Search results matching tag 'MP3'

Apple drops DRM, what does it mean for you?

2371004 — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 15:08:00 GMT

Probably a decent hit to your wallet.

The anticipated "one more thing" announcement made at the annual spectacle known as Macworld was Apple's decision to (finally) remove digital rights management from its iTunes store.

This means that songs purchased from the iTunes store won't be tied solely to an iPod device. Not that that must have been a huge concern for Apple as I believe they more than have the mp3 player market cornered.

These DRM-free tracks are also in the higher quality AAC format, compared to outdated mp3s.

The stink seems to have come from the music labels themselves, the big four EMI, Sony BMG, Warner Music and Universal.

Well, not EMI, it has been offering DRM-free tracks through iTunes for about a year, known as iTunes Plus tracks.

The four labels together have offered their tracks to Amazon's music store as DRM-free for a year.

Before the Macworld announcement about 3m tracks were available as iTunes Plus, mostly from EMI.

Finally, the three remaining labels conceded, but it seems to come as a cost to the consumer.

iTunes will now offer more than 8m of its 10m tracks at DRM-free as iTunes Plus, however they twisted Apple's arm in creating a staggered pricing scheme for the new tracks.

On April Fools Day (natch) Apple will adopt the three-tiered pricing structure (in the US) at $0.69, $0.99, and $1.29 accordingly.

iTunes Plus tracks presently cost $0.99, however, Macworld keynote speaker Phil Schiller pinky-swore that more songs will cost $0.69 rather than $1.29 after the April 1 passover.

Another, rather unreported clause comes in the iTunes Plus upgrade option. Users can choose to upgrade their non-DRM-free tracks to iTunes Plus for a nominal fee of $0.30.

However, there's a catch.

It's an all or nothing sort of deal. Users can not choose which tracks they want to upgrade, it's either the entire library, or nothing.

Peculiar.

However, not all songs are available for upgrade, meaning Apple will scour your library for all your upgradable tracks and throw you an offer for the whole deal.

An average music library can vary, but lets diagram a user with 2,000 songs, who could look at shelling out $700 for the DRM-free upgrade. And that number would increase on a daily basis as Apple includes new tracks available for upgrade.

It's evil no doubt, but who's to blame, Apple or those ill-fated music labels?

iPhone Killer 2 - Storm Warning

1649191 — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 07:08:00 GMT

I predicted a few weeks ago in my blog that the G1 from Google wouldn't be the iPK (iPhone Killer). Well, time will tell whether I'm right or not. Well a new week, a new phone and this one (in my opinion) has more chance of winning the clash of the touch titans. The Blackberry Storm (pic below) will be launched this side of Xmas in the UK exclusively through Vodafone with pretty much all the features of the iPhone (and a few more besides). For instance it will be 3G enabled (natch), it has a 3.2 mp camera with video function, GPS capacity, mp3 etc. And one advantage it has over the Google G1 ? This one actually looks the part.

However, the main feature of the Storm is actually the touch screen itself. It apparently has a 'clickable screen'. So what does that mean exactly ? Well, the screen is kind of flexible and responds to how hard you touch it. In theory you will be able to type things much more easily because you know that the click has been registered by the Storm because the screen will depress slightly. Sounds cool right ? (and from experience of the iPhone I know that sometimes your touch commands are not all that easily registered by the unit, so the reassuring analog nature of a kind of soft click sounds funky).

As for price, well expect it to be pitched around the same as the iPhone. And with a legion of Crackberry addicts (me included) waiting impatiently for a touchscreen version of our constant companion I reckon that this little baby may just be the real rival for the iPhone we have been anticipating.

Wireless

2366375 — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 16:56:00 GMT

I love taking my iPod to the gym because it gives me the freedom to listen to music that reflects my exercise mood. However when using the iPod on the cross trainer, one of my favourite cardiovascular machines, I often manage to almost strangle myself. I wear my iPod with an armband around my upper arm (the earphone cables are dangling around and can get caught easily in the cross trainer).

The armband looks a bit like an oversized sticking plaster but is overall quite stylish and does the job – as long as I don’t do anything where I need the biceps. The cable issue remains annoying and I developed a rather complicated system of keeping the cable out of my way. However I then came across a much nicer solution: the Arriva headphones. You basically wear the MP3 player at the back of your head and have small cables leading into your ears.

This does solve the cable problem. The downside: it is only available for the iPod shuffle and not for other iPods. Other iPods might be too big to wear them at the back of the head. It might also be difficult to change tracks. But it is a nice idea. Apart from using these headphones for sports it might also come in handy when you don’t want other people to know that you are listening to music. Particularly if you have long hair.

Radiohead: the downloadable future?

255762 — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 11:08:06 GMT

Despite giving their album 'In Rainbow' away as a free -- or pay as much as you want -- download, Radiohead have managed to top the album charts with the CD release. It is quite a feat, but is it the future of downloads we're seeing or is just Radiohead?

