Apple Releases Major iTunes Update 910
shunnicutt writes "Apple has released iTunes 4.5 (and iPod software 2.2 and QuickTime 6.5.1) and relaxed some iTunes Music Store restrictions: now tracks you purchased can be authorized to play on up to five other computers, instead of three. However, they reduced the number of times you can burn a playlist to an audio CD from ten to seven. Another new feature is iMix, which allows you to publish playlists on iTMS, including comments on each track. The iTMS also offers a weekly free single for download."
crazney adds "This release also changes their network sharing protocol in a way that breaks the open source iTunes sharing applications that have been released (based on my work on iTunes 4.2's DRM)."
kefoo writes "Among the new features is Apple Lossless Encoding, which claims to compress losslessly to half the size of uncompressed CD quality audio." Hm, and I was about to re-rip all my CDs at 320 kbps MP3 ...
Update: 04/28 14:56 GMT by P : I just tested, and I can listen to previously de-DRM'd AAC files from playfair, but I cannot use either playfair or FairTunes any longer. The former "Couldn't get DRM key for user," and the latter produces a blank file.
iTunes 4.5 is a screen hog (Score:3, Interesting)
Additionally, the app now also features a cool track melding feature not mentioned in the heading. This makes it a lot easy to make seamless listening possible for tracks that are supposed to proceed without pausing, So now I can finally listen to classical tracks the way they are supposed to sound. Seamless and lossless. Cool.
Re:iTunes 4.5 is a screen hog (Score:5, Insightful)
Granted, I have a 17" screen, so I don't know what it looks like on a twelve incher, but I've never had any complaints about the interface layout.
Re:iTunes 4.5 is a screen hog (Score:4, Funny)
As with many things in life (bigger budgets/more expenses, bigger houses/more junk), the bigger your screen gets, the more apps you will run... thus nullifying the larger screen's real-estate.
-m
Re:iTunes 4.5 is a screen hog (Score:5, Funny)
May I humbly offer the suggestion that you acquire Self-Restraint 1.0?
It's free.
KFG
Re:iTunes 4.5 is a screen hog (Score:5, Funny)
>It's free.
>KFG
Free as in beer? Or Free as in speech?
Sorry, I couldn't RESIST.
Re:iTunes 4.5 is a screen hog (Score:4, Funny)
I've seen a demo of that, but.. I was unimpressed. There's no documentation, either.
Re:iTunes 4.5 is a screen hog (Score:4, Funny)
KFG
Re:iTunes 4.5 is a screen hog (Score:5, Informative)
If you're talking about the "Join Tracks" feature, this is not new to iTunes 4.5, it has been around for quite some time. If you're talking about a new feature for gapless output, then I'll be a very, very happy user.
Actually, that's my only real gripe with iTunes & my iPod: lack of gapless playback. iTunes has a crossfader, which, if you set it to 0 seconds, does a pretty good job of playing tracks as they should sound on a CD, but it's not perfect, and no such solution exists for the iPod. I know it's an often-requested feature for the iPod, I just hope we see it sometime this year.
Gapless "Join Tracks" feature (Score:4, Informative)
"Join tracks" is an unacceptible solution, IMHO. I still use iTunes, though. I just live with the small gaps.
Re:iTunes 4.5 is a screen hog (Score:4, Informative)
check out space.sourceforge.net. Space.app is multiple desktops for the mac. been using it since like 10.1
Re:iTunes 4.5 is a screen hog (Score:5, Informative)
Re:iTunes 4.5 is a screen hog (Score:5, Informative)
I've submitted this feature request to apple each time they release a new iTunes version, but still nothing
Hey slashdotters : help me convince apple of this feature ! click here [apple.com] and ask apple to provide networkable playlists (so NOT copying the tracks over the network, only their URL) Let's see if this can work !
Re:iTunes 4.5 is a screen hog (Score:4, Informative)
Re:iTunes 4.5 is a screen hog (Score:5, Interesting)
After about a week of Expose, however, I decided that it was terribly better than the Pager solution and decided to never go back... Now I just wish I had some Expose equivalent on the other platforms I use...
