Tag Archives: iTMS

Now with less DRM!

Sure, $2.19 a song mightn’t sound too pretty, but it’s not all bad. Most of the songs in the Top 100 list of the iTunes Music Store are still at the old $1.69 price point, but now they come with less DRM, and at double the bit-rate.

However, the part that sucks is that 4 songs out of the Top 100 are at the new $2.19 price point. It’s interesting to note that those artists with $2.19 songs are all signed onto Sony for their label – Rihanna, Jason Mraz, Beyonce – Akons on there too, but I think he started his own label?

It’s not all bad. I certainly won’t be switching to BigPond Music anytime soon. 😀

UPDATE: Okay, so maybe it is a little bad – as of the 8th April 2009, 1 out of every 5 songs in the iTunes Top 100 list is priced at $2.19. Eeek! :O

Malaysia 2009 – Part VIII

Right, getting through these photos is proving to be more of a task than I originally thought. Nevermind, nevermind…

So I spotted these mega chup-chups at at the local Penang airport, just as we were going to leave for KL (and, by extension, home).

Thought they were pretty cool. They’re huge – they could easily fit 20-30 chups chups inside them. I didn’t buy one because they were pretty exxy (roughly AUD $20, I’d say), and because I’d have no where to stick it on the plane…

In any case, this has been brought to you by the song of the day, Lollipop by Mika. Where has this kind of boppy music been my entire life!

Here’s another pic of the awesome mega-chups:

Artist of the Week: Lily Allen

Just discovered Lily Allen. Whoa…

via Twitter / Benny Ling: Just discovered Lily Allen ….

From the Twitter, if you haven’t noticed.

A former-colleague of mine responded to this, btu I don’t think he realised that I was taking about her music, not her looks or whatever… 😮

Her style of music (some sort of indie/pop combo that’s just completely awesome) is just exactly the kind of thing I was looking for to spruce up my rather average iPhone music. I was kinda getting sick of hearing the same old crap every day, so change was in order.

I highly recommend that you check Lily Allen out (no, not in that way…). Listen to her music on the iTunes Music Store, and buy it (if you’re so inclined).

Bloody excellent stuff, I say.

A new era in iTunes Music has landed. Sans DRM.

While Phil hasn’t mentioned it in the keynote just yet, it looks like iTunes might be getting a big catalog overhaul, with most major labels finally offering up DRM free tunes. Our tipster mentioned DRM free goodies from Virgin, Sony BMG, American Recording and more (iTunes Plus has mainly been limited to EMI and some independents so far), and that most previously purchased songs are now upgradable for the same old price of $0.30 a song. We’re still digging around on the iTunes Store trying to figure this out — it’s offering to upgrade our library, but the transaction won’t go through yet — and we’ll obviously know more if it gets a keynote mention. Let us know if you have any luck picking up those non-EMI MP3s on your end.

Update: As you’ve you probably noticed in the liveblog, Apple just made this very much official, and announced that some 8 million songs from all the major labels will indeed be DRM free, with a full ten million planned by the end of the quarter. As if that wasn’t enough, it’s also announced a new pricing structure for tracks, including a new $0.69 tier and a $1.29 one, which music companies will apparently be able to use at their own discretion. And, to keep things really spicy, the company has also announced that music store downloads are now finally available over 3G, and at the same price and the same quality.

via iTunes going primarily DRM free? (Update: yes, it is! 3G downloads, too) – Engadget.

Finally.

Average Macworld is Average.

C’mon, Phil.

We didn’t want huge product demos. We didn’t want explanations of every single new feature. We didn’t want the constant stalling, the in-depth promos, or any of that stuff. Most of all, we didn’t want to pay $2100 for 4GB more RAM in our new MacBook Pro 17″, a machine that already costs $4499. 😮

$2100 for 4GB more RAM in the new 17.

$2100 for 4GB more RAM in the new 17".

…nor did we want to pay extra for a matte screen. 😮

$90 more for a matte screen? GTFO.

$90 more for a matte screen? GTFO.

We wanted new products. We wanted an iPhone OS 3.0 demo. We wanted Snow Leopard, Mac Minis, and an iMac speed bump.

What we got was 8 hour battery life. What we got was iLife 09, iWork 09, and the Keynote Remote. What we got was iWork.com, DRM-free iTunes Music, and the iTunes Music Store available over 3G/EDGE networks.

Sure, the updating of the 17″ MBP to a Aluminium Unibody with dual graphics cards for $100 more was nice of Apple, but I’m currently sitting on the fence – 8 hour battery life vs inbuilt battery. 😕

iWork 09? Meh, could be better. With the addition of iWork.com, this can be seen as an above-average update. Collaboration, sticky notes, and more!

Download the Trial today!

Download the Trial today!

iLife 09 actually looks alright. I have now fallen in love with iPhoto all over again – and now believe that the Mac platform rules for that kind of thing. You can’t go past Facebook/Flickr integration.

Facebook integration for the win!

Facebook integration for the win!

…those tagged names now come down to your iPhoto! Also new is geo-tagging, “Faces” (awesome new facial recognition), and “Places” (which obviously links into the geo-tagging). All come with that special Apple polish we all know and love!

Faces, and Places.

Faces, and Places.

The other thing that got me excited was the iWork updates. Full screen Pages, new text transitions in Keynote, and some funky features I didn’t really care about in Numbers.

iCONic.

iCONic.

New features in Pages 09

New features in Pages '09

New features in Keynote 09

New features in Keynote '09

However, the introduction of the Mac Box Set was a really huge improvement, but something they should have done a while ago.

They should have called it the Macs Box Set, as in Max. Box. Set.

They should have called it the Macs Box Set, as in Max. Box. Set.

One more thing – DRM-free iTunes music! You can upgrade your music right now for 50c per song to DRM free, which comes in 256kbps AAC.

I can haz DRM-free Music plz? Kthx.

I can haz DRM-free Music plz? Kthx.

However, even with all the song and dance, I couldn’t feel there was something missing. Where is our Mac Mini update? Where were the iMac speed bumps? Where was the multi-touch Mighty Mouse, Aiport updates (thanks, adamd), or Cinema Displays, Mac Pros, Home Media Server, or the Mac Tablet, iPhone Nano, or even the fabled Mac Pro Mini?

End of the day, it’s just another Macworld keynote. For now, download the iWork 09 trial (warning, it’s 500MB), and enjoy the rest of your day.