Wednesday, April 28, 2004
iTunes Turn One
In Depth: iTunes 4.5
I've had the opportunity to work extensively with iTunes 4.5. Here's a detailed look.
iTunes 4.5 Adds iMix, Videos, Trailers, WMA Import, More
Apple on Wednesday unveiled iTunes 4.5, a new version of the company's music jukebox software that will contain many new features. Included in the new version will be iMix, Music Videos, Video Trailers, support for importing Windows Media Files, free weekly downloads and Radio Charts.
iTunes Turns One; 70 Million Songs Sold
"... making it the number one online music service in the world with more than 70 percent market share of legal downloads for singles and albums."
Apple Releases QuickTime 6.5.1
Updates include Apple Lossless Encoder, enhanced and support for iTunes 4.5 and other QuickTime-based applications.
Apple Posts iPod Update 2004-04-28
This update is required to take advantage of new features in iTunes 4.5 and the iTunes Music Store.
Apple Makes 'iTunes On Campus' Push
The program enables campus administrators to distribute iTunes at no cost and also provides promotional artwork and information to help get the word out.
Top Stories
Inside The Apple iPod Design Triumph
No doubt subsequent versions of the iPod will yield a revised design chain as different components and optimizations are discovered and needed. But for now, Apple's first design chain strategy and product have been a success.
News
Online Music Alters Industry Sales Tempo
The labels could gain if they persuade people to spend more, but some worry that 99-cent singles will beat out more-lucrative albums.
Apple Updates iMovie To Version 4.0.1
iMovie 4.0.1 provides increased reliability, fixes for pixelated video, corruprted Ken Burns clips and loss of audio.
Palm Desktop 4.2.1 For Macintosh Released
PalmOne Introduces New Handhelds, Reaffirms Mac Support
More important to Mac users, the PDA maker also reaffirmed its long-term support for the Mac platform in the aftermath of reports that the next version of Palm OS would drop native Mac support.
Apple Releases Panther Russian Localization
What's Your Type?
Microsoft's ClearType and OS X's Quartz Extreme type anti-aliasing engines: both are technologies that render text more legibly than previous operating system solutions and are both easier on the viewer's eyes. Very important, considering many of us work behind a CRT or LCD for hours on end. But which one is better?
Music Rivals Prepare To Fight iTunes
New 17-Inch PowerBooks Shipping
FileMaker Meetings 2.0, Tasks 2.0 Released
iVCD Gets New Menu Features, More
Version 2.0 adds Video CD Playlists and Menus for authoring Video CDs that include a menu, allowing a more interactive presentation.
Opinion
Apple's Chip Pain Will Ease — Later
Jobs & Co. is suffering from slow progress on speedier processors from IBM. Overall, though, Big Blue is the right partner for the job.
Mad Macs And The Unshredder
So just in case Apple has to change its name, I've come up with a few suggestions. Apple could express its feelings toward Paul and Ringo and the heirs by renaming itself BHM.
Review
BBEdit: Its Unix Support Doesn't Suck Either, Part 1
This article intorduces you to BBEdit's Unix support features. If your background is Macintosh development, you will learn how to take advantage of these features and incorporate them into your development process. If you are a Unix developer coming to Mac OS X, you will learn how to carry over your development techniques using Mac OS X tools.
Sidetrack
My First Impression of iTunes 4.5
Movie trailers in iTunes? No idea why it's there. Where's the value? Unless, of course, the next version of iPod is capable of playing videos?
Haven't updated QuickTime, so I cannot try out the new Apple codec. But, seeing that I am mostly tone-deaf, I doubt I can tell the difference from MP3 and ACC.
Link to Music Store? Initially, I thought there will be close integration with the music store, allowing the store to analyse what I have on my hard disk and make recommendation. Turns out it's just a link to the search engine. Which is useless anyway because firstly I can buy from the music store (duh!), and secondly, half of my tunes are in Chinese.
Tonight (tomorrow morning, for you Americans) we'll find out whether Steve Jobs has anything new in store for music lovers.
What I wish to hear: Apple is able to ramp up production of iPod mini, and they are now available worldwide. Oh, one more thing, the iTunes Music Store is also available worldwide.
Note to self: dream on.
What I Like About Windows: USB Disk
This is how I remove my USB disk from my Mac OS X machine without any loss of data:
1. Mental check that I am no longer using the USB disk.
2. Open Finder window.
3. Click on the eject button next to the USB disk icon.
4. Wait for the disk to be unmounted.
5. Remove the physical disk.
This is how I remove my USB disk from my Windows machine without any loss of data:
1. Mental check that I am no longer using the USB disk.
2. Remove the physical disk.
Perhaps it's all those defensive programming (ha!) based on years of training from the fact that users can remove floppy disks on Windows anytime they like... (No need to drag icon to trash can.)
Rumor Today: What's In The Next iPod
AppleInsider believes it will have a 50GB hard disk (i.e. 12,500 songs), color screen for your photos, and video output jack.
Are we expecting a iPhoto for Windows soon?
Wintel
A Licence To Print Money
There are signs, if you look closely enough, that the Windows licensing engine is starting to make Microsoft a bit, well, sclerotic.
Windows Server: What's Next?
Microsoft is feting its "best-selling version of Windows server ever." So, what's Redmond going to do for an encore?