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iTunes is a free application for your Mac or PC. It organizes and plays your digital music and video on your computer. It syncs all your media with your iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV. And it’s a store on your computer, iPod touch, iPhone, and Apple TV that has everything you need to be entertained. Anywhere. Anytime.

• iTunes no longer ignores your “Remember password for purchases” setting.
• Addresses problems with syncing some Smart Playlists and Podcasts with iPod.
• Resolves a problem recognizing when iPod is connected.
• Addresses issues that affect stability and performance.

Download iTunes 9.03

What’s new in iTunes 9.0?

iTunes LP
The visual experience of the record album returns with iTunes LP. Download select albums and experience a beautifully designed, interactive world right in your iTunes library on a Mac or PC — many are created by the artists.

Home Sharing
With Home Sharing, you can browse the iTunes libraries of up to five authorized computers in your house, import what you like, and automatically add new purchases made on any of the computers to your own library.

The Redesigned iTunes Store
With a beautiful redesign and refined navigation, the new iTunes Store makes it easy to explore songs, movies, TV shows, and more.

iTunes Extras
When you buy select movies from the iTunes Store, you won’t get just a movie. You’ll get iTunes Extras — a world of special features you can experience right in your iTunes library. Watch interviews and trailers, view photos, and more on your Mac or PC.

Genius Mixes
This new feature searches your iTunes library, finds songs that go great together, and creates multiple mixes you’ll love. All automatically.

Improved Syncing
iTunes brings new, more flexible ways to sync your media from your computer to your iPhone or iPod. And it’s easier to organize all the apps on your iPhone or iPod touch, because now you can do it right in iTunes, right from your computer. Shop the App Store on your computer, iPhone, or iPod touch. Then go to your iTunes library to arrange (and rearrange) your apps and add (or delete) Home screens. iTunes automatically syncs your new Home screens with your iPhone or iPod touch.

Many Other Improvements
iTunes brings you even better ways to manage and share everything in your library. You can make your Smart Playlists even smarter. You can save iTunes Store items you want to purchase later in a new wish list. You can buy ringtones of your favorite songs directly from the iTunes Store on your iPhone and assign a specific song to a contact. And if you’re an avid social networker, it’s easy to tout your favorite music, movies, and TV shows on Facebook and Twitter right from the iTunes Store.

Download iTunes 9.0

Universal Music Group has plans to sell DRM free music until January as a test to see how good the consumer demand is. That is really good news, except they have chosen to not use iTunes which sounds strange as iTunes is currently the largest online music store. The New York Times is reporting that the decision to not include iTunes could be part of a push to give iTunes some increased competition. The decision from Universal Music to sell DRM free comes after EMI has seen success. EMI currently has DRM free tracks available in iTunes for $1.29 with DRM tracks at $.99. Universal plans to sell at least some of their tracks at $.99.

Competition is generally a good thing for the consumer, so we cannot really complain about that. Hopefully Universal Music will see enough of a demand for DRM free music during their test and decide to continue. With or without Universal Music selling DRM free in iTunes its still nice to see more DRM free music becoming available.

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With iTunes 7.3, you can now activate iPhone service and sync it with your music, TV shows, movies and more. Also, you can now wirelessly share and enjoy your favorite digital photos from any computer in your home with Apple TV.

iTunes 7.3.1 addresses a minor problem with iTunes 7.3 accessing the iTunes Library.

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If absolute privacy is a concern critics are voicing against Apple’s latest move with DRM-less tracks from EMI, they should have filed their complaints over four years ago when the iTunes Store first opened.

As the story goes, many users and industry pundits have announced their disappointment with the discovery that DRM-less iTunes Store tracks contain the owner’s name and email address embedded in the file. Even Cory Doctorow and his merry band of EFF compatriots have added their ubiquitous $.0.02 to the mix, calling this an a privacy blunder on Apple’s part. A key example cited for how bad this perceived breach of privacy can get is the theft of an iPod: if someone steals your DMP (iPod or otherwise, if you consider the fact that DRM-less iTunes Store tracks will play on any AAC-enabled device, including the Zune now), they could easily check through your files to scrape out your name and email address from any of the new DRM-less tracks. Fortunately, Geeks R Us nails the problem with this line of thinking in this So What post: “Apple embedded your personal information in content that only you should have is no different than them saving your email address in a Mail application preferences.” If a thief stole a typical computer user’s notebook – Mac, Windows or otherwise – they would easily have full access to quite a bit more information than the owner’s name and email address. So why haven’t Cory and his fellow perpetual protesters spoken out against this egregious privacy flaw in the wider scope of computing?

The fault with these complaints against Apple’s latest non-DRM move runs more than skin deep, however, as this embedding of personal information didn’t merely begin last week. Since the first day it was opened over four years ago, the iTunes Store has embedded an owner’s email address in purchased files. You can easily verify this by importing a non-EMI iTunes Store track from a friend – iTunes will immediately notify you that your machine must be authorized to play the track, prompting you with a dialog requesting a password and the email address of the file’s owner already filled in. continue reading…

Microsoft has stated that it may be close to reaching a deal with EMI to sell songs without anti-piracy protection via the Zune platform. This, from comments made by head of marketing for Zune Jason Reindorp. They come hard on the heels of EMI’s announcement that a deal with Apple to sell songs without DRM protection through the iTunes Music Store has been struck. Mr Reindorp said: ‘We’ve been saying for a while that we are aware that consumers want to have unprotected content. This does open things up a little bit. It potentially makes the competition more of a device-to-device or service-to-service basis, and will force the various services to really innovate.’

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Major record companies are forcing Apple to curtail access to iTunes online stores across borders, leading to higher prices and less choice, the European Commission said Tuesday.

The EU executive sent formal charges to Apple and the major record companies last week because consumers can only buy iTunes in their own countries and cannot shop around for cheaper prices and a broader catalogue in other states.

“Our current view is that this is an arrangement which is imposed on Apple by the major record companies and we do not see a justification for it,” Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd told reporters.

The world’s major record companies are Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, EMI Group and Warner Music Group.

Universal Music said it was “completely satisfied that we have complied with all applicable laws and will respond in due course on the issues raised in the document.” continue reading…

Sorry to end the EMI and Apple anti-DRM love-in so quickly but the EU is back with more complaints about Apple’s business model. This time, they’ve launched an official probe into iTunes pricing across Europe accusing Apple of “restricting choice.” Only now, the “Big 4″ music majors are also lumped into the European Commission’s accusations of anti-competitive practices. The core of the complaint is Apple’s nationalized approach to their iTunes store. On-line shoppers can only purchase content from the store in their home country with British shoppers suffering the highest per song fees at 79p or $1.56 at current exchanger rates — ouch! As they tend to do, Apple quickly shifted blame to the labels by stating through a spokesman that Apple “wanted to operate a Europe-wide store, but music labels and publishers expressed legal and copyright concerns.” Of course, if that strategy doesn’t work out for you Atlas, you can always shrug.

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Beginning on Tuesday, the band put up four of its records — “Kill ‘Em All,” “Ride The Lightning,” “Master of Puppets” and “…And Justice For All” — for sale on U.S. and Canadian versions of the popular online music retailer.

Fans may buy tracks a la carte for 99 cents or purchase the albums, starting at $9.90.

In a posting on the group’s Web site, the band acknowledged that fans have been increasingly buying music online and said it added some previously unreleased live tracks recorded in Seattle in 1989 to each of the albums to entice those who already own copies.

A Metallica song is still worth 99 cents? Well, the band has always been ambitious.

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