Dennis Fahringer's blog http://fotofah.posterous.com Most recent posts at Dennis Fahringer's blog posterous.com Wed, 27 Jun 2012 22:12:00 -0700 Apple overhaul of iTunes to focus on iCloud, music sharing? Extends iTunes Store to 12 Asian nations http://fotofah.posterous.com/apple-overhaul-of-itunes-to-focus-on-icloud-m http://fotofah.posterous.com/apple-overhaul-of-itunes-to-focus-on-icloud-m

Apple is planning one of the biggest overhauls of its iTunes music store since its launch nearly a decade ago, people with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg.

The revamp will increased integration with the company's iCloud storage service, allowing for greater access to stored content such as music, videos, and apps on mobile devices, these sources said. Apple is also planning to launch new features for music sharing with the new store, which is expected to be unveiled before the end of the year.

CNET has contacted Apple for comment and will update this report when we learn more.

Social sharing appears to be a major goal of the iTunes Store overhaul. Earlier this month, after years of being at odds, Apple announced it would more closely tie Facebook into iOS 6, the company's mobile operating system. Apple has also reportedly been in negotiations with major record labels to establish a system in which users could share songs with friends, while the labels have been pushing for a music subscription service similar to Spotify.

Apple has tried its hand at a social music networking before with Ping, with mixed results. The feature lets users post music tracks and albums to a feed to which other users can subscribe, viewing them from within iTunes on the desktop and on iOS devices But, the music-centric social network within iTunes 10 is largely considered one of Apple's recent missteps and is expected to get the ax in the next version of iOS.

iTunes is also key to Apple's expansion plans in Asia, where the company extended access to 12 new countries on Tuesday. The company also quietly released a standalone app that breaks out the podcast listening and downloading feature from the iOS version of iTunes into its own app.

Since Apple launched the iTunes Store with 200,000 music tracks in 2003, the store has expanded to include video content and audio books, as well as off-shoots like the iBookstore, and App Store, which use the same architecture. The store, which offers more than 28 million songs, 45,000 movies, and 650,000 apps, has been a contributing factor in Apple's success, generating nearly $1.9 billion in revenue last quarter -- a 30 percent increase over the previous year-ago period.

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Thu, 21 Jun 2012 18:43:00 -0700 Q&A: Adding Radio Stations to iTunes http://fotofah.posterous.com/qa-adding-radio-stations-to-itunes http://fotofah.posterous.com/qa-adding-radio-stations-to-itunes
Q.

The iTunes Radio list lacks a few streaming stations that I like. Is there anyway to add these so I can listen through iTunes instead of keeping the station’s Web page open all day?

A.

If you have the Web address for a station’s stream, you can add it to iTunes by copying the station’s URL. Open iTunes and in the Advanced menu and choose Open Stream. Paste the URL into the box that appears and click the O.K. button. The stream should begin playing through iTunes.

To save the station to a playlist, go to the File menu, choose New Playlist and call it “Radio Streams” or something similar. To save the current station to the playlist, right-click (or hold down the Control key and click) the name of the station as it plays in the iTunes track-display window. From the contextual menu that appears, choose Add to Playlist from and select your radio playlist. You can also drag radio streams listed in the lower part of the iTunes window onto the playlist icon to add them.

If the radio stations you want to add to iTunes are available on the SHOUTcast radio directory, you can easily add the streams to iTunes. On the SHOUTcast mail page, click on the Help menu, choose Settings and click the button next to “Play SHOUTcast stream in default media player.” Click the Save Settings button.

When you click on a stream you want to play in the SHOUTcast directory, the station’s .pls file downloads to your computer. If it does not begin to play in iTunes, double-click the downloaded file to start it. In most cases, the streams are automatically added to an “Internet Songs” playlist in iTunes.

