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Tag: apple
2009-01-07 00:30:19| Fast Company
There's an intriguing rumor ahead of today's Apple keynote at Macworld: The company has successfully negotiated with the major record labels to drop DRM copy protection from all tracks in iTunes. And, as a major bonus, it's likely to allow direct ...
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2009-01-07 00:30:18| Fast Company
Mac Rumors, among the most popular and best-known websites covering Apple, was hacked during its live coverage of today's MacWorld keynote presentation. Readers were shocked when one of the liveblog's auto-updating text messages said: "Steve Jobs ...
2009-01-06 23:19:36| paidContent.org
Just before Tony Bennett sang goodbye to the Moscone Center faithful with "I Left My Heart In San Francisco," Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) confirmed at its final Macworld Expo that it will drop DRM copy protection across 10 million iTunes Store songs from all majors, as per CNET's earlier report. The move will apply to eight million tracks as of today and will extend to a further two million by the end of the quarter. Bringing to a close what have sometimes been fractious label negotiations, Apple is also introducing three new pricing tiers for iTunes tracks$0.69 for older tracks, $0.99 for recent tracks and $1.29 for new hits. Marketing VP Phil Schiller, taking Steve Jobs' traditional keynote spot, also said Apple is extending the ability to buy iTunes songs wirelessly via iPhone from merely WiFi to 3G mobile networks; also from today, tracks will be priced the same and have the same bitrate as desktop iTunes downloads. EMI already began offering higher-fidelity, DRM-free AAC files back in May 2007, after Steve Jobs said Apple would "embrace (DRM-free) in a heartbeat if the big four would license their music (that way) ... because DRMs haven't worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy." Dropping DRM on Apple's favored AAC file format will not be as significant as switching to MP3, which is more commonly associated with DRM-free and compatible with more devices. Forrester Research music analyst Mark Mulligan told me: "DRM is dead, long live DRM! This is overdue and needed to differentiate premium from subsidized services like Nokia's Comes With Music. The more you pay, the less DRM you get." Other Macworld news Artist Lessons: An update to the Garage Band music software adds a video feature, Learn To Play, including Artist Lessons from Sting, Norah Jones and others. Tapping a new ongoing revenue stream for Apple, more artists' lessons will be added later, for $4.99 a lesson - it's like a Guitar Hero tutorial, without the game. iWork.com A new cloud computing feature that's going head-to-head with Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Docs, iWork.com comes alongside a revamp for the iWork suite - and is another subscription-revenue service. Schiller: "In the end it will be a fee-based service, but it's a free beta for now." New iLife '09 suite: iPhoto is getting face recognition, Facebook-style face tagging and geolocation. Plus, tags on Facebook and Flickr will sync with those for pictures on iPhoto, and iPhoto slideshows can be synced to iPhone and iPod touch. iMovie gets slick new editing tools. New 17-inch MacBook Pro: As expected, a refresh of the largest laptop in the line introduces an 0.98-inch thin machine with a unremovable battery. Eight hours battery life and 1,000 charges, but not good news for those who know how a laptop battery can age and whither. Glass trackpad. Related Steve Jobs Admits New Illness But Stays As CEO; Says Treatment Is Simple, Underway EMI Drops DRM For New Premium Line-Up, Higher Price; Apple First Steve Jobs To Music DRM: Drop Dead
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2009-01-06 19:51:47| CNNMoney.com
Apple unveiled a change in the pricing structure for its iTunes music downloads Tuesday, ending the 99- cents-a-song pricing that has helped iTunes dominate the industry.
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2009-01-06 19:13:24| Gizmodo
Just as rumored last week, Apple is taking iWork '09 online, with file hosting and group editing services. Think of it as MobileMe, but for your documents. And that's not all. The suite is getting a pretty strong set of new features— some fluff, but many meat. See the full list, updated as we get new info, below. But first, the cloud. Pretty much the whole suit gets towed online here— Pages, Numbers and Keynote all now feature the same online storage and collaboration capabilities. There are two modes of access, too. An online interface, at iWork.com, and transparent integration into the actual apps. Documents The suite takes on Microsoft's SharePoint and Google Docs, but approaches online document management totally differently. Rather than editing and organizing documents only through a web interface, Apple has integrated the online aspect into a familiar interface somewhat seamlessly. [Giz at Macworld New Features: Keynote: Motion Move—this Keynote effect will create object transition between slides, like when teenagers morph into vampire on low-budge TV Interstitial slideshows: This interrupts your presentation to display standalone slideshows Text transitions: There are some news ones! You can slide, twirl, shimmer, etc. All the things that made you hate PowerPoint can now help you hate Keynote, too. Keynote iPhone Remote: This 99c app lets you run your Keynote presentation over Wi-Fi, from you iPhone. It's pretty basic, but also has the capability to display presenter's notes. Integrated online file storage Simultaneous group editing with revision control, a la Google Docs Pages: Fullscreen: Pages should have always had a fullscreen-ish option. Now it does! Advances outlining, listing: A sensible alternative to a standalone outlining/planning application, it's meant help you plan out longer projects. It's also dynamic, so any embedded document links will automatically update on changes. Mail merge: Mail merging with Numbers! Again, long overdue, but at least now you can easily do your Xmas cards on your Mac. MathType: Are you a scientist, mathematician or student? No? Then this doesn't matter for your. The whole suite now has many more functions and full MathType capabilities, for writing formulas into your documents. Numbers: Boring! MathType is the biggest addition here, but users also get drag and drop formulas, new chart types, multiple axes, trend lines, and error bars, along with dynamic linked charts. And lots of templates, lest we forget. ]
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