iTimes with Tony Bove

Yes, and “Doughnuts Make Your Brown Eyes Blue”, “There’s a bathroom on the right”, “The girl with colitis goes by”, and “Good collie, Miss Molly”!

May you never suffer such mondegreens again. As reported by Michael Liedtke of Associated Press, Yahoo is set to unveil what it calls the Web’s largest legally licensed database of accurate lyrics — 400,000 songs properly licensed from their publishers. While you can find lyrics on other Web sites, many of those sites are technically breaking copyright law by posting the words without the approval of the copyright holders. Many are also inaccurate due to relying on submissions from the world at large rather than licensing the actual published lyrics.

According to other reports including Reuters (brought to us courtesy of CNET News.com), Gracenote, the company that developed the CDDB and technology used in iTunes that automatically recognizes the tracks on compact discs, led the way by putting together the database and licensing deals. Yahoo will share with copyright holders the revenue from the ads that will be displayed alongside the lyrics. Most of the largest music publishers are part of the nearly 100 publishers that contributed lyrics, including BMG Music Publishing, EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group and Warner/Chappell Music.

Yahoo doesn’t actually integrate these lyrics with iTunes or your iPod — to do that today, you need a utility such as Canto Pod from staylazy, which is now available for Mac OS X as well as Windows. It grabs song lyrics from a different database of over 200,000 songs (Leo’s Lyrics) and lets you copy the lyrics to your iPod’s Notes section as well as to the song information (Lyrics tab) in iTunes. The new version is popular among Mac users — on April 16th, Canto Pod was approved on Apple’s Widget Download website, placed as a staff favorite, and downloads have skyrocketed according to staylazy. But  I wonder how long they can stay lazy with Leo now that Yahoo is in the game. But Canto Pod is coolio — its iTunes Song button lets you search for lyrics while listening to a song, without having to type anything.

I expect that a deal with iTunes will emerge in the near future that will use Gracenote’s technology to put the lyrics where they belong: in the iTunes song information field for lyrics. Someday soon you will see all kinds of utilities and iTunes features involving lyrics.

So you want to upgrade EMI-labeled music you purchased from iTunes to the higher-sonic-quality versions without copy protection (when they become available in iTunes next month)?

Mac user? Try the tip “HOWTO: Another way to find EMI songs on your computer” by Erica Sadun. Missing from the instructions: the “Other” menu choice is available if you click the Kind button in the Find dialog. Unfortunately this tip works only for Mac OS X users.

What about Windows PC users? Windows XP search doesn’t let you search with such detailed attributes as you can with Mac OS X. I haven’t found any tips out there for searching Windows iTunes libraries properly (other than using iTunes itself).

Of course, there is also the problem that EMI includes other record labels. What of those songs whose copyright information lists one of EMI’s labels, like Capitol, instead of EMI? (Here’s a list of EMI labels. Good luck with that.)

All of which leads me to suspect that Apple will provide a way to search your iTunes library for purchased songs by specific labels. Perhaps EMI will promote this new capability through the iTunes store. Something has to give, here — EMI wants to make money on these upgrades, and Apple wants to see DRM-free music succeed. Look for this new capability shortly.

Apple has taken a sad song — the copy restrictions on its music — and made it better by removing the Digital Rights Management (DRM) protection for its high-quality music format in a deal with record giant EMI.

The news (see “EMI, Apple partner on DRM-free premium music” by Caroline McCarthy of CNET News.com) is that Apple will sell songs in a higher-quality audio format from its iTunes online store, at a higher price ($1.29 per song), without DRM. The songs will play on any computer and any digital-audio player. Entire albums and individual songs will be available in this higher-quality, non-DRM format, but they will not replace DRM-protected songs currently sold through iTunes at the older price ($0.99 per song). That way, consumers have a choice. And for those who’ve already purchased DRM-protected EMI songs at 99 cents apiece can upgrade them to the new format for 30 cents apiece. Steve Jobs suggested that half of iTunes’ music tracks will be available in both DRM-loaded and DRM-free form by the end of 2007.

According to The New York Times (”EMI Dropping Copy Limits on Online Music” by Thomas Crampton), Steve Jobs is responding to an attack on iTunes in Europe. Mark Mulligan, a London analyst at the research firm Jupiter, was quoted: “Jobs was clearly here in Europe to send a strong message to the discontent in Norway and the French parliament.” Jobs emphasized how much the music labels have benefited from sales through iTunes. “ITunes has brought more than $1 billion in revenues to the record companies at no additional cost to them. Everybody wins here.”

