Categories: iPod and iTunes

Now, Will Apple Do A Music Subscription Service?

Posted by: Peter Burrows on April 07

One of the more significant advances in Apple’s iPhone 3.0 OS announcement was support for subscription pricing. This was discussed in the context of iPhone app developers, who see it…

Apple Just Delivered Item No. 1 On My iTunes Wish List. What’s On Yours?

Posted by: Peter Burrows on November 21

I use the iTunes functionality of iPhone almost exclusively for podcasts (also for audio books, but not for music). And I’ve resented having to synch the darn thing every time…

Apple’s Anti-DRM Stance: Why It’s More Talk Than Action

Posted by: Peter Burrows on September 17

CORRECTION: In the second to last paragraph of this story, I wrote that “buying unprotected music takes far more clicks and energy than buying from the regular iTunes store.” It…

How’s This For A Switch: A Blue Screen of Death, Courtesy of Apple

Posted by: Peter Burrows on September 14

Just when I was hoping that iPhone firmware update 2.1 was going to improve the performance of the loaner iPhone I’ve been using from Apple, here comes another headache courtesy…

How Will Apple Improve iTunes?

Posted by: Peter Burrows on September 08

Enough about the hardware. What about iTunes? As Steve Jobs often points out, software is what sets Apple apart most—and Apple’s digital music store and jukebox seem more than a little stale to me. Plain old downloads, same old promotion of [mostly] the same old pop hits. In fact, just when I was wondering if Microsoft would call it quits on its poor-selling Zune, they’ve announced improvements that sound great to my ears

Here Comes Dell To Compete With The iPod, Again

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on July 30

Looks like Dell is going to make another run at the music player business. All I can say is “here we go again.” Perhaps you’ll remember its ill-fated attempt to…

Looks Like iTunes Is About To Get A Serious Competitor

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on April 04

On the very day that Apple learned that during the months of January and February, it was the leading music vendor in the U.S. outdistancing Wal-Mart, Best-Buy and all the…

Actually? It’s Probably Not True. But If It Were…..

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on March 20

So it appears yesterday’s story in the FT about negotiations between Apple and the major record labels on a subscription model were more wishful thinking on someone’s part, and less…

Report: Apple’s New iTunes Business Model

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on March 19

There have been rumors making the rounds that Apple has been looking at offering a music subscription service as an alternative to its so-called “a la carte” model where iTunes…

The Beatles On iTunes — At Last?

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on March 07

This little drama has gone on so long that I’ve almost reached the point that I no longer care, and yet I find I still do. MacDailyNews noticed this story…

Gene Munster On iPod Sales: Yikes!

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on February 25

Whoop! Whoop! Whoop! Everyone panic! IPod sales are crashing!!! But seriously. Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray just published a note analyzing iPod sales data from market researcher NPD and finds…

Are There Problems With iPod Sales?

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on February 22

There’s been a lot of bellyaching of late around the subject of iPod sales, and whether or not they’re slowing, and what that means for Apple. Well, first off, its…

Here’s An Idea: Give Away 1-Gig iPod Shuffle

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on February 19

Colleague Peter Coy floated an interesting idea my way this morning in the wake of Apple’s price cut on the low-end iPod shuffle to $49. Why not give them away?…

Apple? Meet DoubleTwist.

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on February 19

It’s been 16 months since we last heard from Jon Lech Johansen, aka DVD Jon. When last heard from he was preparing to turn his skill for breaking through digital…

Store Outage Over: Meet the Pink iPod nano

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on January 22

So there you have it. Pink joins the color lineup in the nano family. It’s an 8-gigabyte model and goes for $199. Just in time for spring, or Valentine’s Day….

iTunes Movies Outsell HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Disc

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on January 17

Interesting statistical aside from the Jobs keynote on Tuesday. Apple has sold 7 million movies since the, and yet that number has been more or less deemed a failure. But,…

Jay-Z Launching Record Label With Apple?

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on January 03

Curious chatter today suggests that rapper/entrepreneur Jay-Z (who in recent memory starred in this commercial for Hewlett-Packard) may be close to a deal to launch a record label with Apple….

Movie Rentals Coming to iTunes

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on December 27

Reports today say that Apple and Fox are close to announcing a deal that would allow iTunes customers to rent movies via iTunes, and use them for a limited time….