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Sat, 12 Nov 2011 20:59:00 -0800 CanIStream.it: Search Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, Amazon, and iTunes for streaming movies http://fotofah.posterous.com/canistreamit-search-netflix-hulu-vudu-amazon http://fotofah.posterous.com/canistreamit-search-netflix-hulu-vudu-amazon

Can I Stream It?

Let's say you are a regular techie with a Netflix account, a Hulu account, and since you only shop online, you also have an Amazon Prime account. Now let's say you want to know if a movie you're dying to watch is available to be streamed instantly, using any of these accounts.

With CanIStream.It, you can search across all of these services and pick the one you want to use. And if the movie you're looking for is not available, just sign-up, set a reminder and voila we will shoot you an email when your chosen service makes the movie available. It's simple and fast.

CanIStream.it also searches iTunes, Vudu, and Amazon OnDemand stores; so if a movie isn't available you might still be able to digitally rent or purchase it.

Just type in the movie title you want to search for and then select "Streaming", "Rental", "Purchase", or "DVD/Blu-ray" from the menu to check for availability. If the movie is available, simply click on the icon and it will take you to the movie page, for the service you selected. If not, then sign-in and set a reminder and we'll let you know when it becomes available.

CanIStream.It is a free service created by the UrbanPixels crew for the community. We were missing a service like this, so we built it and now hope that other people find it useful too.

Contact us at info@urbanpixels.com if you have any questions or just want to tell us what you think about CanIStream.It.

 

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Sat, 13 Aug 2011 17:14:00 -0700 How To Get Your Mobile iTunes Purchases Back on Your Mac (very useful tips) http://fotofah.posterous.com/how-to-get-your-mobile-itunes-purchases-back http://fotofah.posterous.com/how-to-get-your-mobile-itunes-purchases-back
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Sat, 16 Jul 2011 16:39:00 -0700 Spotify Launches in the U.S at Last (very good article) http://fotofah.posterous.com/spotify-launches-in-the-us-at-last-very-good http://fotofah.posterous.com/spotify-launches-in-the-us-at-last-very-good
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Fri, 15 Jul 2011 10:02:00 -0700 Now I'm waiting for my invitation to *this*: Spotify gets ready to eat your iTunes for lunch http://fotofah.posterous.com/now-im-waiting-for-my-invitation-to-this-spot http://fotofah.posterous.com/now-im-waiting-for-my-invitation-to-this-spot
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The free app for it just showed up on the iTunes Store yesterday. :-) The service has been a big hit in Europe, just now becoming available in the U.S.

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Sat, 02 Jul 2011 14:47:00 -0700 Best iTunes Content and Add-Ons http://fotofah.posterous.com/best-itunes-content-and-add-ons http://fotofah.posterous.com/best-itunes-content-and-add-ons

iTunes is arguably the most important app for your Apple mobile device. It's the first program you use after you buy an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, and it's the only way to backup and restore the device or update its operating system. There is an enormous variety of content available through the iTunes Store—so much so that it can be hard finding and managing content. Fortunately, there are some excellent "helper" programs available. Let's take a look at some of the best.

Music

With over 13 million DRM-free songs available for purchase on iTunes, it can be hard to find the one you want. Fortunately, iTunes has tools to help you. You can have alerts about new music from your favorite artists sent to you. Simply click on your account name in the upper right corner of the screen, select Account, log into your account and click on the button labeled,"Manage My Alerts." You can also receive an e-mail alert for Apple's free"Single of the Week" as well as new and upcoming releases by subscribing to Apple's "New Music Tuesday" newsletter (mynews.apple.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Subscriptions.woa).

iTunes automatically downloads the correct "Meta tags" (track titles, artists, genre, year, etc.) and artwork for the albums you buy, but if you filled your music library with songs you've ripped from your CD collection, you may need to update this information. Fortunately, there are a number of solutions that do that for you.

