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iTunes Store utters the magic words: “Open Sesame Street!”

Posted on Nov. 12, ’08, 1:00 PM PT by Dan Moren
Category | iTunes » iTunes Store

sesamestreet.jpgPut down your iPhone and close Google Maps, because I’ll tell you the way to get to Sesame Street: it’s via iTunes Store Boulevard. The classic children television show, now in its 39th (!) season has brought several episodes from its 35th season to the iTunes Store.

Like pretty much every kid in the U.S., I spent some serious time with the denizens of Sesame Street, though I think it’s undergone some substantial changes since my formative years. This particular season is peppered with celebrity guests, including Liam Neeson, Venus Williams, and Norah Jones. But I think it’s pretty clear to me what the best episode ever is.

Episodes are available for $1.99 a pop, or $23.88 for all 13 currently available. Of course, you can always catch the show for free on PBS, but if you’re looking for a particular episode (or, more likely, your kid demands repeated viewings) this is a good alternative. Besides, it’s always a plus to support quality children’s programming, especially as the current economic downturn goes from Wall Street and Main Street to Sesame Street.

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Bargain offers on albums and movies on the iTunes Store

Posted on Nov. 11, ’08, 12:25 PM PT by Aayush Arya
Category | iTunes » iTunes Store

Under $5 iTunes StoreEver wished that you didn’t have to pay as much as $14.99 for purchasing a movie or album off the iTunes Store? Sure you have. Well, Apple has some good news for you today. New to the iTunes Store are the “Under $5 Movies of the Week” (iTunes link) and “Under $5 Albums of the Week” (iTunes link).

Although you aren’t going to see the likes of Disney/Pixar’s Wall-E and The Killers’ ‘Day and Age’ in these sections anytime soon, you can definitely find a few titles from the last decade to plug the empty spots in your library.

The movies available this week, for example, include Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Total Recall, The Last Action Hero, Basic Instinct, and The Karate Kid, among others. There’s definitely a lot of the California Govn’r in there, if you’re into him.

And the albums include ‘Dangerously In Love’ by Beyoncé, ‘Combat Rock’ by The Clash, ‘Home’ by Dixie Chicks, and ‘Are You Gonna Go My Way’ by Lenny Kravitz, and more.

Of course, as the promotion title suggests, all these movies and albums are available at these discounted prices for only a week, so grab them while they last. Presumably, the next week will bring a fresh crop of movies and albums under $5, so you’ll want to be on the lookout.

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music

Journey song takes midnight train to #1 spot

Posted on Nov. 11, ’08, 8:10 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | iTunes » Music

dontstopbelieving.jpgYou may be a small town girl, living in a lonely world, and I may just be a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit suburban Boston, but we apparently have at least one thing in common: We don’t stop believin’.

And, according to SoundScan, we’re not alone. The classic ’80s power ballad by Journey (iTunes link) is the most downloaded catalog track—that is, songs that were released in the pre-digital download era—in history. Since iTunes opened on April 28, 2003 (which, as you avid MacUser readers know, also happens to be my birthday), the track has has gone double platinum, hitting 2 million downloads. Not bad for a 27 year old song.

Much of the song’s recent popularity has been attributed to its use in the final scene of The Sopranos—SoundScan says downloads rocketed 482% in the days around the episodes broadcast. Indeed, I fired up the song on my own iPod as I put this piece together, and I have to admit I found myself tearing up a bit. I mean, streetlights? People? Living just to find emotion? The movie never ends, it just goes on and on.

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legal

Apple responds to Norway; Norway is not amused

Posted on Nov. 5, ’08, 11:52 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | iTunes » Legal

norwegianflag.jpgTo Norway now, where Apple has been battling with superhero consumer ombudsman Bjørn Erik Thon since the dawn of time. Apple was supposed to give a response to the Norwegians’ latest inquiries by Monday the 3rd, a date laid down by The Hammer of Thon himself.

While Apple apparently did offer some sort of comment, it doesn’t appear to have satisfied our favorite Mr. Ombudsman:

“We have received an answer from iTunes, but it was an answer that didn’t add anything of substance. We will now continue what we have done so far, prepare to bring the case before the Market Council.”

Anybody know what Norwegian for “snap” is?

Norway’s central beef, as you’ll recall, is that music purchased from iTunes isn’t playable elsewhere. Of course, if you believe Steve Jobs, he’s been trying to get the labels to let him drop DRM for over a year now. And so these little piggies are headed to Market Council. See you in another six months.

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video

Why Apple won’t push the red envelope

Posted on Oct. 29, ’08, 9:30 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | iTunes » Video

appletvnetflix.jpgIn last week’s financial conference call, Steve Jobs reiterated his view that the Apple TV is a hobby for the company. He even went so far as to say that digital video in the living room as a whole had not really caught on.

I think the whole category is still a hobby right now. I don’t think anybody has succeeded at it and actually the experimentation has slowed down. A lot of the early companies that were trying things have faded away, so I’d have to say that given the economic conditions, given the venture capital outlooks and stuff, I continue to believe it will be a hobby in 2009.

That’s prompted some wondering about the future of the Apple TV. This morning, The Mac Observer’s John Martellaro posed the question of why Apple has not yet struck a deal with Netflix, who themselves have been pushing online video watching both through the Web as well as through partner devices.

