On the heels of Google wading into the music streaming waters with its Google Play Music All Access service, with a $10 fee for all-you-can-eat streamed tracks, the indie music agency Merlin has today published results of a recent survey of its 20,000-label member group, plus an analysis of 6.5 billion music streams over the last year, which spell out where the money is coming from today. → Read More
Apple is said to be getting very close to nailing down streaming licensing agreements with Universal Music Group and Warner Music, according to sources speaking to The Verge. The report follows news from the NY Post that claimed Apple was well under where labels were expecting in terms of its streaming rates, and now says that Apple’s service will pay fees pretty much on par with those paid by… → Read More
Pro tip: You can now watch, listen, and subscribe to our TechCrunch TV videos on iTunes. In addition to the video versions, each segment has an audio-only podcast, perfect while driving or working out.
A few weeks ago, we quietly relaunched our redesigned iTunes site. After some tweaking, we’re now ready to get the word out. → Read More
Google search is making it more difficult to surface iOS applications using typical user queries, like “Whatsapp iTunes,” “Whatsapp iPhone,” or searches by app name, for example. In the past, this would return a page of search results where the iTunes URL would be ranked highly. Today, those links are further down in Google’s results pages. → Read More
Just after reports peg Apple brass as meeting with Beats to discuss streaming music services, a new story in the New York Post today claims that the Mac maker is in talks with labels about such a service, but is already hitting a lot of resistance over its proposed terms. Apple initially offered 6 cents per 100 songs streamed, according to the Post’s sources, which is around half what Pandora… → Read More
A new patent application published by the USPTO today shows that Apple has been thinking hard about how it might be able to make it possible for users to resell or lend digital content they’ve purchased in the past. Amazon has worked on a similar problem with its own patents, but Apple’s solution carries provisions for making the lending or resales process much easier directly between users… → Read More
Apple today announced a new sales milestone for its iTunes digital music store, with 25 billion songs sold. The news follows an announcement made earlier this month that the App Store has had over 40 billion app downloads since its founding. For the iTunes music store, the new record comes just shy of its 10 year anniversary, but for the App Store, the growth has been quicker, with the larger… → Read More
Today the USPTO published an Apple patent application that ventures a little farther afield than most, and describes a mobile banking concept that is truly innovative, which could essentially turn iTunes into a micro-lending bank. The patent outlines a system whereby a user would post requests for small amounts of cash using their iPhone, which other nearby users could respond to to provide some… → Read More
It’s no “Arrested Development,” but Hulu is today announcing that it, too, is bringing TV programs back from the dead. (Coming back from the dead – hey, that sounds like a soap plot!). Hulu has now signed a deal with media production Prospect Park to air the previously canceled soap operas “All My Children” and “One Life to Live” on Hulu and Hulu Plus, where they’re air in addition to Apple’s… → Read More
Amazon today announced a new version of its MP3 store, designed to work on iPhone and iPod touch devices from Apple. The HTML5 web app now allows iOS mobile device users to make direct purchases of tracks from Amazon’s 22 million song library via Safari, which will then make it instantly available to Amazon’s Cloud Player app for those devices. → Read More
Apple has opened up movie purchase and rental options in a number of stores today, including a large number of countries in the EMEA region, as well as in Asia and Latin America. The new movie availability covers 42 new localized stores in total, smaller than the 56 markets where it officially opened new stores on Dec. 4, but nonetheless an impressive push to bring its media marketplace to new… → Read More
At long last, Apple appears to be approaching a launch date for iTunes in Russia — and it could come as soon as tomorrow. A tipster has forwarded us an email, in Russian, inviting a small group of people to an iTunes event in Moscow on the evening of December 4. The email does not give much away, simply noting that team iTunes will be holding a musical evening, and that it’s a small… → Read More
Yes, that headline. Obvious. But appropriate.
Yes, after much delay (about a month), iTunes 11 is here today. And yes, it is one of the biggest overhauls of the media management service yet. Perhaps the biggest. And yes, it is now better positioned to compete in the era of the cloud. And yes, they even made the icon a bit better.
