iTunes Music Folder

willburns1 — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:50:00 GMT

iTunes has an annoying little feature that allows you to remove a song from your library without removing it from the folder. I assume this would be great if you just no longer want it in iTunes. I for some reason will sometime hit keep file due to the fact it’s the default action when you hit enter. I have all my music organized in the iTunes Music folder so trying to find files not in iTunes but in the folders would be impossible since I have about 8,000 songs. So what I end up having is a 40 GBs of music in iTunes but a 50 GB music folder.

I found a handy little script that will allow you find all the files that are no longer in your iTunes and delete them. I found them at a cool website called Doug's Scripts. It’s a site loaded with great iTunes scripts to do all sorts of things. You install the script and then select it from the itunes script menu. From there all you have to do is hit find and it will pop up a list of files in the music folder but not in iTunes. You can then look at the path and decide if you want to delete them or not. http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=musicfolderfilesnotadded

I have to say however this only worked with my currents itunes database. I have several old itunes databases and for whatever reason it only finds recent files that I have deleted out of iTunes and not really old ones that might have been there for years. If you have the same problem as me the only solution is not an easy one, which is to export your library through the File>>Library>>Export Library. You have to then go to your library and select all your files and hit Command + delete and hit leave Files. This will clear all your songs out of your library. Then re-import the whole iTunes library by going to the add to library option. You can then restore your playlists by importing the library file your exported earlier. You will have to go back and delete all the files you don’t want anymore but at least they will not be taking up space on your hard drive anymore.

http://dougscripts.com/itunes/

Apple Shuts out Palm Pre from iTunes

willburns1 — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:09:00 GMT

Well it seems that the developers at palm thought it would be funny to make the palm pre appear as an ipod when connected to a computer with iTunes. The Palm pre would show up as an ipod in itunes, which could then be filled with music, pictures, and movies.

Of course Apple did not like this so they released an update that shut out the palm pre from using itunes this way. I knew that Apple was going to do this. People get upset with Apple when they do stuff like this. I can’t really blame them; they are just protecting what is theirs, a great song application that can sync songs to their devices.

Apple sells media players like the ipod and also the iphone. They are just protecting their software from being used with other devices. It’s not as if you can’t get your music out of iTunes, it’s not locked in there. You can use a variety of applications to transfer music to whatever device you would like. You just can’t do it with Apple’s software that was made for the productivity of their product. Sure if you buy music from the iTunes store you can only put it onto an Apple product like an ipod. Of course there are some work arounds, like burning the music to a disc then ripping it again for example. This removes the protection from the files and they can be played and transferred anywhere.

Yes I guess in the world of open source and free software that people think companies shouldn’t just give away their software and allow people to change and modify it. Apple believes this to some extent but they also believe in making money and protecting what makes them money.

Turn iTunes into a Music Server using pulpTunes

willburns1 — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:00:00 GMT

Have you ever wanted to turn your iTunes library into a music server that you could play and download your music from any computer anywhere? There is a quick and easy solution to accomplish this that will have you up and running in no time.

I stumbled across a program called pulpTunes that runs on your computer and creates a web server for your music. You have to forward the 15000 port through your router to make it work but after that is done you can visit your iTunes library from any web browse anywhere in the world.

You can create logins and restrict access to the general public so everyone can’t access your music. You can make groups and put users into those groups so you can assign permissions to the users as you see fit.

This is a great way to share your music with your family or listen to your music at a friend’s house. I have a work computer and when I’m at work instead of transferring all my music I just listen to it from my computer using pulpTunes.

PulpTunes works on Mac, PC, and Linux. So no matter what you are running pulpTunes has you covered. It took me about 5 minutes and I had this program up and running. It is super easy to install and setup.

iTunes gets Push Applications

willburns1 — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:40:00 GMT

Ever since the iPhone 3.0 came out about 2 weeks ago, I have been waiting for applications to hit the iTunes store that take advantage of the new push notifications feature. For those who don’t know push notification allows your iphone applications to notify you when something has happened in their app since you left. If you are doing something else on your phone like watching a movie or surfing the web an application can let you know if you have a message or something else requires your attention.

The notifications will come to you in the form of an alert, that look similar to a text message, or a badge, which shows as a number next to the icon. You will only get the message if your phone’s screen is on. This means your phone will not be beeping and making noise in your pocket all day. Once you turn on the screen you will see your notifications that you have received.

This is a huge feature that will be great for so many reasons. One of the main applications that I am excited about is a multi client IM chat applications with the push notifications. You can log into all your accounts and get all your IMs right there on your phone. Now granted, you will only be able to see them if your phone’s screen is on but this is still a great way to stay connected. You no longer have to go into the application to see if anyone has messaged you. The application will keep you logged in at all times so people can send you messages whenever.

As far as I can tell there are only a couple apps that have IM chat with Push: AIM, Beejive, and IM+ push. AIM is only for AOL instant messenger so if you want other clients you will have to do either Beejive or IM+ Push. I chose Beejive and I think it works pretty well. The interface is really clean and easy to use which I love. There aren’t that many options however but it hasn’t bothered me much yet. I am looking forward to their updates and see what they can improve.

Keep a lookout for other push apps coming soon to the itunes store.