New iPod, Old Problem

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on December 26

Santa brought me a brand new iPod classic, with a nice big 160 gigabytes of storage capacity. It’s terrific. But this morning, while getting it ready to take with me…

SanDisk Head To Jobs: Be Afraid

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on December 19

SanDisk Chairman and CEO Eli Harari thinks Steve Jobs should be afraid, and he’s saying so publicly in an interview with the Israeli business publication Globes Online. The story says…

NBC Universal Joins SanDisk’s Fanfare

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on December 11

So the latest shoe to drop in Apple’s battle with NBC Universal has dropped today. It’s not, however a doozy, but it is interesting. NBC Universal has announced that it…

Free Music Everywhere Soon?

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on October 09

Radiohead did it, and now Oasis and Jamiroquai are making noise about following their lead. And today I heard reliably that REM is thinking along the same lines. Techdirt has…

Nano Teardown Update

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on October 08

Last month, I did a story on iSuppli’s teardown analysis of the latest iPod nano. Among the things I reported, citing iSuppli’s analysis, was that Cypress Semiconductor had been supplanted…

Virgin Digital, RIP

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on September 25

And so it was that Virgin Digital, the online music outpost of the music retailer Virgin Megastore, bid the world goodbye. But here’s the interesting bit: The store is advising…

So Where are the iPod Phatty Jokes Now?

Posted by: Peter Burrows on September 05

OK, I’ll admit it: based on the pics that made the rounds last week, I thought the new iPod nano was going to be the black sheep in the family…

Thoughts On The Non-Beatles Non-Announcement

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on September 05

I don’t know why I care so much at this point other than I’ve been writing about the rocky relationship between Apple and The Beatles for so so so very…

Apple To NBC: Drop Dead

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on August 31

So it’s on. Apple and NBC are officially battling in public. Apple’s response to NBC’s notice of intent to pull its programming from iTunes once their current contract expires in…

NBC-Universal Pulls Out of iTunes

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on August 31

The New York Times via Digg is reporting that negotiations between Apple and NBC-Universal have not ended well, and the media concern is pulling its TV shows off iTunes. This…

Flash-Based Video iPod In The Pipeline?

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on June 08

Taiwan’s Digitimes has an interesting note today about a surge in demand for NAND-flash memory modules going into the third calendar quarter of this year, which some of these chipmakers…

My First iTunes Plus Purchase

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on June 05

Confession time: I bought my first iTunes Plus tracks this weekend. It was Cannonball Adderley’s “Somethin’ Else” which if you’re not familiar with it is profiled here by NPR,…

More On Account IDs In iTunes Plus Tracks

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on June 01

The BBC is today noting a brewing controversy over the presence of account ID information being embedded within the tracks of iTunes Plus music tracks. For $1.29 (or 30 cents…

Is Sound Quality of iTunes Plus “Amazing” Enough?

Posted by: Peter Burrows on May 30

Apple announced iTunes Plus today, where anyone can buy DRM-free tunes with “amazing” 256 kpbs sound quality for $1.29 versus the typical $.99 per song. This is great news—and not…

Meanwhile, DRM-Free Doesn’t Mean Piracy Is Okay…..

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on May 30

…..Thought you were going to share your DRM-Free songs from iTunes with the nearest Torrent tracker? Nuh-uh. Guess what? Erica Sadun over at TUAW has noticed that your iTunes user…

iTunes Plus Launches Today

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on May 30

And so begin the days of DRM-free music on iTunes. Here’s a refresher for those who missed the details when this was first announced: Music from EMI’s catalog –…

Paul McCartney Goes Digital. Are The Beatles Next?

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on May 11

Big news from the camp of the Fab Four: Billboard is reporting this morning that Paul McCartney’s next album “Memory Almost Full” will be available for digital download. It’s being…

Yo, Adrian….MGM Joins iTunes

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on April 11

The roar of the MGM lion will soon be heard from iPods, Macs and PCs the world over. Apple and MGM announced today that they had come to an agreement…

UPDATE: I stand corrected on “Complete My Album

Posted by: Peter Burrows on March 30

I jumped the gun with So how is “Complete My Album” a “reduced price”? , which I posted yesterday. For one thing, as Apple PR and a few readers have…

So how is “Complete My Album” a “reduced price”?