Re:iTunes 4.5 is a screen hog (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:iTunes 4.5 is a screen hog (Score:5, Insightful)
The logic is fairly easy to understand: Apple's leadership position in the downloadable music market hinges entirely on its ability to get the labels to license the tracks for download. If Apple doesn't go way out of their way to keep DRM irritatingly hard to work around, the labels yank the music and head over to Redmond which is more than happy to screw the consumer.
Apple is walking a fine line here... Without the tracks, it has nothing to sell. Without fairly liberal license terms, people just head back to the latest peer-to-peer client and nobody makes money.
So the logic in breaking backwards compatibility is that if there's no penalty to keeping a 4.2 or 4.0 version running, people will still be able to use Fairplay or stream to non-lan IP addresses while enjoying all of the benefits of the new 4.5 version.
What's going to end up happening is that everyone will maintain a full library of iTunes versions (like I do) and use the version that's most appropriate for their needs. Want to listen to your home library at work or on the road? Fire up 4.0 before you leave. Want to get rid of the DRM on your tracks? Run 4.2 and FairPlay, then switch back to 4.5 and enjoy the new features.
I'm sure these older versions will break with a system upgrade down the road, but by then, there might be an even cooler jukebox out there.
To me, the larger question is how long it's going to take the media industry to schedule a rectal craniotomy and figure out how to deal with the 21st century instead of hanging out in the 1990s.
Update shows iTMS needs more selection (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, one could argue that I have eclectic taste in music, but on the other hand, they are missing some pretty big names: Radiohead, Frank Zappa, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Chick Corea...
On an unrelated note, I wonder if iTMS is going to start offering lossless files. That would be cool.
Re:Update shows iTMS needs more selection (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Update shows iTMS needs more selection (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Update shows iTMS needs more selection (Score:5, Interesting)
One must remember that artists can choose not to distribute their music this way. Notables are easy to recall - Dave Matthews Band, Metallica, Radiohead, The Beatles, etc.
This is temporary. In a few years, no artist will keep their music from this medium, though they may not distribute through the big 5 either. The same press release shows Apple has 450 indy labels represented with iTMS!
Re:Update shows iTMS needs more selection (Score:5, Insightful)
More artist will come. Apple now allows certain albums to be sold in their entirety (some artist didn't want their albums picked apart), and Apple now allows users to print cover art (some artist hated the lack of album packaging).
Lossless (Score:3, Insightful)
And, as you mention, pretty much everything I listen to is unavai
Re:Update shows iTMS needs more selection (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, that would be cool, but I'd be very surprised if they did that. The problem is that you could easily strip the DRM by burning it to a CD and re-ripping it, and unlike DRM'd lossy files, there would be no loss in quality from the transfer.
Well, not that I think that would be a problem, but I'll bet Apple would.
Re:Update shows iTMS needs more selection (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Update shows iTMS needs more selection (Score:4, Informative)
Simple Concept (Score:5, Insightful)
The more times an iTMS-unavailable artist shows up on user-submitted playlists, the more pressure Apple has to try to sign that artist.
I like where this is going.
Global Compression Format War (Score:4, Funny)
"The only winning move is not to play."
Can't way to see how Apple tried to lock people in to a lossless format... best of luck to you guys, and have fun pissing away your resources on this stupid game.
This whole limit of computers... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This whole limit of computers... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This whole limit of computers... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This whole limit of computers... (Score:5, Funny)
At least not to me, a mere mortal. Perhaps an audio god could detect a difference. But they wouldn't recompress anyway - they'd store them all as uncompressed raw audio after hand-ripping them from the original masters they borrowed from the publisher.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This whole limit of computers... (Score:5, Informative)
If you are recording from one digital device to another; as long as the data stays in the digital domain, jitter is not recorded. The only thing actually captured is a sequence of amplitude values; digital media simply have no provisions for storing information about individual sample timing. The timing is based implicitly on the sampling rate and is freshly re-created by the digital-to-analog converter's clock every time the audio is played back.