Indeed, everyone wins and especially Apple as it retains its control over the online music market. As I wrote before (see “Splendid Time is Guaranteed For All“), the online music industry will change dramatically for the better when the Beatles started selling their songs online, through iTunes — which is undoubtedly the direction Apple Corps (the Beatles label) is heading (see “Apple and Apple Give Peace a Chance“). I also noted before (see “Let It Be… Naked (Without DRM)“) that stripping DRM from songs removes the barrier to freely using the music you own on different players. The connection was not so obvious until Apple made its first non-DRM deal, with EMI, the record label that controls a vast quantity of classic rock from the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and yes, the Beatles (by distributing for Apple Corps).

Conspicuous by its absence from this deal is the Beatles catalog. EMI’s digital catalog does not yet include the Beatles — the label has the rights to the group’s recordings on CD, but the Beatles’ record company, Apple Corps, has not yet granted digital rights. When this happens, I expect to see another fanfare of news stories that will add yet another boost to this DRM-less higher-quality format.

Amazingly, EMI’s research showed that higher-quality, DRM-free songs outsold its lower-quality, copy-protected counterparts 10-to-1. Apple is using a higher bit rate (256 kilobit-per-second) with the AAC format, so the files are larger — about the same size as the song files in my library from CDs, because I use the 256 kbps rate with either AAC or MP3 when I rip CDs.

Also amazing is how the record labels can still charge so much. An album of songs will cost about $13-$15 either on CD or in this new iTunes DRM-less format. However, with the CD you get a physical backup of the track at the highest quality, along with artwork, credits, and liner notes. This deal puts the profits back into music sales for EMI, if only by reducing the cost of making CDs and distributing them to stores at wholesale prices. But it may not change my buying habits — I just ordered Neil Young’s Live at Massey Hall (CD/DVD) on CD from Amazon rather than purchase it on iTunes. Classic rock is, well, classic, and I want the liner notes and the extra DVD in the package.

I wrote recently about Apple’s strategy of building a platform around iTunes — a wireless multimedia home network that not only links together all your PCs and Macs and television/stereo systems using Apple TV, but also extends out to your car and to all your iPod and iPhone devices (see “The Mothers of Invention at Apple“).

This is no pipe dream. Apple TV, shipping as of March 20, is a hardware node of this software platform — you synchronize it to your iTunes library, like an iPod. But the Apple TV box is capable of much more than its current features, which means Apple can extend the feature set pretty easily through updates to the onboard software. A clue that the Apple TV will someday sport digital video recording (DVR) functions has surfaced. In “Are There Plans For Digital Video Recorder Capabilities on Apple TV?” Carl Howe (Blackfriars Communications) submits that new Automator actions shipped as part of the Apple TV software include New Audio Capture, New Video Capture, Start Capture, Pause Capture, and Stop Capture. Automator is a system for automating workflows in Mac OS X.

The Apple TV hardware is not much different than a low-end laptop computer, and it runs a slimmed version of Mac OS X (for a peek inside, see AppleInsider’s coverage). Even though its USB port is “for diagnostics only” or something like that, Ozy from the AwkwardTV project has found a way to boot the Apple TV from an external USB drive attached to it, without opening the Apple TV case or removing the internal hard disk. Meanwhile, higher-capacity replacement internal drives are already available (see IResQ). The box has also been hacked to play xvid and WMV files, if you take a screwdriver to it and alter the contents of the internal hard drive. Joost (still in Beta testing) can run on Apple TV, according to the JoostTeam blog. Once Joost goes live, people can subscribe to unlimited TV shows.

Video-on-demand (VOD) operators must view Apple TV as a threat (see “How Apple TV Will Impact Operators” by Ian Fogg in Jupiter Research Analyst Weblogs), as Apple TV can provide on-demand HDTV content, as soon as the iTunes store begins stocking HDTV titles. Apple TV works with PCs and Macs transparently, taking advantage of whatever broadband connection you have; this gives Apple TV an edge over traditional VOD services that require additional broadband infrastructure. Competing products, such as the XBox 360, rely on Windows Media Center, and have very limited cross-platform capability.

Wildly expensive at $300, the Apple TV is nevertheless a consumer’s delight. Setting up the Apple TV is a breeze once you get the appropriate cables, which unfortunately are sold separately, adding about $40 to the price. See “Apple TV: An In-depth Review” by ars technica, and “MacRumors Review: Apple TV” by longofest for excellent reviews. Besides the fact that Apple TV is a smokin’ hot product, it’s also hot — about 110 degrees Farenheit at first, and even hotter when playing video (see “Apple TV is…hot!” by Erica Sadun).

If you don’t already have it, you need iTunes version 7.1.1., which packs a lot of new features into the number one media player. As reported before, iTunes has been updated to accommodate Apple TV and provide full-screen cover browsing; incidentally, it doesn’t slam MusicMatch Jukebox against the wall anymore (see “iTunes Meets its MusicMatch“).

iTunes version 7.1.1 “addresses a stability issue and minor compatibility problems” according to Apple. Must have been that wobble in one of the wheels. Some Windows Vista problems have been fixed, but not all.