Posted by: Peter Burrows on March 29

Wait a minute! How is not forcing me to buy something I’ve already bought giving me “a reduced price”?

iPod Shuffle? Meet Manhattan Traffic

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on January 11

I don’t know how or why the tradition of posting pictures of severely damaged personal electronics began. Here’s an example, and another, and still another. So with this odd tradition…

Behold, An iPhone

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on December 18

Well now we all know what Gizmodo Knows. As you may have seen today, the iPhone debuted. But it’s not exactly what you’re probably expecting. It came not from Apple,…

Fun With The Forrester Report and My Calculator

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on December 13

So, that whole thing about iTunes sales “plummeting” according to a Forrester Research report? Well, it turns out Forrester meant nothing of the kind. You see, it’s all the media’s…

And While I’m On The Subject of Music…

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on December 12

I’m going to miss Tower Records a lot. I was at one of the “going out of business” sales at the Tower on Manhattan’s Upper West Side recently, and the…

Why iTunes Sales Are Down: Music Is Bad

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on December 12

There’s a lot of buzz going on about this Forrester Research report that portrays iTunes sales as “collapsing.” Well, here’s the thing: I don’t think they were ever all that…

Wanna Invest In the iPod? Stick with Nvidia, one analyst says

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on November 21

Here’s still more fuel to the fire on the speculation of a video iPod and iPhone. An interesting research note crossed my desk this morning from FBR Research analyst Chris…

Why Does Bill O’Reilly Hate The iPod?

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on November 20

What exactly does Bill O’Reilly have against the iPod anyway? In a recent radio rant, he held up Apple’s popular music player and the Sony Playstation 3 as example of…

iPhone Rumors All But Confirmed?

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on November 15

A Chinese language newspaper, The Commercial Times, is reporting that Hon Hai Precision Industry, aka Foxconn, the company that builds the iPod for Apple, has secured a contract to build…

The Three Rules of Cool

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on November 10

I just got into the office and have no fewer than a dozen requests for a link to Malcolm Gladwell article I mentioned in the final few paragraphs of today’s…

Exclusive: Movie Downloads on iTunes By Mid-September

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on August 31

Coming soon to a Mac or PC near you: Movies on iTunes. My BusinessWeek colleague Ron Grover has exclusive details about how how Wal-Mart, as the largest seller of DVDs…

Financial Claims Against Chinese Reporters Cut

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on August 31

There’s been some movement reported in the case of the two Chinese reporters sued by the company that builds iPods under contract for Apple. IDG News Service is reporting that…

Reporters In Trouble for iPod Factory Reporting

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on August 30

Just when you thought you’d heard the last of chatter surrouding working conditions at the Chinese factory that makes iPod, here’s a new wrinkle: It turns out some of the…

Why Would Apple Ever Want To Buy YouTube?

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on August 23

How many times have we seen this story play out? Little Web site starts up, turns into a raging success, gets acquired by a big company with huge financial resources,…

Rumored: Apple Lossless Songs on iTunes?

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on June 27

This would be interesting: Songs sold on the iTunes Music Store in Apple Lossless format. As anyone who’s into downloading FLAC, SHN and WAV files can tell you, lossless formats…

iRiver On The Rocks

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on May 24

Looks like the iPod has killed — or at least severly wounded — yet another would-be “iPod killer” this week. South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo is reporting that Reigncom, the company…

Meanwhile Macy’s Gets iPod Vending Machines

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on May 22

You read that right: an iPod vending machine. An outfit called Zoom Systems is making ready to install some iPod will be leasing space inside 180 Macy’s stores, where it…

First Podcasting, Now Textcasting

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on May 15

AdWeek has an interesting story about how Slate, the online magazine founded by Microsoft, but now owned by the The Washington Post Company, has a plan to start making text…

So I Have To Ask….

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on May 12

A friend just popped in with a question about songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store. He says the iTunes-bought songs on his iPod stopped working. He wonders if it…

Where Else but iTunes for The Beatles?

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on May 09

Now that the latest bit of legal unpleasantness between Apple Computer and Apple Corps. – all but for an ill-advised appeal to a higher court – the jockeying among the…

What’s The Oldest Song On Your iPod?

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on March 20

This weekend I blew several hours listening — and downloading — some of the oldest recorded music in existence. The cause of this was a fascinating piece in The New…

If Microsoft Had Made And Marketed The iPod

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on March 15

If you’re in need of a good laugh today, a little something has surfaced on Google video showing what might have happened had Microsoft made the first iPod. In a…

Apple Needs to Lead, Not Follow, On Hearing Loss Debate

Posted by: Peter Burrows on March 14

One reason for Apple’s loyal following, and its remarkable resurgence in recent years, is that it is more focused on addressing its customers’ problems than many other companies. It can…

If Anyone Can Sell a $100 iPod Case, it’s Apple

Posted by: Peter Burrows on February 28

The first words out of the mouth of Tim Hickman, general manager of iPod accessory maker Speck Products, when I called today were: ”I wish you were calling me because…

When will movies come to iTunes?

