Archive for Apple
iTunes is now DRM-free. So what?
February 2nd, 2009 •
Tags: Amazon, DRM, eMusic, iTunes store, lala, MP3s, music, online music stores
Apple has kindly decided to allow users to pay 30 cents per track to remove the crippling DRM which would otherwise render users’ songs useless should the iTunes DRM servers vanish (as Wal-mart’s did last year). I understand that this charge was probably mandated by the RIAA, but I still have a problem with a store that charges me again to have unfettered access to my own purchases. This is especially true since other stores have already been selling DRM-free music for a while now. Many of us who care about owning music with fewer conditions have already found iTunes alternatives. Here are a few of the iTunes store alternatives that have made my radar.
eMusic- eMusic is a subscription-based service that offers a number of downloads per month for the life of your membership. The current entry-level plan is $10 for 30 tracks which is significantly cheaper than ordering from other online music stores (except maybe for those based in Russia). The drawback is availability of major label artists; there is none. Because eMusic was among the first services offering DRM-free music, they still don’t really have a relationship with the majors. They have gained something of a reputation of being the online store for indie titles and have developed a following as a result. I can’t argue with the pricing!
Amazon- Based on my experience, Amazon’s music store comes closest to iTunes in size. Up until recently, Amazon was the place to be if you wanted DRM-free music from the majors. One unique aspect of this store is that they actually run discounts and deals on songs and albums. They offer a daily deal which is often an entire MP3 album for $2. Not bad at all!
lala- In lala’s previous life, it was a CD trading service. Someone got smart and decided CDs weren’t going to be around forever. Now, lala is a DRM-free music store with good selection (although not quite as good as Amazon’s) and a number of very unique features. Lala has a web-accessible music library. You can choose to purchase an MP3 for $.89 or the web-playable track for $.10. If you buy the MP3, the track is automatically added to your web library. If you buy the web track, you can upgrade it to the full MP3 for $.79 more. When you first sign up with lala, you will download the Music Mover app which acts as a downloader for purchased tracks. It does double-duty as an uploader for any MP3 tracks it finds on your computer. These songs will be added to your web library as well giving you roaming access to your entire library for no more than you would pay (or have paid) for the tracks themselves. It’s a really nice service, but the store is excellent as well. Most albums are $7.50 which is a pretty healthy savings over iTunes typical $9.99 price. I have also had to deal with customer service on a couple of track downloading problems. They were very responsive and provded me with an opportunity to redownload any tracks I did not receive. This one is my current favorite by far.
There is little disadvantage to using these alternative services. In many cases, you get much more for your money than you would from iTunes. The advantages are clear: extra services and better prices. Both Amazon and lala are easy to try since there is no subscription and eMusic offers a free trial. The only disadvantage is that these stores are most likely not integrated into you computer’s media player. Fortunately, the features and savings you get for that little extra effort are really worth it. Even though iTunes now offers DRM-free music, there still remain compelling reasons to give the alternatives another look.
iPhone may finally get Flash
February 1st, 2009 • 2 comments
Tags: Adobe, Adobe Flash, Adobe Systems, Apple, flash, iPhone
Adobe‘s CEO has stated they are now in collaboration with Apple to develop Flash for the iPhone. It seems to me that, if this ever comes to fruition, we will see a major shift in the type of games available in the app store. After all, why would I pay $5-$10 for a tower defense game or a card game when I could play them for free in the web browser? Now all we need is a version of the Kongregate site for the iPhone…
Apple plans “Premium” games section on iTunes
January 29th, 2009 •
Tags: Apple, AppStore, games, iPhone, itunes, premium games
Complaints leveled at the iTunes app store by developers are that any app priced over 99 cents risks being overshadowed by the plethora of quick and cheap apps. I have to admit it takes much less deliberation to decide if I should fork over a buck for a game. A five-dollar or more game receives a little more thought. This is natural, and I’m not sure there is any way to avoid it.
Apple has decided the best remedy is to separate so-called “premium” games from the standard games section of the store. The only problem is that the new division of the store is said to be limited to large publisher. Fans of indie games and developers will be a little miffed to say the least. The app store has really leveled the playing field to allow small-time developers to compete against the larger developers. It would really be a shame to see all that go out the window.
Thanks to Cult of Mac for the heads-up.
