There is a satellite broadcast of today's Apple event (1pm eastern time) but no webcast. Or at least none was announced. But someone said this might be it. It loads for me, but there is no content there at the moment. Maybe at 1:00.
Thanks! I've been half heartedly looking around for a webcast of the announcment and have come up with nothing. Judging from the URL, this has to be it.
Hey, I hooked you up! Excellent. (Well, except I'm still not convinced this is definitely it.) I'd love to hear your comments afterwards.
It's confirmed: http://www.macnn.com/news/19275
Cool. I was actually thinking about walking over to the Apple store for the satellite broadcast. This saves me from being that much of a dork.
JIm - post when you get the stream. I always have to fuck with my Transport Setup settings every time I want to watch a stream.
OK. Nothing yet.
Do you have an AIM account? If so email it to me.
From Macnn.com: Several readers report that the above Web stream is no longer functional. Additionally, international readers now report that Apple is beginning to close its online Web stores. The U.S. Apple Store remains online.
Crap, that stream isn't working.
But it's working here if you have (ugh!) Windows Media Player:
http://www.msnbc.com/m/lv/default.asp?0cm=c30
AAC explanation. "State of the art audio codec" blah blah blah.
Rendezvous support. Access playlist on other Macs and stream them over a network.
DVD archiving right from iTunes.
Here we go. Steve is in great form.
"The internet was made for music delivery."
Kazaa is cool, but "it is stealing."
"Subscriptions are the wrong path.... People have bought their music for as long as we can remember.... They're used to it....When you own your music it never goes away."
"Music downloads done right."
"...landmark deals with all the big 5."
200,000 tracks right now in the apple music store.
"Unlimited CD burns."
"play on 3 macs." "play on unlimited ipods." You can transfer any of your 3 macs to another mac (like if you buy a new one.)
99 cents a song. No subscription fee.
All songs encoded at 128 kb/s AAC
Free 30 second previews (at same 128 kb/s AAC)
Full downloads include album cover art (cover art display now built into iTunes.)
One click downloading. I can't believe they paid amazon for that stupid patent.
Apparently you can browse the apple music store right in iTunes in the same way you browse your library (the music store is a playlist in iTunes.)
Streaming music videos. Play inside iTunes. It's unclear how extensive this is.
Some exclusive music from 20 artists. He played a couple from Dylan and one from U2 (unrealeased tracks or remixes.)
U.S. only (credit card with U.S. billing address.) Music store is available starting today. iTunes 4 will be up in 30 minutes for free download. iPod's need software update, also available today, also free.
Mac only service [damn, my connection cut out... hold on]
What happened to Steve? Now it's some annoying hipster guy in a commercial like spot.
New iPod. 30 gigs. The think secret mock up was correct (4 buttons above the wheel.)
Apple website is updated. New iPods in 10, 15, and 30 gigs. Thinner. A little more rounded. Revamped interface.
That's it.
I'm downloading iTunes 4 now.
First off, let me say that I thought the iPod would bomb when I watched the introduction. So I don't exactly have a good track record.
That said, I'm still skeptical about this. The RDF is strong, and I want to believe (if just for Apple's health so they keep making new powerbooks.) But I'm worried that 99 cents is too much. Won't this actually make some albums very expensive (any album with more than 15 tracks, say?) Of course on the flip side, albums with only a few tracks will be cheap.
The best part seems to be the superior integration. It is really slick. Apple does this so well. The ability to browse the music store right in iTunes, as if it was already your library is great. No wonder previewers were impressed. It's unclear anyone else can match this ease of use (microsoft doesn't even have jukebox software, for instance, and somebody like music match isn't big enough to cut deals with all the labels.)
Also, 30 second previews are very cool.
How will the DRM be implemented? How will they prevent me from copying to more than 3 macs? It seems unlikely to me that this could be very serious (since the kernal and the filesystem are rather open.) But are they just .hidden files? I hope so.
I'll wait until I hear the 128 kbs AAC, but no way is this too good. Hopefully it will be good enough though. I'm thinking this will sound like 192 kbs mp3. That is just good enough, I think.
The new Quicktime 6.2 agreement (which adds support for AAC) says the encoder is only in the quicktime pro version. Does this mean I can't rip CDs in iTunes into AAC unless I pay for quicktime pro? That would suck.