LyricsArtworkoniPhone1

SongGenie 2 ($29.95, Mac only, equinux.com/us/products/songgenie/index.html) updates song information with ease by scanning your music library, identifying songs with missing tags, offering to add missing tags to tracks, and attempting to correct errors in tags (e.g., typos in artist or song names, incorrect year information, etc.). SongGenie 2 also downloads lyrics, which can be displayed when playing music on your iPhone and most iPods (see Fig. 1). You can toggle the display of "Lyrics & Podcast Info" in the iPod section of Settings.

Fig. 1: Lyrics display automatically when playing music on your iPhone.

CoverScout

CoverScout ($39.95, Mac only, equinux.com/us/products/coverscout/index.html) finds high resolution cover graphics for your CDs, allows you to edit them in an iPhoto-like interface, and then applies them to the albums in your collection. CoverScout can also apply the cover graphic to each track in the album (see Fig. 2) so you won't lose the graphic if you move the files. (I love this last feature.)

Fig. 2: Use CoverScout 3 to find and edit covers for the CDs in your Music LibraryFig. 4: MetaX finds tags and cover art for your video collection

Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes (free, Mac only, dougscripts.com/itunes/) is a collection of over 450 Macintosh scripts (i.e., mini-programs) that solve particular problems or add functionality to iTunes. My favorite is the "Super Remove Dead Tracks" script, which identifies all the missing tracks in your library (indicated by the gray exclamation point) and removes them.

I am primarily a Mac user and not as familiar with iTunes helper programs for the Windows environment. There are fewer quality titles for Windows, and I usually don't like the cross-platform solutions. However, there is one that I can heartily recommend.

Tune Up for Windows and Mac

TuneUp ($19.95 Annual version, $29.95 Gold version, PC and Mac, tuneupmedia.com) runs in a window alongside iTunes (see Fig. 3). The Clean Tab works like SongGenie, finding unknown tracks and fixing any metadata problems. The Cover Art tab finds missing cover graphics and downloads it. The Tuniverse tab displays a wealth of information about the currently artist, CD, and track, including videos, links to artist bios, news and merchandise, concert notifications, album and song recommendations, and more. The Concerts tab scans your artist list and provides chronological and calendar views of upcoming concerts in your area. It even lists venue and ticket prices with direct links to purchase tickets. The Share tab lets you communicate your most played songs, top artists, favorite albums and so on to a variety of social networking sites. If TuneUp adds lyric discovery/download, it will be the only iTunes helper program you need.

Fig. 3: TuneUp for Windows and Mac provides a wealth of infor about your Music Library

Movies, Music Videos, TV Shows

The video content found on iTunes is nowhere near as complete as its vast music selection. Because of this, many users like to import their personal collection of DVDs.

HandbrakeHandbrake (free, PC and Mac, handbrake.fr) is the tool to use to get DVDs into your iTunes library. It includes presets for the iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, and other devices, making one-click ripping easy. It also has numerous settings for someone who wants to fine-tune their import.

Fig. 4: MetaX finds tags and cover art for your collection

MetaX (free, PC and Mac, kerstetter.net/index.php/projects/software/metax) works hand in glove with Handbrake to find and add Meta tags (like director, release date, cast and crew) and movie cover artwork to your ripped DVD files. The end result is that videos ripped from your personal DVDs have all the same information as if you bought them from the iTunes Store (see Fig. 4).

Podcasts and iTunes University

Podcasts are series of video or audio files released periodically and covering a variety of topics. The iTunes Store lists thousands of podcasts to which you can subscribe for free. However, millions of podcasts exist, and a much wider variety can be found at Podcast.com and PodcastAlley.com. You can use iTunes to subscribe to any podcast you find on the Internet by going to the Advanced Menu and selecting "Subscribe to Podcast..." and entering the Podcast's URL.

iTunes U offers more than 250,000 free lectures, language lessons, audiobooks, and other content from hundreds of educational organizations (including Stanford, MIT, Yale, Harvard and Oxford). iTunes U content can be accessed through the iTunes app on your computer or Apple mobile device.

iBooks, AudioBooks and Ringtones

The newest content type to be supported in iTunes is electronic books. The iBooks Library contains iBooks (in ePub format), audiobooks, and PDFs. Unfortunately, you cannot read or purchase iBooks from iTunes on your desktop/laptop computer; you must install and use the iBooks app on your mobile device.