It was back at the iPhone 5 event in September, when Apple… → Read More
Apple just released long-awaited iTunes 11. After downloading, users should expect a totally redesigned version. In October, the company said that there would be a one-month delay. Little has changed over the years, but today’s new version represents a major milestone and a much needed simplification in some ways. → Read More
Apple’s iTunes 11 officially launched to the public today, after an unveiling in September at the iPhone 5 special announcement event. Originally planned for an October release, iTunes 11 required a little more time in the oven to bake. But it’s understandable that this release took a little longer than expected: it’s a significant change, one of the biggest since the introduction of iTunes. → Read More
AC/DC’s catalog is now available on the iTunes Store. The band had been one of the last remaining major holdouts, outlasting the Beatles, Bob Seger, Kid Rock, Metallica, The Smiths and more. iTunes now offers all of AC/DC’s hits, including Back In Black, The Razors Edge, Highway to Hell and more. You can even buy the Studio Collection, containing all of their albums for $100, or the Complete Set… → Read More
Apple has an event planned for Tuesday, set for 10 AM Pacific in San Jose. It’s got something to do with the iPad mini, to be sure, but there’s tons of other stuff also rumored to be making an appearance. In fact, it’s beginning to look almost like an Apple fan’s hardware wish fulfillment fantasy, so let’s take stock of what’s supposedly coming and how likely we are to see it. → Read More
One rumor that was nearly forgotten amid the iPhone 5′s launch and iOS 6 media circus was that Apple was reportedly looking to release a Pandora-killer soon. The streaming music service would be a natural next step in the progression Apple’s taken with digital music, but it looks like licensing issues may have stepped in the way once again. → Read More
And just like that, Rovio is back to number 1. The Finnish gaming company today launched Bad Piggies, an entirely new game that features some of the same characters from the smash hit, Angry Birds.
In this iteration, however, you play the game from the pigs’ point of view, building vehicle-style contraptions to get you through the map.
The game only launched a few hours ago, at 3am ET, yet… → Read More
Update: iTunes is getting more social, but not with Ping. Today Apple announced that Ping will be shut down on September 30th. iTunes 11 will instead display your Facebook friends who Liked each entry, offer Facebook and Twitter sharing for purchases, plus let musicians share photos on their artist pages. The changes come amongst a larger overhaul to the iTunes store and player… → Read More
As with every new hardware release, Apple updates iTunes in order to support new devices. But the media software will receive a major update, as was announced today during Apple’s live event. The interface is now totally new with an edge-to-edge design. Browsing your music feels completely different with a great emphasis on album art. The left-side column is gone in the default configuration. But… → Read More
Earlier today, there was a rumor that Bruce Willis was considering to sue Apple to clarify who owns content downloaded from iTunes. The U.K.’s Daily Mail reported – and as with all things involving British tabloids, you should take this with a grain of salt – that Willis “is said to be considering legal action against technology giant Apple over his desire to leave his digital music collection to… → Read More
At the end of July, Amazon updated its Cloud Player to be in fighting form as an iTunes killer, with a load of new audio features like Scan and Match technology and licensing deals with a number of labels. And at the time, Amazon said that Sonos support would be “coming soon.” Today, that functionality has arrived, with the Cloud Player now working on the Sonos Wireless HiFi System.
This will… → Read More
During Apple’s Q3 earnings call today, the company’s CFO Peter Oppenheimer announced that Apple now has 150 Million iCloud users. That’s up from 125 million users the company cited in its last quarterly earnings call in April.
As Apple announced at its annual developer conference earlier this year, iCloud will be tightly integrated into Mountain Lion, the next version of OS X that’s scheduled… → Read More
When CEO Tim Cook kept saying “stay tuned” at D10 about new Apple collaborations with Facebook, he may have meant it literally. Soon you could be tuning into Facebook on Apple TV, or seeing your iTunes or iPod activity auto-shared to Facebook. Boosted revenue, better ad targeting, and trouble for mutual enemy Google are all potential benefits.
While there are plenty of smaller ways Facebook… → Read More
Despite fears that streaming access cannibalizes sales, classical music record label X5 tells me when it launched an app within Spotify and saw streams of one album increase 412% in a month, that album’s iTunes sales shot up 50%. The Swedish label’s “The 50 Greatest Pieces of Classical Music” soon reached #1 on the iTunes Classical charts, and broke into the iTunes Top 200 album charts for the… → Read More
According to new data released today by mobile analytics firm Flurry, Amazon’s Appstore for Android is generating more revenue per daily user than the Google Android Market, which was recently rebranded as the Google Play store. That shouldn’t be surprising, given that Amazon vets apps for quality, runs promotions to entice users to return daily, and perhaps most importantly, is able to leverage… → Read More
According to new research from mobile analytics service Mobilewalla, Sunday is the best day to release a mobile app, but Wednesday is the most popular day among developers. The company studied the apps released in the iTunes App Store and Android Market over a 17-week period between May 16th and September 8th, 2011, to determine its findings. During this time, there were 91,754 iOS apps released… → Read More
Starting next Tuesday, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment and Lightstorm Entertainment will be selling a special edition of blockbuster movie AVATAR with nifty behind-the-scenes content exclusively on iTunes for $14.99 (or $19.99 for the HD version). Available for pre-order now, the special digital edition of the movie lets people ‘deconstruct scenes’ in simultaneous views to, basically, see… → Read More
As expected, the launch of iTunes Match is now upon us, with today’s release of iTunes 10.5.1, available from the iTunes website here. For those living under the proverbial rock, iTunes Match is the new service from Apple that gives you legal access to store all your music in iCloud – even those songs you didn’t originally purchase from iTunes. For $25 per year, iTunes Match will match tracks in… → Read More
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