Apple appears to be finally pulling the plug on its iTunes LP format this year. For music sold in the iTunes Store, iTunes LP has served as a useful but not popular digital solution for including a rich multimedia experience with digital music.
Due to a mishap, a small amount of users were able to snatch the film ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ nearly a month early, according to TorrentFreak. However, the iTunes page says that the film will be available on February 20.
Apple has joined the Alliance for Open Media, a technology consortium that is working on a new industry standard, high-efficiency video codec called AV1.
The group includes Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix, Hulu, Intel, and many others. Apple was quietly added to the website’s homepage today, and is even considered a founding member (via CNET). Here’s how the consortium describes its goal:
From 9to5Toys:
We’ve nearly reached the end of the holiday shopping season, but that doesn’t mean the discounts are finished. One of our favorite annual iTunes sales just launched this morning with some of the best deals on movies and TV shows that you’ll see all year.
iTunes is discounting a number of popular titles, starting with $5 films and TV seasons, $1 rentals and bundles too. In fact, with the addition of 4K compatibility, this may be the most wide-ranging sale we’ve ever seen at iTunes. Head below for our top picks and more.
Apple yesterday denied a report that it plans to stop offering music downloads by 2019, offering only the Apple Music streaming service. Digital Music News claimed that plans to do this had been in place since 2016.
The company’s denial to us was unequivocal: Apple said it was ‘simply not true.’ But while that denial may apply to the specific report that plans are already in place with a target date of 2019, I suspect that it will happen at some point …
Digital Music News today reports that Apple is “on schedule” to rid the iTunes Store Music Store of downloads by 2019.
The report explains that the move to phase out music downloads has been in place since 2016, but in a statement to 9to5Mac, Apple denies the report and simply says “it’s not true.”
Apple has pushed a minor iTunes update this evening, which comes on the heels of the release of macOS 10.13.2 to the public. The update brings the application to version 12.7.2…
Buying movies digitally is a great way to build up a library, but there are a lot of places to buy from. Between Amazon Instant Video, VUDU, Google Play Movies, and iTunes, there are a lot of accounts to keep track of, especially if you are hunting for the best deal on a movie. Today, a joint effort from all of these major digital distributors is going to make buying digital movies a whole lot better.
For people mourning the loss of a desktop iTunes client to store their app library or check the best-selling app charts, there is some hope. It has been noticed on Reddit that Apple offers a special version of iTunes, iTunes 12.6.3, which retains the features that were abruptly removed in iTunes 12.7.
Apple positions this build as necessary for some businesses performing internal app deployments but it is available to download by anyone.
Apple had great news for movie lovers yesterday: not only would it be selling 4K movies for the same price as existing HD ones, but you’ll be able to upgrade existing purchases to the higher resolution completely free of charge.
However, while most major studies are in on the deal, there’s one odd omission: Disney …
Following its event earlier today, Apple this evening has released iTunes 12.7 with a variety of enhancements to the public. The update brings new features such as new social capabilities for Apple Music, support for iOS 11 devices, and more.
Apple has notified members of the iTunes Affiliate program that it has opened up a new payment option for partners. Rather than sending money directly to your bank, iTunes Affiliate commissions can now instead be paid directly as iTunes Store credit. This means the payments are channeled as redemption codes to top up the credit on an Apple ID account, to buy apps, music, or pay for iCloud Storage.
Apple this weekend has started accepting donations via the iTunes Store for Hurricane Harvey relief efforts. CEO Tim Cook announced the efforts in a post on Twitter this morning as damage is assessed around areas of Texas where Hurricane Harvey made landfall.
Apple’s iTunes U Collections will move to Apple Podcasts next month with the release of iTunes 12.7. As the company removes iTunes U from the macOS/PC iTunes app, Apple is encouraging users to access and utilize the content from the iOS or Apple TV app.
Alongside macOS 10.12.6, Apple has released a minor update to iTunes for macOS today. iTunes 12.6.2 includes “minor app and performance improvements” according to release notes. The update is available through the Mac App Store now.
Despite its increasing focuses on Services revenue, Apple is struggling to draw users to the iTunes Store for movie purchases and rentals. According to a new in-depth report from The Wall Street Journal, Apple’s market share for renting and purchasing movies has fallen to between 20 percent and 35 percent, despite once being well over 50 percent as recently as 2012…
In addition to other various announcements this week, Apple has made a noticeable change to the web version of iTunes. Whereas the design was previously incredibly dated and hard to use, the new design is more akin to that of Apple Music and the current iTunes app on Mac and PC.
Apple has released an updated version of iTunes through the Mac App Store, although the version number and release notes appear the same.
In addition to macOS 10.12.5, Apple has released a minor version update to iTunes for macOS. iTunes 12.6.1 includes ‘minor app and performance improvements’ according to release notes. The update is available through the Mac App Store now.
[Update: OS News reports that what Fraunhofer IIS fails to mention is that the last of the patents expired, and this is the reason that it is no longer licensing the format.]
More than 25 years after it was first developed, the mp3 format for digital music has been officially discontinued. The Fraunhofer Institute, the main organization responsible for licensing the encoders and decoders, has today announced that it ceased doing so late last month.
Apple was of course in large part responsible for popularizing the format, but also played a role in its demise …