Even digital-audio tape systems don't play audio directly from the tape. Instead, they pass the data through a RAM buffer from which a clock pulls individual samples and sends them to the outputs. As a result, variations in tape speed or data spacing aren't reflected in the output data.
Although jitter causes distortion on playback -- and can certainly generate unalterable distortion during the A/D process when recording from an analog source -- it is not recorded when making a digital dub or when recording between digital devices.
Re:This whole limit of computers... (Score:4, Interesting)
Why would you do that? Take your protected AAC, open up iMovie, import the AAC, the save it again as an AIFF.
OK... (Score:5, Funny)
So let's bring out the ALE and get drunk celebrating.
iTMS now accessible through firewalls! (Score:5, Informative)
I love the addition of two more authorized computers as well. I'm getting a new PB this spring to give my four Macs/PCs that I would have iTunes on and now I can keep them all authorized!
Re:iTMS now accessible through firewalls! (Score:5, Informative)
Yes I am. I live in the UK, which is in the EU which recently passed a law, not unlike the ones in the USA, which prohibit ripping from media that you already own for personal use. It's been discussed here before.
It's only a matter of time and sods law before someone is sent to jail for it.
Missing: Basic Features (Score:3, Interesting)
Though I'll admit that the join-tracks feature was much-welcomed, what else did iTunes users get? Instead of downloading songs with propietary DRM, now we can encode our songs with a new proprietary DRM--songs that won't play on anything else? I think I'll stick with FLAC. The ability to publish my important music playlists for the whole world to see? I think I'll stick with Audioscrobbler [audioscrobbler.com]. A free song from another bland RIAA-sponsored band? Epitonic [epitonic.com] has always provided a good sampling of independent artists and their music for you to try out. A wishlist to download those Top 40 songs later? Well, why don't I just download the songs now off allofmp3 [allofmp3.com] now with their ridiculously low prices, in whatever format I want, without DRM? Import unprotected WMA files? Winamp
Re:Missing: Basic Features (Score:5, Informative)
Yea, they should definitely sacrifice hardware sales to support this free program! Why didn't they think of that?
Hello? Apple makes money off iPods, not iTunes or the iTMS.
Re:Missing: Basic Features (Score:5, Informative)
>
> Now with Selective Listening
>
> Of course your party deserves a great soundtrack, and iTunes
> helps you jump-start your set list. The new Party Shuffle feature
> creates a dynamic playlist, similar to shuffle play, from either your
> entire library or a designated playlist. You can review upcoming songs
> to reorder or delete on the fly, taking charge like the DJ you always
> wanted to be. You or a guest can add songs to the mix at any time. If
> you like the random picks, you can always save them in a personal playlist.
> And of course, you can use Party Shuffle when listening to music alone,
> too. So your playlist is always full, and always full of good tunes.
>
And I think your "gapless playback" could have been helped with the preference for the gap between songs (though that nay only apply to burning CDs). In any case, I agree that it's a very important feature for stuff live albums and arty, no-break albums (of which I have a couple).
I minor nitpick... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I minor nitpick... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I minor nitpick... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Missing: Basic Features (Score:5, Funny)
Ummm...does it matter? What constitutes "real Queueing" for you? It fuckin queues a track. Sounds real enough to me.
wine? (Score:4, Interesting)
[TMB]
Re:wine? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:wine? (Score:3, Informative)
Apple Lossless encoding (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Apple Lossless encoding (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Apple Lossless encoding (Score:4, Informative)
Umm...it's not unoffical. Apple touts it on their website [apple.com].
Re:Apple Lossless encoding (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, I would think the Genre of music would make a difference, just like compressing an image of snow versus an image of a gumball machine.
PlayFair'ed files not working? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:PlayFair'ed files not working? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:PlayFair'ed files not working? (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole reason they can get so many of the labels they do is that they protect their rights. I know it sucks for the little guy who wants to give music to all of their friends, but I find their version of DRM within acceptable limits, unlike most other DRM systems.