The launch of the Radiohead album has been backed, among other things, by a radio ad campaign that went something along the lines of "Radiohead launches album on exciting new CD format...", which made me smile several times when I heard it on Xfm, unlike most radio advertising (but that is another post).

'In Rainbows' was released back in October and since then I have read different stories suggesting how much fans paid. Some say the average price was £1, while other reports say the price was nearer £2.50 and £4 (I paid a £5).

I suspect that the lower end figure (Radiohead haven't released any numbers of their own) is closer to the truth ,with reports suggesting that many people paid absolutely nothing.

However, last week was the first opportunity to buy the album on CD, which seems increasingly like an antiquated act, but while I download a lot of individual tracks when it comes to albums I still like to buy something solid... I'm not entirely sure why, as long gone are the days where the CDs that I own sit anywhere accessible in my house. Mostly they live in packing boxes in cupboards or stacked up in piles in the spare room and at other places in the house.

I can't remember the last time I turned on my CD player. Maybe it was about the last time I turned on my VCR.

While they were at one point, no longer are CDs like books and so are no longer proudly displayed, their spines perused, but instead once bought and uploaded it is increasingly likely that said plastic case and artwork will ever be looked at again.

So again what’s the point of buying the album?

Personally, I won't be buying the Radiohead album. I mean I like it, it was the most listenable thing since 'OK Computer' and I was happy to pay, but that's where it ends.

But without a label to back them, what a great success story for Radiohead. I'm not sure there are many other bands who could do what they has done and succeed. Of course, there are other than bands of similar stature and with large dedicated global fanbases, but these bands are on major labels and they have shareholders to think of.

The Radiohead download - how much did you pay?

255762 — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 14:02:27 GMT

Today is the day when anyone who cares can download the new Radiohead album, 'In Rainbows', and pay as much as they like. I'm coming clean, how much did you pay?

I paid £5. I dithered for a while and then thought I had underpaid. I tried to go back, but although the system allowed every detail to be edited it did not allow you to change the amount you had first opted to pay. Oh well. I was only going to up my payment (donation?) to £7.

I don't feel too bad about "underpaying" as it were. As I understand it, when they were on a label and I splashed £8.99 for an album the band only got a pound with the rest going to EMI. By paying a fiver, I'm at least ensuring everyone in the band gets enough to take a bus ride (as long as they have an Oyster card...).

Come on, own up. How much did you pay?

Apple ethics

255762 — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 16:40:39 GMT

Apple, it turns out, is a bit like Nike. Very shiny, but if you look under the hood you find it’s all made in sweat shop camps in China and it’s not a very pleasant business.
iPods are made in a plant housing 200,000 workers in a five-storey factory secured by police officers. That's bigger than Newcastle. They are made by factory workers in China's huge no-go "enterprise zones" earning as little as £27 a month, doing 15-hour shifts, living in dormitories housing making the MP3 player.

Some wags have said that if they save for 10 months they'll be able to afford to buy one. This is true, but of course it will take another year to buy the PC needed to upload the songs.

Frankly, these reports about Apple are all a huge relief. I want to say, I told you so, I can't help myself.

Apple is one of those companies that bugs me. It has for so long been revered by geeks, nerds and techies, who have always held it up to be a company apart. A sort of rebel corporation among a sea of sameness.

You bought Apple as it said something. You know like "Hey, I'm not a PC Clone!".

Think different? Right? Well that's what the ads told the geeks and Mac heads to do, but that's just a cool marketing trick that helped to sell that idea that Apple is more decent than other corporations.

And ever more so now that Apple has gone all Intel and capable of running Windows.

When it's not. The iPod, which pretty much saved the company, has shown this in so many ways. It might be a nicely designed piece of technology, but that's pretty much it. It's also over-priced, with a poor feature set, totally unreliable and with a poor battery life.

Should you have a problem with it, good luck. It seems to me that Apple don't really want to help you. They want you to buy another one, which is what people do rather than endure poor customer care and a six-month wait.

I digress sort of. I've had two iPods. I know, it's all my own fault. I would never buy an Apple Mac, but I fell for the hype. I'm such a sucker, I feel bad.

To be fair, I only fell for the cool design and the Me2ness of it all. I wasn't under any illusion that Apple was somehow an ethical right-on company. I never saw it as any different to a Microsoft or Big Blue and the stories coming out of China this week demonstrate this quite clearly.

You know why Apple likes China. It's the low wages, long hours and China's industrial secrecy. The Chinese love police and security.

It should say so on the back of all its products with a big smiley face.

Instead, all it says on the back of your iPod should you take a look is this: "Designed in California, Made in China".

But then maybe it doesn't need to, everyone can read between the lines these days. posted by Gordon @ 9:59 AM 2 comments links to this post