Game|Life’s 10 iPhone games you must own
January 26th, 2009 • 1 comment
Tags: games, iPhone, iPhone games, wired
Wired‘s Game|Life blog has posted an interesting article listing 10 of their favorite iPhone games. I can agree with a lot of the list, but there are a few I haven’t even tried. (I would really love to try out Crayon Physics Deluxe!) What iPhone games are your favorites? Post a comment to let me know.
iLife ’09 ships tomorrow
January 26th, 2009 •
Tags: Apple, garageband, ilife, iphoto, mac, Software
The Apple blogosphere has erupted with the news iLife ’09 will ship out to stores tomorrow. I have to admit I’m a little excited for the facial recognition in iPhoto. I think the change with the most potential is the addition of music lessons to GarageBand. I wish I were excited for it, but I realize I have neither the time, the patience, nor the inclination to sit down and learn an instrument. Sigh…
Nice collection of iPhone wallpapers
January 25th, 2009 •
Tags: backgrounds, iPhone, wallpapers
Smashing Magazine comes through with a collection of 100 awesome wallpapers for iPhone users. I personally have a collection of about 400 wallpapers that I keep on my phone and compulsively switch between periodically. These are all great, but more than likely, you will find you have a taste for some and not so much for others. I tend to like the abstract or illustrated wallpapers over the nature pics. Luckily, there’s a little something here for everyone.
Jets’n'Guns Gold promo pricing
January 23rd, 2009 •
Tags: Apple, deals, games, mac, Software
Today’s MacUpdate Promo deal is the critically acclaimed shooter Jets’n'Guns Gold. The game is normally $30, but today it can be yours for $10! Mac gamers and shooter fans rejoice. If you happen to be both a Mac user and a shooter fan, you are probably already in some kind of shock coma due to rapture.
Eversave insures you won’t lose your work
January 22nd, 2009 •
Tags: Apple, eversave, mac, Software, utility
Eversave is not a mega-church as you may have guessed. Cult of Mac has caught wind of a cool Mac application which will periodically save open documents automatically. It sounds like a pretty cool idea. I have heard a million horror stories about how people lost 20 hours of work because they hit the surge protector’s power button with their foot. It’s really discouraging to have to start over. I personally have been saved numerous times by Gmail’s autosave feature. Thanks to this app, your documents will be saved whether or not your other applications have an auto-save feature.
White Macbook gets serious upgrades
January 21st, 2009 •
Tags: Apple, Macbook
Apple’s best-selling computer ever has gotten a pretty decent upgrade. The plastic $1,000 Macbook now has a 1066MHz frontside bus, twice the RAM (2GB), and Nvidia’s 9400M graphics processor. The most significant item is the graphics card which will really give gamers a big boost. This leaves the $1,300 aluminum 13″ Macbook very few selling points over the little white book that could.
Thanks to Wired for bringing this my attention.
Automatically add lyrics for your iTunes tracks (for Mac)
January 21st, 2009 • 7 comments
Tags: Audio only, howto, itunes, lyrics, mac, music, tutorial
Reposted from me.raddevon.com.
I don’t have a lot of music in iTunes, but a lot of the music I have is not the easiest to automate lyrics downloads. There are a number of one-step automated solutions, but unless your collection is limited to Justin Timberlake, The Beatles, and Madonna, you may have trouble getting lyrics for all your songs. Even this method is imperfect, but it finds the most of anything I have tried.
First, you will need to make a stop by Doug’s AppleScripts. There are two scripts we need for this process: No Lyrics to Playlist and Needle Drop. The former is fairly self-explanatory; it makes a playlist of every track in your library without lyric information. The latter allows you to specify a number of seconds to play of each track in a given playlist. After invoking Needle Drop, it will load up and play each song in your playlist for the time you specify.
There is one more piece of software needed to complete the process: TunesTEXT. This is a dashboard widget that finds lyrics for the currently playing iTunes track and adds them to your library.
Now, we can put the pieces together. Install the dashboard widget by double-clicking on it. The scripts have to be installed manually. Unzip the downloads and drag the scripts into (your home folder)/Library/iTunes/Scripts/. Once everything is installed, start your iTunes. If iTunes is already open, you will have to close and re-open it so that it will pick up the new scripts.
Once iTunes has started, you should see the scripts you just installed in a menu on the menu bar that looks like an unfurled scroll 
. Switch to the music section of your library. Click the scroll and choose “No Lyrics to Playlist.” This script will take a minute to comb through your tracks to find those that have no lyrics. Now, you may have to clean this list a bit. If you have podcasts, they will also be included in the list. Sort the list by Genre and delete any tracks that you don’t want lyrics for (e.g. books, comedy, classical, podcasts).
Now, you should have a playlist with only the songs you want to search lyrics for. We can use Needle Drop to play just enough of each track so that TunesTEXT has time to find lyrics. I found that, on my connection, five seconds was plenty of time for the lyrics to be found. You may have to experiment to find the perfect balance. Especially if you have lots of music, you want to choose the shortest playtimes that are enough to find lyrics to reduce the time the search will take.
While still in the No Lyrics playlist, click the scroll and select the Needle Drop script. You will see a dialog box where you can enter the playtime for each track. Enter the time you determined was ideal for your setup (or just try five seconds—it worked for me!). Now, the tracks will begin to play, the lyrics will be searched and added by TunesTEXT, and all will be right with the world. Enjoy!