iPod iTunes Zone

Apple has announced a new iTunes deal with Fox, permitting quick turnaround sales of American Idol content. The company says that starting with this week’s top 24 semi-finalists on show, people will be able to buy individual music performances from the iTunes Store for 99 cents each, on the day immediately following each new episode. Additionally, March 11th will see the debut of a video covering the top 12 finalists, costing $1.99. American Idol will be given its own section in iTunes, to which links on americanidol.com will point from free streaming videos.

source: ipodnn.com

A prominent Wal-Mart executive will soon be directing important initiatives at Apple, reports suggest. Kevin Swint, the head of Wal-Mart’s digital media section, is said to be leaving his current company to join Apple this week. In working for his new host, Swint will be in charge of international movie and TV content, a position that is becoming increasingly important as Apple expands its video efforts to countries outside the US. Currently, Canada and the United Kingdom are the only foreign iTunes Stores with TV shows, and neither rents or sells movies.Some controversy may stem from the fact that Swint was involved Wal-Mart’s online video store, which shut down last month and is unlikely to return in the near future. The closing was not initially triggered by Wal-Mart however, but rather by HP, which provided the backbone content system. The latter company cited poor sales, despite Wal-Mart’s shop having only been in operation for 10 months.

source: macnn.com

Apple’s iTunes software surpassed RealPlayer in unique users for the first time in April of 2007, according to WebSiteOptimization.com, and was the only contender among the four major streaming media players to show a positive growth rate over the past year. iTunes grew 26.8 percent from December 2006 to December 2007, while QuickTime and RealPlayer usage fell 8.6 percent and 17.5 percent, respectfully. Windows Media Player, meanwhile, remained essentially flat over the past year.

Apple recently reported its best quarter in history after unveiling iTunes movie rentals at Macworld Expo in San Francisco. The company confirmed deals with every major studio — including Miramax, MGM, Lionsgate, New Line Cinema, Fox, Sony, Warner Bros., Paramount, and Touchstone. All studios agreed to offer their movies to iTunes customers on a rent-to-watch basis, with old and new standard-definition releases priced at $2.99 and $3.99, respectfully. HD-quality versions are also available for $1 more, and new releases will arrive 30 days after their retail DVD shipment.

source: ipodnn.com

Stanford University is teaming up with iTunes to provide Lively Arts gift cards, a sampler card that offers attendees to the Lively Arts events 10 free downloads of featured artists. The iTunes sampler card will be given out from January 25th until March 15th at the various events, and will also be available to users through various campus services. Students who can’t attend the Lively Arts events can pick up a complimentary card at the Stanford Bookstoor, Tresidder Express, Track House Sport Shop, The Stanford Shop, and The Bookshop at the Cantor Art Center.

source: macnn.com

Netflix hopes that changes in two formats will prove to be catalysts for its business in 2008, the company said late yesterday in its quarterly results call. Following a year in which the company profited by 97 cents per share and added 1.2 million subscribers, the rental firm says it intends to offer a Mac version of its web-based Watch Instantly feature sometime this year. Though it did not say how it would reach this goal, the company explained that the move would reflect a larger trend towards web video in general by expanding the available audience.”Web-based video viewing is becoming mainstream, as a wide range of content companies make their content easily accessible on the web,” said company chief Reed Hastings. However, Hastings added that a lack of Mac-native digital rights management (DRM) remains a significant “hold-back” for the move. To date, the only widely used DRM format for the Mac has been Apple’s own FairPlay system, which has not been licensed to any third parties. This has so far limited the Netflix service to Windows alone, where the company uses the protected form of Microsoft’s Windows Media to prevent users from ripping permanent copies of streamed videos. An OS-independent copy protection system named Marlin is expected to debut with the beta of Pioneer’s SyncTV service but has not been announced for use outside of other major projects.

Additionally, the movie house also said it should benefit from Warner’s switch to Blu-ray for movies. By consolidating towards one HD movie disc format, subscribers are more likely to buy the relevant movie players and therefore rent Blu-ray titles. This may accelerate further if Blu-ray players crack the $200 mark currently reserved for low-end HD DVD players or if Paramount and Universal decide to sell Blu-ray movies, effectively ending the HD format conflict altogether.

The Netflix executive also dismissed efforts by others to join the Internet video on demand industry with Apple’s iTunes rentals and similar offerings, noting that many of these services are limited by when and where they can be viewed and are dependent on the Internet, potentially causing problems in a very young industry. “You only have 24 hours in which to complete watching the movie [on iTunes], so if you watch over two nights, you pay twice,” Hastings said. “DVD rentals advantages over VoD are ubiquity of content, ubiquity of DVD players, an early window for new releases, and lower prices.” The senior official acknowledged that there will be a switch to online distribution “at some point” but considered the Watch Instantly feature an investment in the future rather than a complete business model, as with Apple’s service or on-demand viewing from many cable TV providers.

source: macnn.com

Apple reported its latest financial results, revealing a record 22.1 million iPod sales over a three-month period. Busy holiday shoppers snapped up the company’s portable players in droves, leading to a quarter that surpasses the record level iPod sales reported a year ago. “According to the latest data from NPD, iPod share of the U.S. market for MP3 players in the December quarter was consistent with the year-ago quarter,” Oppenheimer said. The average selling price at $181 of the iPod was bolstered by the introduction of the iPod touch and revenue was up 17 percent year-over-year, the highest revenue growth rate in the last year. The company said that there may have been some cannibalization by the iPhone in the US, but that there was no evidence of such in Europe.”In international markets, according to GFK, we continue to gain market share year-over-year in virtually all European and Asian countries,” the executive continued.

