iTunes

Starbucks will soon be offering 2 hours of free Wi-Fi to any paying customer at one of it’s retail locations. Most who frequent Starbucks with laptop in hand would be able to tell you that they used T-mobile to do their online errands. Starbucks recently announced a partnership with AT&T. Maybe Apple persuaded Starbucks to do so. It looks like these three companies are forming a Trinity of monopolistic power.

Soon iPhone owners all around will be able to use Starbuck’s Wi-Fi to surf the web, and buy drinks and music. A customer who completes these three simple tasks will benefit all three companies, and at the same time this is also very convenient for the customer who uses these services.

My question: Do you think this will benefit the average consumer, or hurt him/her?

Macbook Air. We all saw Steve introduce it, but what relevance does it have to the iPhone? Steve mentioned that the ultra portable laptop was meant for the wireless world. He backs the wireless properties of the notebook so much, he eliminated the disc drive. This notebook substitutes the CD drive with a feature called remote disc, which allows for the installation of software through another computers shared drive. Complementing the “Wireless” Macbook Air is another device, Time Capsule. Working with Time Machine, this device synchronizes automatically with the mobile version of Leopard, without wires. Apple is pushing the idea of a world without wires.

Apple tests new feature and then incorporates them into more than one product. The iPhone was the first product with true multi-touch, and now the Macbook air includes the same chip in the iPhone. Just as the iPhone has given multi-touch to the Air, the Air could soon bring true wireless to the iPhone.

The iPhone could soon be able to sync wirelessly like we have always wanted. Also new firmware could be downloaded over 802.11.  When will we see true wireless on the iPhone?… more...

Apple is Awesome! They have me under some sort of spell. They have perfect timing when it comes to the release of their products. They build up anticipation with Macworld, then “Boom!” As always, I am left drooling after the keynote. Apple introduced and talked about 4 of their products in the keynote, but let’s focus on the iPhone.

We’ve all seen it, at least most of us have. I am talking about the leaked firmware of course. How Gearlive got the firmware so many weeks early is beyond me. Even though the firmware did indeed look authentic, I was still skeptical. Apple does not like leaks, and I figured this was just another elaborate hoax. No, I was way off. Gearlive was dead on. The new firmware has these features: the ability to customize the home-screen, send SMS text massages to multiple people, and the ability to find the phone’s current location in the Maps application. Google Maps gets its triangulated location from both hot-spots and cell towers. This is especially helpful, as having both hot-spots and cell towers is sure to improve the accuracy of the system. Google maps… more...

If you wanted to get more NBC content from iTunes onto your iPhone, it is too late. Because the contract NBC and Apple have had has officially expired, and NBC has pulled out. NBC left because of a dispute over the price per episode. So, anything NBC related you will have to find elsewhere (including Sci-Fi, USA, and Bravo). NBC Direct is where the episodes are now being kept. Although they are now free, there is no longer Mac support and you may only keep downloaded content for 48 hours.

Good or Bad? What do you think? I have yet to decide.

My bet is on Apple working a lock out of jailbroken iPhones with their inevitable release of iTunes 7.5. Here’s the one application you really can’t avoid if you use an iPhone.

Plan on an eventual change in the feature set and layout of the iTunes store that only the most recent updates of the iTunes application can access and you’ll see it get harder and harder to operate a non-Apple blessed iPhone.

You could avoid firmware updates for as long as you want, but if the iTunes store becomes unusuable without a particular jailbroken unfriendly version of iTunes, my guess is that the momentum of the alternative development community won’t be enough to make this whole idea mainstream.

Like running Linux on your old 4G iPod, no one who doesn’t know how to write it themselves will really do it.

There! That’s my reading of the crystal ball for today!

I received my iPhone Store Credit today. And it is not as generous as you may think. Here is my story.

I was excited to hear that not only had Apple announced instructions on how to receive the $100 store credit but they made it possible to redeem without going into the store and showing a receipt. The redemption process involves the perfect match verification of the phone number, the serial number, and a code that was text messaged to you. Once again, a brilliant idea on Apple’s part to eliminate long lines and redemptions from hacked iPhones.

Needless to say I thought it was a breeze and I was psyched. I didn’t bother to read the fine print and as you will read further down the line, that will prove to be a problem.

I went to the online Apple Store prepared to purchase a $100 iTunes Gift certificate by email. I thought to myself that within 5 minutes I will be downloading all 3 seasons of Battlestar Galactica with my new found bootie. I went to check out and then my first speed bump: in the payment options screen the “Apple Store… more...

My take on the iTunes - NBC split, which has received so much press and attention: in a world in which more and more people see their television through YouTube, BiTorrent, and the like - all of which iPhones of course make easier - the availability of television on iTunes for any price doesn’t matter.  Whether $1.99 or $4.99, getting it for free is better.

Free television is course the way it has been for most of the history of television.  This notion of paying per episode is a misstep, I would say, made in the toddling adolescence of iTunes and the Internet.

Although NBC seems to be the more greedy here, by wanting to charge more for each download, NBC may in fact be more media-savvy than Apple - NBC already has a thriving web site with free downloads of a lot of its programs.  In fact, it put the remainder of its canceled Kidnapped on its network web site last Fall, and attracted a very loyal if small audience.  NBC may be getting tough with iTunes as part of a plan to build up its own web site.

Of… more...

It has been over a month since the release of iTunes 7.3, but a change in the way iTunes handles artist sorting just came to my attention recently and ever since I heard about it, I admit, it bugs me. I’m not alone. First off, here’s the deal:

iTunes used to sort the songs in the following way:
Symbols > Numbers > Letters

This was the standard. Apple switched it up. TuneQuest.org did a great job of compiling quotes from fellow irate iTunes users on Apple Discussion Boards, DIgg, iLounge, etc. In addition they have added links to an older version of iTunes so you can downgrade.

Starting with version 7.3, numbers and other non-alphabetic characters are sorted to the bottom of the list. My default view now shows Aalborg Symphony Orchestra at the top. 2pac now begins after the Zs and iTunes suddenly doesn’t even know how to handle artists whose names begin with punctuation. It starts !!! after songs that don’t have anything entered into their Artist or Album tags! iTunes now ignores the non-alphabetic leading character and sorts based on the first… more...

MacDailyNews is reporting that next wednesday (September 5th), Apple will debut a wireless version of the iTunes store allowing iPhone users and iPod? users the ability to purchase content wirelessly.

While this may only be a rumor, it is no big surprise. For Apple to succeed they will need to find a way for the iPod and iPhone lines to be co-dependent with the iTunes Store. Without wireless downloads, iPhone users will eventually demand the ability to download songs from one vendor or another. Apple can’t afford to miss out on that offering.

As for the iPod part of this rumor, I would not be surprised if the iPod went wireless. The real question for me would be whether a music squirting feature (ala Zune), will be included.

[Via MacDailyNews]

Over at RadioWorld… A prediction by Pike & Fischer is made… Here’s a blurb:

“Apple will transform iTunes into a wireless service for the new iPhone, or create a wireless offshoot of iTunes within the year, Pike & Fischer predicts in a report that analyzes the U.S. mobile broadband market.”

Do you think iTunes could hit the wireless stage? I think a wireless iTunes would be cool and would make the iPhone more versatile in not having to rely on a Mac or PC… I mean, how many people want to be restrained to a Mac or PC to put on or take off songs on their iPhone? I see this coming somewhere down the road. What do you think?

Check out the rest of the scoop here.