You don't have to buy books from iBooks - many books are available for free from websites like Project Guttenburg (gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page) or ePubBooks (epubbooks.com). Simply download the ePub file and drag it to the iBooks library in iTunes. If the eBook you want is not in ePub format, simply use the open source tool Calibre (free, Mac or PC, calibre-ebook.com) to convert it. Calibre can convert dozens of different file formats to ePub as well as download and apply Meta tags and covers to any item in your iBook collection.

While iBooks are a recent addition, audiobooks have been available via iTunes for years. You can purchase individual audiobooks from the iTunes store or sign up for Audible's subscription service (audible.com). For an excellent overview of AudioBooks, check out AldoBlog (aldoblog.com/audiobooks/itunes) which includes a tutorial on how to import AudioBooks on CD into iTunes.

Finally, relatively inexpensive ringtones are available from the iTunes store. But why pay for them when you can make your own for free with Audacity (audacity.sourceforge.net)?

iTunes: Gateway to a world of great content

A final word of warning: Back up your Mac or PC regularly so you don't lose your iTunes library if the hard disk fails. If you fail to, or if you run into a problem restoring your files, you can use TouchCopy ($24.95, Mac and PC, wideanglesoftware.com/touchcopy) to restore the contents of an iPhone, iPad, or iPod to your iTunes library.

If you only use iTunes to sync music and apps with your Apple mobile device, you are missing out on a world of great content, much of it free! You can make your music collection shine with updated song information and cover art, transfer your DVD videos to your iTunes library, download and listen to or watch podcasts on every conceivable topic, listen to lectures from top professors at some of the world's great universities, read and listen to books, and much more.

iTunes is the key that can unlock the full potential of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch! 

Very useful article. I'm especially intrigued by the app Cover Scout http://bit.ly/mpq9yg

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Fri, 01 Jul 2011 14:56:00 -0700 Sounds like an amazing value for $25 with iTunes Match (replacing with higher quality recordings) http://fotofah.posterous.com/sounds-like-an-amazing-value-for-25-with-itun http://fotofah.posterous.com/sounds-like-an-amazing-value-for-25-with-itun

Apple has a way with ambiguity and false starts lately, such as announcing the end of MobileMe nearly two weeks before it had a document ready to explain the nuance (see “Apple Details Transition from MobileMe to iCloud,” 24 June 2011), and shipping Final Cut Pro X days before it had the answers published to obvious questions from professional customers.

The same is true with iTunes Match, a new subscription service that’s part of iTunes in the Cloud (see “iCloud Rolls In, Extended Forecast Calls for Disruption,” 6 June 2011). With iTunes Match, Apple said, you’ll be able to pay $25 a year to sync all the music you didn’t purchase from the iTunes Store through iCloud to your various computers and iOS devices. Instead of uploading 100 percent of your own music, however, Apple would use a variety of metadata and audio-matching algorithms to check whether a song you owned was the same as one in its 18-million item catalog.

What will happen after the match occurs has been rather confusing, and Apple provided mixed guidance. On its marketing Web site for iCloud, Apple continues to state:

All you have to upload is what iTunes can’t match. Which is much faster than starting from scratch. And all the music iTunes matches plays back at 256-Kbps iTunes Plus quality — even if your original copy was of lower quality

We wondered if Apple was applying digital rights management (DRM) encryption to matched files, since what would otherwise stop someone from paying $25 for one year, matching all their songs, and walking away with higher quality files forever? This information has been available, though, in a place I should have looked: a press release that came out on 6 June 2011 but which I just found out about after Apple changed links to existing releases on the press relations portion of its Web site.

