Please don’t be an April Fool’s joke
[edit] - It’s true!, hooray! This is a very good thing, and hopefully more labels will open-up their catalogues. Apparently un-DRM’ed albums will not have any price increase, but single tracks will.
Someone has hacked FrontRow so that it doesn’t require the Apple Remote control. The torrent file seems dead - but you can download it from here. (Standard warning - Downloading hacked software from unknown sources could be dangerous.)
Seems to work OK on my Powerbook.
I’ve been mucking around with trying to make my own clone of FrontRow (I call it BackRow) - so far it doesn’t do anything but scroll one menu. I’m not trying to make a MediaCentre app (like CenterStage - just a remote control like thing that uses AppleScript to control other apps.)
Every week I look at the iTMS new releases via their RSS feed.
Every week I think: “Who the hell are these people?”
Despite Apple’s claim to have done deals with the indies - I never see any new tracks that get airplay on serious music stations.
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | TV and Radio | Legendary radio DJ John Peel dies
It’s a pity that Franz Ferdinand’s Mercury-award-winning album isn’t available from the iTunes Music Store (at least not in the UK yet.) I don’t really buy CD’s any more, so I thought I’d have to put off buying it until they got round to getting it on there - or ‘acquire’ it from a friend’s CD.
What’s that you say? It’s available DRM-free in MP3 format from Warp’s online music store Bleep? Well why didn’t you tell me that before!
MacWorld UK iTunes announcement coverage.
“every song in the store costs 79 pence, and albums cost £7.99″
Nice! I expected 99p / £9.99
[update] - I’ve been looking around the store and am rather disappointed by the selection so far - here’s a list of artists I went looking for and couldn’t find:
Squarepusher, Underworld, Ash (2 tracks), Oasis, Orbital, Adam Freeland, Basement Jaxx (1 remix), Elbow, Lemon Jelly, The Prodigy (only One single), Unkle.
Of course, that’s only my personal tastes - but other UK people on the MacNN Fora appear to be finding the same lack of artists.
Ho hum….. I can only hope that like the US store it will expand over the coming years - and more labels will get involved.
[update2] -
I’ve made my first iMix.
There are a lot of artists listed in the store that have no tracks up - this maybe because of a breakdown in negotiation with AIM. I hope that gets sorted soon.
I just bought a music track off the internet. I can’t believe it! No - not through iTunes, from Bleep. I heard a track on Radio 1, the DJ mentioned off hand that it was available from bleep - and I bought it almost before the track had ended.
They’ve got a very nice, simple UI - and they sell high quality MP3s unrestricted by any DRM.
£0.99 per track. (oh, by the way - the track was TEKNOTEST by Cane)