DRM Agreement Changed. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is exactly what the anti-DRM nazis were talking about.. they CHANGED the licensing agreement and nobody cares.
Do you realize what this means? They could simply one day revoke all but 1 of your machine licenses, put all your m4p's into one big encrypted image, and turn your genitals into scrambled eggs and there's nothing you can do about it because YOU agreed to it by buying DRM.
Sure, THIS time it's not a big deal, in fact most people will be happy with this new way of doing things.. but doesn't it bother you that they can take as well as give?
Seven burns down from Ten on tracks you already own.
Think about that..
And no, I'm not a stinkin pirate or anything like that. Just think if the implications
Re:DRM Agreement Changed. (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right about the DRM agreement changing, but only sorta. They EXPANDED what you could do, DRM wise.
They agreed to let you play on 3 computers, that's what I agreed to when I signed up and bought many many songs. Now they said I can use 5 computers, I'm happy.
The second change isn't to the DRM. I can still burn a song to a CD as many times as I'd like, as I agreed to. What they don't let me do, through software, is burn the same PLAYLIST more than 7 times. In other words, I can't make the exact same CD more than 7 times. Change a single song or (I believe) even reorder the songs and you can burn them another 7 times. It's not a DRM change, it's a tool change.
A flaw in your arguement (Score:4, Insightful)
So Apple is faced with an issue. They couldn't just cut something out, without giving people a reason to agree to it. I nthis case, to continue shopping at the store and gain the ability to use 2 extra computers, I have to give up 3 identical CD burns. Big deal. Th emost I have ever burned is 2.
I see your point, but I think that reasonable business desires will keep DRM in check because otherwise, people wouldn't buy it at all.
Multiple Downloads (Score:5, Informative)
My one complaint with the service is that you can't download the source file multiple times. So, I may have a license to listen to it, but I have to get the file from somewhere, if I lose it. They let you listen to your music on 5 machines, but you have to transport the file itself to those machines, by yourself. A real pain in the butt.
Beyond that, it's fantastic, and I recommend it to anyone shopping for a service.
Re:Multiple Downloads (Score:3, Informative)
2. You don't have to copy the files to 5 different machines. Have it on one, iTunes will stream it to the others. The machine still has to be authorized to play it if it's protected. But you do NOT have to physically copy the file.
Re:Multiple Downloads (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Multiple Downloads (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who's spent $10k at iTMS deserves to be able to download load them again.
Apple happily lets everyone and their grandmother download all those huge movie trailers for free, I think they can spare some bandwidth for the guy who just gave them $10,000.
Slight change in the rules... (Score:3, Interesting)
Not a bad tradeoff in my opinion. I can't remember the last time I played a physical CD. Sure, there are going to be those that complain about not having the CD but really, the idea of digital music is so that you don't have to lug around a CD.
Re:Slight change in the rules... (Score:3, Interesting)
Nobody wants to be "managed".
If I buy a book, I have pretty clear rights. I can read it, lend it to others, quote from it etc but need the permission of the publisher to reproduce sections of it. My rights are pretty much fixed.
Now, if I purchase music from iTunes, the copyright holders may, through Apple, "manage" my rights. Yesterday I could burn to 10 CDs, today I can burn to 7, tomorrow who knows... it could be 50 or ev
Re:Slight change in the rules... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Slight change in the rules... (Score:5, Funny)
iTunes campus goals (Score:5, Informative)
My personal iTunes wish list (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Nested lists: so I could have one list that says "if genre = rock", then a sublist that just has "if My Rating is > 3" or "if year published is 2" and the other "if My Rating is > 3" (which I use to differentiate between "Background work music" and "Driving kick ass music".
2. Copy playlists: Another major issue with the above is that if I have 2 playlists that are 90% the same, I'd like to set the first one up, then just copy the list logic into a new one and only edit the 1 or 2 differences.
3. iSync iTunes I have a laptop, and so does my wife. Right now, all of our music sits on a Master hard drive on a Powermac, then synced to my iPod, which when I'm at work I plug into my laptop and place on "manual" (so it doesn't copy the laptop music files). This works out, but it's not what I'd like.