Posted by: Peter Burrows on February 08

When Apple unveiled its video iPod and added TV shows and other video fare to its iTunes Music Store last Fall, I wondered why Steve Jobs hadn’t done a deal…

Cutting Off the Oxygen of iPod Rivals

Posted by: Peter Burrows on February 07

That doesn’t mean today’s price cuts on the shuffle aren’t big news. Indeed, they are very big news indeed, if you’re in the unenviable position of having to compete with Apple in MP3 players.

iRadio Remote: Official Word

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on January 10

The press release on the new iPod accessory has hit the wires: It describes the product as combining “the convenience of wired remote control with new FM radio capabilities for…

I’ve been had!

Posted by: Peter Burrows on January 05

OK, I’m fool for a day. In a posting earlier today on iPod to iPod transfers, I mentioned a product that turned out to be an April Fools joke—and am…

iPod to iPod transfers: How big a trend?

Posted by: Peter Burrows on January 05

I was speaking the other day with a music industry source about Apple’s ongoing negotiations with the major music labels. He said that one of the labels’ concerns was one…

We Are the iPod People. You Will Be Assimilated…

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on January 04

If you ever considered the spread of the iPod’s popularity to be comparable to something out of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” or perhaps the zombie-like Borg race from “Star…

So is there an iPod shortage or not?

Posted by: Peter Burrows on December 21

I just got back from the Apple Store in Palo Alto. They had ample supplies of the 4-gig black iPod nano—supposedly the hottest selling sku. And they were out of…

An analyst raises iPod shipment estimates

Posted by: Peter Burrows on December 19

I think many people will be willing to leave an IOU under the tree, rather than buy a non-iPod product.

Introducing, the iPod Invisa

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on November 23

Somewhere in the last decade or so I stopped watching “Saturday Night Live” regularly. It may have had something to do with finishing grad school, or something with the feeling…

Where’s Apple’s Tivo Outrage?

Posted by: Peter Burrows on November 22

In this case, the principle isn’t the thing. The content is.

One of Apple’s Less Obvious Strengths

Posted by: Peter Burrows on November 22

Steve Jobs is known as a master of many things, from spotting technology trends to managing innovation to advertising to giving keynote speeches. Now, it may be time to make…

Apple Now Ranks 7th Among Music Retailers

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on November 22

After just a little more than two years of operation Apple’s iTunes Music Store has broken into the list of top ten music retailers as of the third quarter, debuting…

More On the iTunes Security Vulnerability

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on November 21

I just got a call from source familiar with the investigation into the iTunes security vulnerability I mentioned on Friday. You may remember there was some confusion as to whether…

Cool Things To Do With An iPod

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on November 21

I just couldn’t let the day go buy without pointing out this highly cool use for an iPod Shuffle, which I first found on The Unofficial Apple Weblog. I’ve seen…

Reverberations of the iPod Nano Rush

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on November 21

Apple today said it has locked in more long-term supply contracts for flash memory. I’ve watched the situation regarding the iPod nano and the supply for NAND-type flash memory for…

A Mysterious Appeal In The iPod Battery Class Action Settlement

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on November 18

Macworld is reporting today there is an appeal against the settlement in the iPod battery class action case. A notice on the Web site devoted to information about the settlement…

Security Vulnerability in iTunes

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on November 18

How secure is the iTunes software that goes hand-in-hand with the iPod? Apparently there are some issues about which those who use iTunes on Windows should be concerned. Computer security…

Old Records Meet the iPod

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on November 14

For last several days I’ve been listening to this one particular John Lee Hooker album over and over on my iPod. But how I got this album on my iPod…

What’s Your Warranty?

Posted by: Cliff Edwards on November 07

So I went into an Apple store in San Francisco last week to replace an iPod I received in July. Here’s the context: It had been sitting in a cradle…

iPod, Meet the Xbox…..

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on November 04

Microsoft has apparently been talking about how Xbox 360 owners will be able to connect their iPods to the gaming machine and use music as an alternate soundtrack in certain…

Another Nano Lawsuit

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on November 02

In last week’s Byte of the Apple column I grumbled about a lawsuit against Apple regarding the iPod nano and its alleged propensity to scratch easily. Looks like another law…

Well that didn’t take long

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on November 02

At least one of the moments when I became a confirmed Internet junkie happened in 1993 when I discovered Usenet. If you’re not familiar, Usenet is a massive collection of…