Apple continues to regard Apple TV as a hobby and has curiously failed, so far, to secure an agreement with Netflix. Instead of getting an Apple TV into every Netflix subscriber’s home, Microsoft, Roku, LG, and Samsung are, in Apple’s absence, seizing the business opportunity, with likely others to come.

There are a couple of issues here, but the major reasons behind this decision have to do with Apple’s ethic: the way that they do business.

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legal

The DMCA: 10 years of the good, bad, and ugly

Posted on Oct. 28, ’08, 2:45 PM PT by Aaron Freedman
Category | iTunes » Legal

DMCADMCA. Four letters. Ten years. Countless frustrated consumers. Passed ten years ago today, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has been arguably, for better or worse, one of the most influential pieces of U.S. legislation in recent years.

While the DMCA has been the legal muscle behind shutdowns of P2P services like the original Napster and Kazaa and helped usher in the era of DRM, it also allowed digital media to flourish in certain legal forms, including, amongst many others, the iPod and iTunes. So, whether you love it or hate it, the DMCA has become eternally tied to the spread of digital and online media.

Let’s take a trip down memory lane to see just how this whole thing got started.

Click to keep reading...
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iTunes tops 200 million TV downloads, adds more HD

Posted on Oct. 16, ’08, 9:10 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | iTunes » iTunes Store

csimiami.jpgHoly high definition, Batman. Apple’s announced that it now features HD shows from all four major networks (we’re sorry, CW, but maybe someday you can grow up to be a major network). As you’ll recall, Apple first announced HD TV shows back in September at the iPod extravaganza, though at the time it only provided shows from NBC, ABC, and Showtime.

Well, now CBS and FOX have joined ranks with their own resolution-so-high-you-can-see-David-Caruso’s-pores-oh-god downloads. And that’s not the only news from the iTunes front; seems the store’s been a busy little bee, moving its 200 millionth TV show and selling over a million HD episodes since their launch last month.

With the amount of HD TV content available, Apple still clearly intends to be a force in the online TV market, but it remains to be seen how they’ll handle competition from alternative forms distribution, such as the ad-based Hulu. Here’s my free prescription: $0.99 TV episode rentals, 7 days to start watching, 24 hours to finish. What think you, readers?

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itunes_store

iTunes, Amazon MP3 come to YouTube (in theory)

Posted on Oct. 9, ’08, 10:24 AM PT by Cyrus Farivar
Category | iTunes » iTunes Store

top_youtube_logo_31_Dec_06.jpgSo theoretically, YouTube now allows purchasing of EMI and Universal tracks via iTunes or Amazon. The idea is that if you’re watching a video with a music track, you’ll be able to easily download that song from either one of those stores. Sounds simple enough, right?

Except for the life of me, I can’t figure out how to test this out.

The YouTube blog says:

Click-to-buy links are non-obtrusive retail links, placed on the watch page beneath the video with the other community features. Just as YouTube users can share, favorite, comment on, and respond to videos quickly and easily, now users can click-to-buy products — like songs, books, and movies — related to the content they’re watching on the site.

But I still only see the regular share links on any video posted by “universalmusicgroup” or “emirecordsuk”.

Has anyone actually been able to get this to work?

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itunes

Dada.net now offers Universal music catalog at $0.66 per track

Posted on Oct. 7, ’08, 11:17 AM PT by Cyrus Farivar
Category | iTunes » iTunes

As if there weren’t enough third-tier iTunes competitors out there, Italian social networking startup Dada (half owned by Sony Music) is now offering the entire Universal catalog, in addition to the Sony catalog, at two-thirds the price of iTunes — that is, $10 for 15 tracks. Further, the company offers over-the-air downloads of DRM-free tracks available both as music tracks and as ringtones. The downside? That $10 is a monthly subscription fee, which gives you a “budget” of songs—and it doesn’t roll over to the following month, so if you don’t buy enough, you’re potentially losing money.

Did Universal forget that its previous attempt at a music store failed miserably? Let’s not forget to mention that Dell, Nokia (which isn’t doing so good these days), MySpace, Amazon and everyone else had tried this strategy before. Have any of them gotten anywhere close to where iTunes is?

What part of “number one music retailer” doesn’t it understand?

*sighs*

[via TG Daily]

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itunes_store

Attend Oxford and Cambridge (British accent not required)

Posted on Oct. 7, ’08, 7:21 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | iTunes » iTunes Store

oxbridge.jpgLook, maybe you didn’t snag that sweet scholarship to Oxford or Cambridge, but it doesn’t mean you can’t still reap the benefits of a classical education. If you’ve ever longed to wander the hallowed halls of Christ Church or Trinity, well, we can’t necessarily help you with that, but as of today you can snag lectures from the two renowned universities on iTunes U.

Those looking for a position as an honorary Cantabrigian can take advantage of video and audio lectures in subjects such as Business, Art, History, Environment, and Science, including an intriguingly titled series called The Naked Scientists. Because if nudity doesn’t get you into science, nothing will.

Meanwhile, aspiring Oxonians will find an extremely extensive catalog of lectures in everything from the humanities to maths (geez, those Oxford guys really are smart—I only ever took one math). You can even check out a video about oxford itself, narrated by Monty Python member and alumnus Michael Palin (who, I understand, is not running for vice president).

Of course, you don’t need to go to one of these posh institutions to get a good education. Might I recommend a series of lectures from my own alma mater just to the north?

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