What I'd like is to go home, sit with my laptop and have it say "Oh, I see Playlists X, Y, and Z on your main computer have updated, and I've updated these MP3 tracks ratings/tags/etc. Let me sync up."
Then I could select the lists I want on my laptop from the main machine and only those files would be copied to my box. Since, if I buy music from the iTunes Music Store I can play it on 5 separate machines, it would be nice to have an "auto-sync" kind of system.
I think that's about it for now. I like the option of a new lossless recording (if I ever get my computer tied into a good sound system I can use it - I think there's some new devices that can stream from your Mac to from about $200 that might be worth a look).
Re:My personal iTunes wish list (Score:5, Informative)
Create your playlist, "Rock List" as such:
Also new (Score:5, Informative)
Also new is the ability to import unprotected WMA into iTunes, and an iPod update [apple.com] to support Apple Lossless Encoder.
And last, iMovie 4.0.1 [apple.com] has been released.
Correct iTunes on Campus URL (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Also new (Score:4, Informative)
It makes sense to go up to 5 auth. systems (Score:5, Interesting)
As for reducing the playlist burn amount from 10 to 7, I don't think anyone will notice. Although CDRs are dirt cheap, they are pretty wasteful for the small amount of music they hold. Flash and HD music players are the way to go.
Good work, Apple! Next step: Get the songs I buy on iTMS to work with TiVo's Home Media Option.
Tivo (Score:3, Interesting)
Goodbye DRM, Hello Lossless (Score:3, Interesting)
Previously the DRM limitations forced people to burn to cd then re-rip with out drm. the problem with this is
drm'ed mp3 > cd > mp3
the problem was that drm'ed mp3 !=mp3
because when the mp3 is ripped from the burned cd, it will not be indentical to the original mp3.
with lossless encoding this problem is fixed because
drm'ed lossless > cd > lossless
drm'ed lossless = lossless.
Obvioulsy APPLE is aware of this, they have effectively removed the DRM issue (at least for files that start as lossless)
New Party Shuffle feature the best part of 4.5 (Score:5, Informative)
In the past, I have used a playlist I call "now playing" to move music in and out of during a party. This can be a real pain when you really just want to play a few playlists back to back.
Party Shuffle changes all that. It allows you to easily DJ a party. You select how many "just played" songs and how many "upcoming songs to show. You then select a source, be it your music library or a playlist or a smart playlist (think Rock or Pop where 1979 year 1990). You then can easily manage what is coming up in the list and view what just got played. You can click the "refresh" (where Burn and Import are) and the list will be regenerated at random. You can also give preference to the higher ranked songs in your library.
Lastly, and this is a feature of the entire music library, not just playlists or Party Shuffle, the same "arrow" icons that show up in the iTMS when you search for a song are present in iTunes. This means you can click an arrow for a song name, album, or artist and it will launch a search on iTMS. But say you don't like that feature? Well you can of course turn it off in preferences, but you may also hodl down "option" and click it. The result? it searches only YOUR library, not the iTMS.
Encoding is free if your time is worth nothing. (Score:5, Insightful)
You either have very few CDs or way too much time on your hands.
I was considering making higher bit rate versions of my library but would only hire my brother to do it for me (over 200 albums).
Crap crap crap (Score:5, Informative)
Don't install it if you don't have time to upgrade all your computers, if that sort of thing matters to you.
Lossless Encoding at Half the Size? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Lossless Encoding at Half the Size? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Lossless Encoding at Half the Size? (Score:4, Informative)
gzip and bzip2 are meant for text. Only with rare audio files will they achieve much of any compression whatsoever. FLAC achieves about 50% compression on average, depending on the source material. All other lossless audio schemes achieve similar compression, within about 5%. The big advantage FLAC has is that it uses only integer ops for decoding (making it very fast and non CPU intensive). That also means FLAC has a number of hardware decoders already on the market.