Installing everything now. If this nukes my music library I am going to be pissed...
I caught about half of the presentation (Windows Media Player sucks). My thoughts:
1. I'm not really sure what I think about all of the new functionality built into iTunes. I understand the need to not incorporate this functionality into Safari, because not everyone uses it, but I tend to like my apps to do one thing well.
2. Can I download purchased tracks/alboms again if my Mac is stolen or HD crashes?
I've installed iTunes 4 and all of the fonts are aliased. When you enable sharing, it gives you a BS prompt that tells you music sharing is for personal use only. Why? You can only share music between computers via streaming. No actual files are transferred. Very Stupid.
More thoughts coming...
1. I believe individual songs are $.99 and whole albums are $9.99
2. Where is the 6.2 installer?
3. I assume that the registration of the 3 Mac limit will be implimented much like registering Mac to sync with in iSync (I can send a screenshot if you'd like). What I don't understand is where you're going to register these machines. Through your iPod or iTunes? There is no preference for this in iTunes4.
I'm glad Apple didn't purchase Universal Music. They should have purchased MusicMatch right after announcing the Windows compatable iPod and offered music purchasing to both platforms simultaneously today. THAT would have been a Coup D'Etat!
QuickTime 6.2 installer: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/
$9.99 for albums makes sense. That must be it.
I can see how they could limit synching, but how are they going to stop me from just grabing the aac file out of my iTunes directory and copying to another connected mac? Doesn't seem possible, but I guess we'll see. I mean, they're not going to put all purchased music into an encrypted directory, are they? Hopefully they'll just be in a hidden directory (like iPod security.) That might be good enough for the music industry, and also good enough for slightly intelligent users to get around if they wish.
I'm glad they didn't buy UMG as well. If this all works out I would think they would port iTunes to windows.
I'm thinking that one of the ways they convinced the big 5 to sign off on this is because it is mac only. At 2% of the market this constitues more of a test for the recording industry than anything else. Plus the files are AAC, so even if you did put them up on kazaa it's not like many people will be able to play them. If the rec industry likes what they see Apple must have plans to extend this for windows.
The iTunes 4 installer says you need 10.2.5 for AAC encoding, so I guess you don't need quicktime pro. That's good.
What's up with Apple changing iTune's icon every time they update the app? It's gone from a blue music symbol to purple to green. This should get the branding nazis whipped up into a frenzy.
Damn, the preview is cool. Even on my not very fast DSL they start playing immediately. Very nice. If nothing else this is a good way to find new stuff you might want (even if you end up, uh, getting it somewhere else.) I wonder if they are watching for this. Like if you preview 50 songs a day but never ever buy anything.
Macintouch says the iPod dock has line-level audio output. That is a big plus (I'm assuming this solves the problem where the iPod is not really loud enough when you plug it into a stereo - I mean if you want to play really loud, like at a party.)
I must say, for having 200,000 available songs, there isn't much that I'm interested in.
FYI - "Deauthorize Computer" is found in the "Advanced" menu. It's not very pretty and doesn't offer any listings of authorized computers. It looks like an implimented afterthought.
I think the icon is green for all the money they hope to make off it.
Jobs is the Fortune cover story. Main article here. The real interesting part is at the end. Apparently AOL might be trying to make iTunes (assuming a windows port) their music management software. Wow, that's pretty big: Jobs has been very shrewd about the way he moved the iPod into the PC universe. Anyone who has tried the iPod with both systems will tell you it's a lot more fun to use if you plug it into a Mac running Apple's OS X than into a Dell with Windows XP. "The Windows iPod sucks" is Seal's appraisal. "But what they are really doing is trying to get people to wonder, 'Hmm, should I switch over?'" Jobs is betting that the iTunes Music Store, like the iPod, could be just such a Trojan horse.