See my overview of iTunes version 7.1.1. features for a blow-by-blow description of cover browsing, managing multiple libraries, and using other new features of iTunes 7.1.1.

(With apologies to Chick Corea.)

In Japan, they’re wearing iPod shuffles in their headbands and preparing to go underwater. According to Electronista, the Japanese gadgetmaker Thanko has introduced a sports headband for MP3 players that uses bone conduction to play sound, making it suitable for waterproof listening applications (if you waterproof your iPod as well). It’s too soon to tell when this will hit our shores, but you can order them online directly from Thanko.

Bone conduction is a hearing aid technology that conducts “Good Vibrations” through the bones of your skull directly into your inner ear. Place a headset on your temple or cheek, and the electromechanical transducer, which converts electric signals into mechanical vibrations, sends sound to the internal ear through the cranial bones. Thanko had already released a conventional-looking pair of bone-conduction headphones, the Vonia EZ-4200Ps, which sits on your skull rather than on your ears — presumably so that you can listen to your iPod and hear everything else going on in the world, while also protecting your eardrums.

Scuba divers use waterproof bone conduction speakers — typically a waterproof rubber piezo-electric flexing disc attached to the temple. The sound can be surprisingly clear and crisp, though not in stereo, because the sound seems to come from inside your head. I withhold judgement until I get a chance to actually “hear” through them.

The Vonia headband offers a small pocket for holding the iPod shuffle. The wires are tucked inside the headband, and Thanko notes that Vonia owners can fit a waterproof guard on the bone conduction speakers to take the headband underwater. The compartment itself is not waterproof, so you need to waterproof your iPod shuffle. And yes, it is possible to waterproof an iPod shuffle — see the SwimMan’s waterproof iPod shuffle writeup in Engadget.

So far there have been no reports of trouble with the iTunes 7.1 update. People are mostly thrilled by the full-screen CoverFlow feature for browsing by album covers. It doesn’t yet show the track information on the flip side of an album cover (as demonstrated by Steve Jobs on the iPhone) — that feature may come with the release of Leopard in June. Apple TV preferences are included in version 7.1, and QuickTime includes a setting for exporting to Apple TV.

But iTunes 7.1 is truly welcome in one corner of the universe — folks who use MusicMatch Jukebox for a variety of things while sharing the music library with iTunes. Some people prefer MusicMatch (MM as they call it) for ripping CDs, super-tagging songs to categorize them quickly, recording from other sources, and so on. Very early models of the first Windows version of the iPod was supplied with MM, before iTunes was developed for Windows. But this version of MM, and all subsequent versions, broke when iTunes 7 was released (see “Does Apple’s iTunes Disable the Competition?“). They wouldn’t work together — MM wouldn’t even open (some suspected a DLL conflict with the skinning or EQ sub-system). Uninstalling iTunes was the only “fix” but that meant losing the ability to update iPods.

MM folks have always felt unsupported; first by Apple, which abandoned MM without so much as an “aloha” and then by MusicMatch itself, which was purchased by Yahoo in 2004 and subsequently dropped out of sight. At some point before Yahoo bought it, the company lost the rights to distribute the iPod plug-in for MM and stopped developing or building fixes for iPod plug-ins. If you wanted to use MM and didn’t have the CD-ROM from Apple with version 7.5, you could still use version 8.1, which is still available from OldVersion.com, along with the iPod plug-in for MM, available from Version Tracker. MM recently re-emerged as Yahoo MusicJukebox, which is MM version 10.1.

Apple really didn’t have to fix this problem, but public outcry had already started. Apple tends to fix problems that hurt its image (unlike Microsoft). So MM users, rejoice, you can get back to super-tagging with MM. Good luck with that.

Thanks to Jay Schmitz, [email protected], for help with this story.

Apple this week released iTunes 7.1 for Mac and Windows. Besides providing support for the new Apple TV product, it now offers a new full screen Cover Flow and improved sorting options to let you decide how iTunes should sort your favorite artists, albums, and songs. Apple also released QuickTime 7.1.5 which delivers numerous bug fixes and addresses critical security issues.

Apple’s official word on Windows Vista support has been updated — to the effect that the Windows version of iTunes 7.1 addresses compatibility issues with Vista, but that Apple “is actively working with Microsoft to resolve a few remaining known issues.” Those issues have to do with ejecting iPods using the laughable Windows “Safely Remove Hardware” feature, displaying graphics incorrectly, and a lack of synchronization with Windows Address Book. Also, don’t expect iTunes to run on 64-bit editions of Windows, including Windows Vista and Windows XP x64. I covered some tips on getting around these problems in a previous entry.