Is this FLAC? No. (Score:3, Insightful)
That doesn't seem to be the case. These files are given the file extension '.m4a'. Attempting to decode them with the CLI flac program only produces errors.
It's a shame too, because FLAC is really starting to pick up as the lossless format of choice for internet distribution. In certain cirlces at least. If Apple had decided to throw their weight behind, it could have really taken off.
Yay for WMA conversion (Score:5, Interesting)
I am glad Apple were listening - it's really pleasing to see a major company release a tool which will reduce the number of Windows Media files in existence in the world.
Damnit, Steve! (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems that Apple could do the same thing that they're doing with DRM, and authorize 5 computers to share via IP. (on different subnets) - I have no interest in P2Ping music with all the leaches out there, but the ability to share my Library over the net with a few others would be quite welcome. (iTunes 4.0.1?) It seems like iTunes is one program that really shows the limitations that the RIAA puts on Apple. Of course, I could get an iRaise, and go buy an iPod, but i'Ve got enough iCrap to carry around.
Apple lossless (Score:5, Interesting)
Josh
Re:Apple lossless (Score:4, Funny)
The extension for the lossless codec is .m4a (yes I checked), these are two short sample files (440 Hz, 1s).
They're right, it's lossless, I can't tell the difference between the two! :p
Still no proper" join" (Score:5, Informative)
I'm guessing I will have to cave in and re-rip all my CDs that should not have gaps between the songs.
By the numbers (Score:5, Informative)
140,000,000 - Annualized song sales at current rate
100,000,000 - Number of songs projected to be sold in 1st year
70,000,000 - Number of songs sold the first 365 days of the service
2,700,000 - Current rate of songs sold per week
1,000,000 - Number of songs available by the end of 2004
700,000 - Number of songs available now (5/04)
450 - Number of indy publishers with music on-line
10 - Previously allowable identical CD burns
7 - Currently allowable identical CD burns
5 - Current number of authorized PCs and/or Macs
3 - Previous number of authorized PCs and/or Macs
70% - Market share of iTMS digital music sales
5% - Market share of Apple desktop/laptop/server sales
0 - Number of more successful on-line music services
CD-Text? (Score:5, Interesting)
Smart Playlist Enhancement (Score:5, Informative)
quick and dirty Apple Lossless Encoding analysis (Score:5, Informative)
Re:But it's not in software update yet?!?!? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: losslessly to half the size of uncompressed CD (Score:5, Insightful)
hmm, isn't that pretty bad actually? can't you get that kind of compression(get 40mb wav into 20mb file) with just zip&others on pretty easily anyways, fucking _ten_years_ago_.
Try playing a .zip file on your iPod...
Re: losslessly to half the size of uncompressed CD (Score:5, Informative)
Re: losslessly to half the size of uncompressed CD (Score:5, Funny)
Absolutely, for WAV files which are half silence.
Re: losslessly to half the size of uncompressed CD (Score:5, Informative)
Re:They have Cradle of Filth albums!!!!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Still not using it (Score:5, Insightful)
Unenlightened moderators or those that are crack dependent may mod you down.
I think the point needs to be made that as good as all the itunes seems to be, everybody is forgetting one critical fact;
You can not resale the music that you have purchased like with a regular LP, tape, or CD. Apple has purposefully left out first sale rights as it would erode the artificial value of the music. Even if there was a mechanism to erase all your copies and resale your itunes to someone else, Apple would not allow it, as this would put downward price pressure on the music Apple sells.
The music industry has controlled the price of CDs through illegal collusion, and probably are still managing to do so. Itunes is a natural extension of artificially controlling the price of music.
If normal economic forces were allowed to take over, there are quite a few industry executives that would no longer be able to afford their drug habit.
Re:Still not using it (Score:5, Informative)
Granted, there is no mechanism to do it (yet), but you could indeed sell your entire library at once by simply transferring your account to someone else.
The portable music player (Score:3, Interesting)
- lock-in?
- not made here attitude?
- FLAC lacks a good integer based deco
Re:I hear the cheers of Apple Fanboys now! (Score:5, Interesting)
(Seriously.)