It's not as easy as it sounds. How many Windows iPod owners know what they're missing by not using OS X? Do any of them really care? Perhaps that's why Jobs is rolling out iTunes for Windows too. In fact, Warner's Roger Ames is trying to broker a deal in which AOL would adopt iTunes as its music-manage-ment software. "Steve was resistant at first," Ames says. "But now I understand that he's decided to go that way." AOL has been trying to develop its own music store to go along with its subscription service but hasn't figured out a billing system for individual tracks as Apple has. A deal with AOL would land the iTunes Music Store on the desktops of AOL's 26 million subscribers. That could quickly make Apple the dominant seller of digital music on the Internet. AOL would neither confirm nor deny a possible deal. I hate to say it, but AOL and Apple are a good fit I think.
Only a quick mention of DRM:And anybody who tries to upload iTunes Music Store songs onto KaZaA will be shocked. Each song is encrypted with a digital key so that it can be played only on three authorized computers, and that prevents songs from being transferred online. Even if you burn the AAC songs onto a CD that a conventional CD player can read and then re-rip them back into standard MP3 files, the sound quality is awful. This makes it sound like the songs really are encrypted. Does this mean that the iPod decrypts and plays? Is it fast enough for that? Because if the song is decrypted as it's synched with the iPod (which someone might think was OK, because there is supposedly no way to get the file off the iPod to an unregistered computer) then that will be the hole. Put it on your iPod, and then take it off with something like podmaster. The iPod is just hidden files, not encrypted. Anyway, we'll see.
You can share playlists via Rendezvous or the internet: http://www.macnn.com/news/19288
OK, now that's freakin' cool. Chris, let's try this today. I have to move downstairs to the dsl in the office first. If this works as advertised it is a pretty serious reason for me to try to get my friends onto OS X. I want their music.
I'm working on a post about this whole thing, and why it is so important. It's not just that it's a potentially cool music download service. It's more that if this doesn't work out there might not be anything else to try. And maybe not just in terms of music. I think this is the test case for the economic viability of the internet itself.
We'll have to do this later this afternoon. I'm at the college until around 2 CST. I also have to fuss with the router to get this to work. I'll drop you an email when I'm back.
Before I go, stevenf has some interesting notes about the service: http://stevenf.com/mt/archives/000284.php#000284
Also, the new iPods allow you to make on the fly playlists right on the (unconnected) iPod. This was a big drawback to the original iPod. Nice.
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- jim 4-28-2003 8:27 pm
Thanks! I've been half heartedly looking around for a webcast of the announcment and have come up with nothing. Judging from the URL, this has to be it.
- Chris 4-28-2003 8:32 pm
Hey, I hooked you up! Excellent. (Well, except I'm still not convinced this is definitely it.) I'd love to hear your comments afterwards.
- jim 4-28-2003 8:34 pm
It's confirmed: http://www.macnn.com/news/19275
- Chris 4-28-2003 8:39 pm
Cool. I was actually thinking about walking over to the Apple store for the satellite broadcast. This saves me from being that much of a dork.
- jim 4-28-2003 8:41 pm
JIm - post when you get the stream. I always have to fuck with my Transport Setup settings every time I want to watch a stream.
- Chris 4-28-2003 9:02 pm
OK. Nothing yet.
- jim 4-28-2003 9:03 pm
Do you have an AIM account? If so email it to me.
- Chris 4-28-2003 9:04 pm
From Macnn.com: Several readers report that the above Web stream is no longer functional. Additionally, international readers now report that Apple is beginning to close its online Web stores. The U.S. Apple Store remains online.
- Chris 4-28-2003 9:18 pm
Crap, that stream isn't working.
But it's working here if you have (ugh!) Windows Media Player:
http://www.msnbc.com/m/lv/default.asp?0cm=c30
- jim 4-28-2003 9:21 pm
AAC explanation. "State of the art audio codec" blah blah blah.
Rendezvous support. Access playlist on other Macs and stream them over a network.
DVD archiving right from iTunes.
- jim 4-28-2003 9:22 pm
Here we go. Steve is in great form.
"The internet was made for music delivery."
Kazaa is cool, but "it is stealing."
"Subscriptions are the wrong path.... People have bought their music for as long as we can remember.... They're used to it....When you own your music it never goes away."
"Music downloads done right."
"...landmark deals with all the big 5."
200,000 tracks right now in the apple music store.
"Unlimited CD burns."
"play on 3 macs." "play on unlimited ipods." You can transfer any of your 3 macs to another mac (like if you buy a new one.)