In the press release, Apple makes crystal clear what’s going to happen, something that was missed by many, thanks to the vast amount of news that came out that day. The relevant sentence:

In addition, music not purchased from iTunes can gain the same benefits by using iTunes Match, a service that replaces your music with a 256 kbps AAC DRM-free version if we can match it to the over 18 million songs in the iTunes Store, it makes the matched music available in minutes (instead of weeks to upload your entire music library), and uploads only the small percentage of unmatched music.

There you have it. You’ll be able to upgrade all your ripped files that aren’t up to snuff — avoiding replacing, say, your lossless FLAC versions — with the best Apple and the labels have to offer, for what is essentially a one-time $25 fee. This is the right way to do, but it seems like an awfully nice gift for those of us, like yours truly, who ripped their CDs at lower quality many years ago.

[Note: The first version of this story was written under the assumption that the press release wasn’t posted until 30 June 2011. It has been updated to reflect that the press release was moved to a new URL, which made it appear newly posted. -Glenn]

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Fri, 24 Jun 2011 19:25:00 -0700 iOS 5 101: How to set-up wireless syncing for your Apple mobile device http://fotofah.posterous.com/ios-5-101-how-to-set-up-wireless-syncing http://fotofah.posterous.com/ios-5-101-how-to-set-up-wireless-syncing
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Sun, 19 Jun 2011 16:47:04 -0700 Valuable tip about iTunes (even before iCloud becomes available this Fall) http://fotofah.posterous.com/valuable-tip-about-itunes-even-before-icloud http://fotofah.posterous.com/valuable-tip-about-itunes-even-before-icloud from: http://www.apple.com/icloud/features/

Beta. Available now.
Your past purchases. Available on all your devices.
Now you can download music you’ve previously purchased to all your
devices. When you buy music from iTunes, iCloud stores your purchase
history. So you can see the music you’ve bought — no matter which
device you bought it on. You can access your purchase history from the
iTunes Store on your Mac, PC, iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. And since
you already own that music, you can tap to download your songs or
albums to any of your devices.

Coming This Fall
iTunes Match

If you want all the benefits of iTunes in the Cloud for music you
haven’t purchased from iTunes, iTunes Match is the perfect solution.
It lets you store your entire collection, including music you’ve
ripped from CDs or purchased somewhere other than iTunes. For just
$24.99 a year.2

Here’s how it works: iTunes determines which songs in your collection
are available in the iTunes Store. Any music with a match is
automatically added to your iCloud library for you to listen to
anytime, on any device. Since there are more than 18 million songs in
the iTunes Store, most of your music is probably already in iCloud.
All you have to upload is what iTunes can’t match. Which is much
faster than starting from scratch. And all the music iTunes matches
plays back at 256-Kbps iTunes Plus quality — even if your original
copy was of lower quality.

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Tue, 14 Jun 2011 13:54:00 -0700 Half the users of Apple mobile devices have never backed up to iTunes? (Yikes!) You will with iCloud http://fotofah.posterous.com/half-the-users-of-apple-mobile-devices-have-n http://fotofah.posterous.com/half-the-users-of-apple-mobile-devices-have-n
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Fri, 10 Jun 2011 13:29:27 -0700 How will iTunes work with iCloud (a very good article from MacWorld) http://fotofah.posterous.com/how-will-itunes-work-with-icloud-a-very-good http://fotofah.posterous.com/how-will-itunes-work-with-icloud-a-very-good http://www.macworld.com/article/160339/2011/06/itunesncloud.html

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Mon, 06 Jun 2011 23:08:08 -0700 link for downloading the new iTunes v10.3 (which my Software Update didn't even detect yet...) http://fotofah.posterous.com/link-for-downloading-the-new-itunes-v103-whic http://fotofah.posterous.com/link-for-downloading-the-new-itunes-v103-whic http://t.co/prevPjA

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