Apple Unveils Higher Quality DRM-Free Music on iTunes

EMI and Apple special event held in UK on Monday.

DRM-free tracks from EMI (entire iTunes catalog) will be offered at higher quality 256 kbps AAC encoding at USD$1.29 per track

You will also be able to "upgrade" any previously purchase EMI tracks for USD$0.30 cents a song.

Apple will still sell lower quality DRM'd versions for USD$0.99

The new DRM-free tracks will be available in May

Great quote from an Apple Insider article where Jobs was asked if he was concerned DRM-free music and a new open-iTunes MP3 Player system might impact iPod sales

Well again, you've been able to play all sorts of music on iPod forever. iPods have played MP3s forever. So the only music that has been in question is music you buy off the iTunes store. Now again, you can burn a CD and read that CD back in and it takes off the DRM. So you could then play it on anything else. We compete based on having what we we think is the best music store and based on what we think is having the best music players. And if customers agree with us, we are going to do well. If they don't, well we're going to get a message back that we have to work harder.

Also important to note that the new tracks are still AAC and not all 3rd party portable audio players support AAC, plus no players other than the iPod sync in iTunes, so even if your device plays AAC the syncing experience will be less than perfect.

Jobs may be trying to take more credit for this deal than he should. According to Jeanne Meyer, EMI's Senior VP of Corporate Communications, EMI approached Apple about DRM free tracks based on research that showed consumers want DRM-free tracks. EMI believes CD sales are going to remain flat while digital downloads will rise dramatically and they are hoping this move will earn them a bigger piece of the online music pie.

Other iTunes Store & iPod News

Complete My Album feature. Gives you 180 days to purchase the full album after buying single tracks without having to re-buy the same tracks.

Beatles on iTunes?

Apple does deal with MLB to offer highlights for the 2007 season on iTunes. A daily feature called the "Daily Rewind" and 2 weekly "Games of the Week" features. The episodes will sell for the usual USD$1.99. Multipass and Monthly pass options are also available

Microsoft patches the "Safely Remove Hardware" from system tray eject bug in Windows Vista. Latest update kills the bug that required you to use the iTunes eject to safely unmount you iPod.

Apple drops 5th Gen video iPod pricing in the UK. 30GB video iPods to £179, down from £189. 80GB models were marked down to £239 from £259.

EU regulators are investigating Apple and major labels for possibly violating competition rules by only allowing EU residents to buy iTunes tracks in their country of residence -- a possible violation of the EU's rules against restrictive business practices.

An Apple spokesman said Apple wanted a single European iTunes store, but music labels and publishers said there were limits to the rights that could they could grant to Apple.

Apple opens first retail Store in Italy

The Apple Store Roma Est in Rome Italy opened on Saturday March 31st

Apple Roma Est

Hopefully Fr. Roderick will send in a report on his impressions of the new store next time he's in Rome

Boot Camp update adds Vista support

Boot Camp 1.2 includes support for the 32-bit Windows Vista

Additional updates include: updated drivers for the trackpad, AppleTime synchronization, audio, graphics, modem and iSight camera and support for the Apple Remote when used with iTunes and Windows Media Player, a Windows system tray icon for access to Boot Camp information, improved foreign language keyboard support, an improved Windows driver installation experience, updated documentation and Boot Camp online help in Windows.

AirPort Base Station Update 2007-001 for Mac

General fixes and compatibility updates for: AirPort Utility, AirPort Admin Utility for Graphite and Snow Base Stations, AirPort Disk Utility, AirPort Disk Agent

Cingular offers iPhone ship date details

CNet reports that a Cingular customer service manager gave them an iPhone release date of June 11th.

Apple has only given June as a release timeframe for the iPhone

You might notice that June 11th is also the start date for WWDC 2007

Follow-up: Recycling your old computer

Listener Aaron reminded me about Apple's recycling program

Apple Recycle

Apple offers free recycling of your old computer and monitor (regardless of brand) when you buy a new Mac

Check a box on checkout from the Apple on-line store or ask an associate in the Apple store

Apple will send you an email with details and instructions, box up your old gear, and take it and a copy of the email to FedEx.