99 cents a song. No subscription fee.
- jim 4-28-2003 9:32 pm
All songs encoded at 128 kb/s AAC
Free 30 second previews (at same 128 kb/s AAC)
Full downloads include album cover art (cover art display now built into iTunes.)
- jim 4-28-2003 9:36 pm
One click downloading. I can't believe they paid amazon for that stupid patent.
Apparently you can browse the apple music store right in iTunes in the same way you browse your library (the music store is a playlist in iTunes.)
- jim 4-28-2003 9:38 pm
Streaming music videos. Play inside iTunes. It's unclear how extensive this is.
Some exclusive music from 20 artists. He played a couple from Dylan and one from U2 (unrealeased tracks or remixes.)
- jim 4-28-2003 9:54 pm
U.S. only (credit card with U.S. billing address.) Music store is available starting today. iTunes 4 will be up in 30 minutes for free download. iPod's need software update, also available today, also free.
Mac only service [damn, my connection cut out... hold on]
- jim 4-28-2003 10:02 pm
What happened to Steve? Now it's some annoying hipster guy in a commercial like spot.
New iPod. 30 gigs. The think secret mock up was correct (4 buttons above the wheel.)
- jim 4-28-2003 10:06 pm
Apple website is updated. New iPods in 10, 15, and 30 gigs. Thinner. A little more rounded. Revamped interface.
That's it.
- jim 4-28-2003 10:13 pm
I'm downloading iTunes 4 now.
First off, let me say that I thought the iPod would bomb when I watched the introduction. So I don't exactly have a good track record.
That said, I'm still skeptical about this. The RDF is strong, and I want to believe (if just for Apple's health so they keep making new powerbooks.) But I'm worried that 99 cents is too much. Won't this actually make some albums very expensive (any album with more than 15 tracks, say?) Of course on the flip side, albums with only a few tracks will be cheap.
The best part seems to be the superior integration. It is really slick. Apple does this so well. The ability to browse the music store right in iTunes, as if it was already your library is great. No wonder previewers were impressed. It's unclear anyone else can match this ease of use (microsoft doesn't even have jukebox software, for instance, and somebody like music match isn't big enough to cut deals with all the labels.)
Also, 30 second previews are very cool.
How will the DRM be implemented? How will they prevent me from copying to more than 3 macs? It seems unlikely to me that this could be very serious (since the kernal and the filesystem are rather open.) But are they just .hidden files? I hope so.
I'll wait until I hear the 128 kbs AAC, but no way is this too good. Hopefully it will be good enough though. I'm thinking this will sound like 192 kbs mp3. That is just good enough, I think.
- jim 4-28-2003 10:24 pm
The new Quicktime 6.2 agreement (which adds support for AAC) says the encoder is only in the quicktime pro version. Does this mean I can't rip CDs in iTunes into AAC unless I pay for quicktime pro? That would suck.
Installing everything now. If this nukes my music library I am going to be pissed...
- jim 4-28-2003 10:27 pm
I caught about half of the presentation (Windows Media Player sucks). My thoughts:
1. I'm not really sure what I think about all of the new functionality built into iTunes. I understand the need to not incorporate this functionality into Safari, because not everyone uses it, but I tend to like my apps to do one thing well.
2. Can I download purchased tracks/alboms again if my Mac is stolen or HD crashes?
I've installed iTunes 4 and all of the fonts are aliased. When you enable sharing, it gives you a BS prompt that tells you music sharing is for personal use only. Why? You can only share music between computers via streaming. No actual files are transferred. Very Stupid.
More thoughts coming...
- Chris 4-28-2003 10:31 pm
1. I believe individual songs are $.99 and whole albums are $9.99
2. Where is the 6.2 installer?
3. I assume that the registration of the 3 Mac limit will be implimented much like registering Mac to sync with in iSync (I can send a screenshot if you'd like). What I don't understand is where you're going to register these machines. Through your iPod or iTunes? There is no preference for this in iTunes4.
- Chris 4-28-2003 10:37 pm
I'm glad Apple didn't purchase Universal Music. They should have purchased MusicMatch right after announcing the Windows compatable iPod and offered music purchasing to both platforms simultaneously today. THAT would have been a Coup D'Etat!