The video “Hidden Details from the iPhone Keynote” by Actioncorp.net on YouTube hints at future strategies for Apple and describes in detail some of the iPhone demonstrations Steve Jobs gave at the Macworld Expo keynote speech in January.

It describes the Calendar app, which Jobs did not demo (because it was not ready). It also shows Google Maps in action, but there were no directions, or traffic information yet, just buttons for these things. Scrolling by flicking a finger is cool, but there is also an alphabet for tapping on a letter to move directly to that section of a list.

The video narrator points to a Ringtones tab in the iTunes dialog for updating the iPhone, and surmises that Apple will soon be in the ringtone business, selling top-name artist ringtones through the iTunes store.

See The New York Times columnist David Pogue’s “The iPhone Up Close” video on YouTube for an excellent view of the Steve Jobs reality distortion field working overtime at Macworld. Fortunately Pogue adds helpful commentary and has edited the video down to the essential parts of the demo. At the end he adds his own experiences with using the demo unit.

CBS News did an interesting report from the Macworld show floor, posted on YouTube. “A Closer Look at the iPhone” by John Blackstone includes a detailed demo by Apple VP Phil Schiller, who describes the iPhone as “the best iPod we’ve ever made.” He gave a detailed demo of the cover flow feature, scrolling album covers just like in iTunes.

For a wonderful parody, see “SNL — Weekend Update iPhone Special” on YouTube, produced by the Sat. Night Live folks.

For those with iPods and iPhone envy, check out “iPod Firmware Update” by Gizmodo, also on YouTube. It shows the iPhone-like cover flow feature working on a standard iPod using the scroll wheel. Expect this update to come out soon.

Rumors about Apple are swirling a week after Steve Jobs’ open letter to the music industry (for an excellent summary of reactions, see Engadget’s “DRM: the state of disrepair” by Thomas Ricker). But several developments warrant particular attention:

1. Apple is patenting wireless docking. According to AppleInsider, Apple is developing a dock connector for handheld gadgets that lets you dock the device at different angles of orientation and, in some cases, charge the device with power wirelessly. (See “Apple may turn to induction for iPod docking, charging” by Slash Lane.)

2. Car manufacturers are looking at ways to integrate iPods and, more importantly, the iPhone. Reliable sources tell Audiospies.com that BMW will be the first to announce full integration of the iPhone features into the next 7-Series.

3. Apple TV, which wirelessly extends the media on your Mac or PC to your television/stereo system, includes a 40-gig hard drive, ostensibly for synchronizing with iTunes just like an iPod. But the Apple TV hard drive and user interface, which makes it a computer, could be put to use in other ways, such as acting as a node of a peer-to-peer (P2P) home network. According to Robert X. Cringely, a centrally controlled P2P system is powerful because it enables prepositioning of content.

Put all three together and you have, at the very least, a wireless multimedia home network that not only links together all your PCs and Macs and television/stereo systems, but also extends out to your car and to all your iPod and iPhone devices, seamlessly. A scenario out of the Jetsons TV show of the Sixties.

But examine #3 more closely. According to Cringely, it would mean “nothing less than the undermining of TV.”

Say Disney releases Cars 1.5 — a direct-to-DVD release expected to sell millions of copies in its first few days. There is no way iTunes could even hope to participate in a launch like that simply because there isn’t enough bandwidth at a good price — or any price. Even BitTorrent would have troubles handling a small part of such a launch until enough seeds were populated and running. But what if the movie was effectively pre-seeded — loaded over a few days on a distribution tree of thousands of Apple TV boxes which could then deliver the movie locally at high speed if purchased. Or if not purchased the seeded copies could still work together to serve other Apple TVs on the same ISP subnet…

First Apple would eliminate its current dependence on Akamai, reducing its network costs for iTunes by about 100X, making the network costs effectively free. Hello HDTV!

Second, Apple would have one or many content channels roughly equivalent to an HBO, Showtime, or perhaps Discovery. Yes, I think Apple will do direct content deals, buying programming that it will then either distribute to subscribers or support with Google ads, thanks to Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s position on the Apple board. Apple’s network will give you the same content with or without ads, delivered from the same servers, one of which may be underneath your TV.

Nice to think about, but Apple’s stated position is that the hard drive is for synchronizing videos and music with a computer so that, if the computer is off, you can still play the content on your television. Makes sense by itself, but Cringely’s idea also makes sense from a business point of view. “Lowering network costs by 99% will enable the company to add to its portfolio the equivalent of half a Time Warner. Apple becomes a cable company without trucks or network costs. It becomes a whole bunch of cable networks with an instant audience the exact size of the iTunes registered user base, which is frigging enormous.” Not only that, but Apple could suddenly be major competition for NetFlix (see “The Apple iTV, Netflix has been gutshot!“).

Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology is one obstacle to this vision. And, lo and behold, Steve Jobs is for dropping DRM. Steve… good luck with that, seriously!