My experience with AppleTV

Discuss my thoughts on getting Apple TV

Setup. No Cables, but otherwise easy install. Codes for Macs.

Syncing takes forever.

Streams great. If you put computer to sleep it is inaccessible to AppleTV, Also must have iTunes open.

My own video content looked great. iTunes content looked good too, but I was using a standard def TV. Movies seemed better than TV and 16:9 content seemed to look better than 4:3. Overall the quality was better than the same content played via my video iPod. In store content at Apple store looked bad.

receiverDetails on surround sounds support from listener Lance, play comment.

Apple TV Surround Sound

Wish it had more control in regards to photos. Can't browse photo library with thumbnails, slideshow only.

Inconsistent audio levels between content. Mine hooked up to TV not receiver.

Fast-forward on streams has to buffer occasionally.

Scrolling doesn't stop on a dime.

Nice if it had more visualization options for music.

Kept losing view of photos category. Reset (hold - + menu) was required to get it back. Good news is I got to see the cool startup video each time.

Is very hot. I would be leery of placing it in a small space. Also Apple says not to put anything on top due to antenna interference (I think heat also is a factor)

Apple TV OS hacked to boot on MacBook

Issues with iBook after removing it from Apple TV list

Apple TV uses a modified version of Mac OS X.

Requires a patched version of the Apple TV Finder.app and 2 additional Frameworks from the Apple TV.

You can use your remote as normal, it shows up in iTunes on other computers.

Details on AppleTV Hacks.

www.appletvhacks.net

Hacked for other apps like World of Warcraft, VLC, CenterStage, Joost, Apache, etc.

Also hacked to run a full version of OS X, 10.4.8 or higher.

Limited by 256MB RAM and 1GHz processor

Hackability may be the key to Apple's AppleTV success.

Changing or creating keyboard shortcuts

Listener Mark pointed this tip out as a way to add a keyboard shortcut for secure delete which came up as a question on the Maccast Loop.

Choose Apple menu > System Preferences and click Keyboard & Mouse.
Click Keyboard Shortcuts.
Select the action in the Description list that you want to change.
Double-click the characters in the Shortcut column and press the key combination that you want to use instead.
Tip: You cannot use each type of key (for example, a letter key) more than once in a key combination.

Quit and restart any applications you are using for the new keyboard shortcut to take effect.

You can create keyboard shortcuts only for existing menu commands. You cannot define keyboard shortcuts for general purpose tasks such as opening an application or switching between applications.

To disable a shortcut, deselect the checkbox next to its description in the list.

To type ellipsis (…) type Command + ; (Apple + ;)

If you change a Finder shortcut you will need to relaunch the Finder before it takes effect. Press Control+Option, click the Finder icon in the dock and choose Relaunch.

Review: File Salvage

Play review from Tee

File Salvage

Clone backups are NOT the best for recovering deleted files.

Other apps

Data Rescue II, Prosoft Engineering

Data Rescue II

Boomerang, Steller Data Recovery

All I could find are more expensive. Capitalize on your loss.

Using times zone support in iCal

Listener Rick points out a handy feature in the Advanced preferences in iTunes

"Turn on Time Zone Support". Adds a time zone drop down to your event entry panel. You can set it from a dropdown and a (cool little map pops out) when you choose custom.

Enter your events in the time zone they occur in and iCal will adjust for the time zone your Macs clock is set to.

Can you lock the Mac to one wi-fi access point?

Listener Mohammed is a concerned parent and has set up content filtering to protect his children from some of the seedier areas of the net.

The issue is there are a plethora of open wi-fi hot spots open to his kids. He wants to know if there is a way to lock the Mac to only be able to use his wi-fi?

Could use parental controls and set up a 'white list", but that is hard to manage.

Of course kids will find a way, but we don't have to help them. ;)