- Chris 4-28-2003 10:44 pm
QuickTime 6.2 installer: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/
- Chris 4-28-2003 10:47 pm
$9.99 for albums makes sense. That must be it.
I can see how they could limit synching, but how are they going to stop me from just grabing the aac file out of my iTunes directory and copying to another connected mac? Doesn't seem possible, but I guess we'll see. I mean, they're not going to put all purchased music into an encrypted directory, are they? Hopefully they'll just be in a hidden directory (like iPod security.) That might be good enough for the music industry, and also good enough for slightly intelligent users to get around if they wish.
I'm glad they didn't buy UMG as well. If this all works out I would think they would port iTunes to windows.
I'm thinking that one of the ways they convinced the big 5 to sign off on this is because it is mac only. At 2% of the market this constitues more of a test for the recording industry than anything else. Plus the files are AAC, so even if you did put them up on kazaa it's not like many people will be able to play them. If the rec industry likes what they see Apple must have plans to extend this for windows.
The iTunes 4 installer says you need 10.2.5 for AAC encoding, so I guess you don't need quicktime pro. That's good.
- jim 4-28-2003 11:00 pm
What's up with Apple changing iTune's icon every time they update the app? It's gone from a blue music symbol to purple to green. This should get the branding nazis whipped up into a frenzy.
- Chris 4-28-2003 11:13 pm
Damn, the preview is cool. Even on my not very fast DSL they start playing immediately. Very nice. If nothing else this is a good way to find new stuff you might want (even if you end up, uh, getting it somewhere else.) I wonder if they are watching for this. Like if you preview 50 songs a day but never ever buy anything.
- jim 4-28-2003 11:22 pm
Macintouch says the iPod dock has line-level audio output. That is a big plus (I'm assuming this solves the problem where the iPod is not really loud enough when you plug it into a stereo - I mean if you want to play really loud, like at a party.)
- jim 4-28-2003 11:28 pm
I must say, for having 200,000 available songs, there isn't much that I'm interested in.
- Chris 4-28-2003 11:54 pm
FYI - "Deauthorize Computer" is found in the "Advanced" menu. It's not very pretty and doesn't offer any listings of authorized computers. It looks like an implimented afterthought.
- Chris 4-28-2003 11:58 pm
I think the icon is green for all the money they hope to make off it.
- jim 4-29-2003 12:59 am
Jobs is the Fortune cover story. Main article here. The real interesting part is at the end. Apparently AOL might be trying to make iTunes (assuming a windows port) their music management software. Wow, that's pretty big:
I hate to say it, but AOL and Apple are a good fit I think.Only a quick mention of DRM:This makes it sound like the songs really are encrypted. Does this mean that the iPod decrypts and plays? Is it fast enough for that? Because if the song is decrypted as it's synched with the iPod (which someone might think was OK, because there is supposedly no way to get the file off the iPod to an unregistered computer) then that will be the hole. Put it on your iPod, and then take it off with something like podmaster. The iPod is just hidden files, not encrypted. Anyway, we'll see.
- jim 4-29-2003 4:00 am
You can share playlists via Rendezvous or the internet: http://www.macnn.com/news/19288
- Chris 4-29-2003 5:12 pm
OK, now that's freakin' cool. Chris, let's try this today. I have to move downstairs to the dsl in the office first. If this works as advertised it is a pretty serious reason for me to try to get my friends onto OS X. I want their music.
I'm working on a post about this whole thing, and why it is so important. It's not just that it's a potentially cool music download service. It's more that if this doesn't work out there might not be anything else to try. And maybe not just in terms of music. I think this is the test case for the economic viability of the internet itself.
- jim 4-29-2003 5:33 pm
We'll have to do this later this afternoon. I'm at the college until around 2 CST. I also have to fuss with the router to get this to work. I'll drop you an email when I'm back.
- Chris 4-29-2003 5:56 pm
Before I go, stevenf has some interesting notes about the service: http://stevenf.com/mt/archives/000284.php#000284
- Chris 4-29-2003 5:59 pm
Also, the new iPods allow you to make on the fly playlists right on the (unconnected) iPod. This was a big drawback to the original iPod. Nice.
- jim 4-29-2003 8:14 pm