Oppenheimer also spoke on the company’s iPod touch, a full-screen multi-touch iPod and multimedia browser. The company looked to launch its “mainstrem mobile WiFi platform,” which the company believes will help drive sales beyond the current music/media player markets. It said that its “strategic vision” of launching the new platform was achieved, but it admitted that high-end Touch probably sacrificed some unit sales at the current price point.

“One of our primary goals for this holiday season was to establish an entirely new type of iPod in the marketplace, the iPod touch,” said Oppenheimer. “This new iPod has potential to grow the iPod from being just a music and video player into being the first mainstream Wi-Fi mobile platform running all kinds of mobile applications.” “Because of the higher cost associated with the large touch-screen, and more powerful processor required to run applications like Safari, this was the most expensive iPod we’ve brought to market for some time,” Oppenheimer added. “So we have the challenge of establishing a completely new type of iPod at the top of the line, at a price point above where we’ve been for quite some time. And we succeeded.” Last week Apple announced a major software upgrade for the iPod touch with five mobile applications, as well as the ability to watch iTunes movie rentals.

source: ipodnn.com

Apple CEO Steve Jobs today launched movie rentals via the company’s iTunes Store. Disney, Miramax, MGM, Lionsgate and New Line Cinema are confirmed as being on-board, as are Fox, Sony, Warner Bros., Paramount and Touchstone — bringing “every major studio” into the equation, according to Jobs. The companies have agreed to offer their movies to iTunes customers on a rent-to-watch basis, with people paying $2.99 and $3.99, respectively, for old and new standard-definition releases, or $3.99 and $4.99 for HD-quality titles. New releases consist of titles arriving 30 days after their retail DVD shipment.The company plans to have 1,000 titles available by February, which will be viewable in both an instant streaming and a downloadable form. Users can moreover start streaming a rental and then finish watching it later, on their Mac, Apple TV, iPod or iPhone, syncing via iTunes. After purchase however, users have 30 days to start viewing a movie, and must then finish watching it within 24 hours. To access rentals, people must download the latest version of the iTunes software, which is available today for customers in the US.

source: ipodnn.com

Within the next six months, music prices on the UK iTunes Store will drop to fall in line with other European countries, Apple has announced. The company notes that while iTunes pricing is already standardized between countries such as Germany, Ireland, Spain and Sweden, the UK has for some time paid greater song prices; Apple blames this on unnamed record labels, who it accuses of charging more for distribution in the UK than they do elsewhere. The company says it may “reconsider its continuing relationship in the UK” with labels that do not drop their own fees to the European standard. Based on current European iTunes prices, tracks on the UK iTunes Store should be cut from 79p to 66p, or $1.30 US. The move is not entirely voluntary however, as it is related to an investigation by the European Commission, which has accused Apple of breaking EU law through a combination of unequal pricing and regional restrictions. The decision to drop prices was made in order to resolve the dispute before any sanctions were levied. Whether record labels will cooperate with Apple is unknown, but the latter may have help from the European Commission, which has also set its sights on the likes of EMI, Warner, Universal and Sony BMG. Since April of last year, the four labels have also been under scrutiny for their role in unfair online pricing.

source: ipodnn.com

Apple is expected to announce steps in the near future to resolve charges from the European Commission, which state that its iTunes Store violates EU law by offering varying pices on a country by country basis. Following the forthcoming announcement, the European Union regulator will likely announce the closure of the case, according to Reuters. The European Commission announced in early 2007 that Apple had broken EU law by striking a deal with major record labels to restrict cross-country access to its iTunes Store tracks, forcing some European customers to pay more for the same music as their neighboring countries. The closure of potential fines or further legal action against the Cupertino-based company will strengthen investor confidence and eliminate another potential unexpected decrease in profits.

source: ipodnn.com

Alpine will soon release a trio of new head-end units for vehicles geared primarily around the iPod, the company has unintentionally revealed through a brochure (PDF) posted online. The iDA-X100, based on the earlier X001, will be one of the first car stereos to support iTunes Tagging. When listening to specific HD Radio stations through the X100, listeners will be able to flag songs and use an attached iPod to sync this information with a computer, creating a playlist of songs to be bought through the iTunes Store. It can also play audio directly from newer iPods through a USB connection, including the iPod touch.

The single-slot unit also plays some more generic music handhelds and will recognize AAC, MP3, and WMA tracks from most any USB storage device. An optional IMPRINT processor dynamically adjusts sound to fit the acoustics of the car and can also be supported by adapters for satellite radio and Bluetooth audio from cellphones. It should be available by this spring and will be supported by the lower-cost X200, which omits iTunes Tagging, and the X300, which shares the same features but reduces the number of pre-amp outputs from three to one. The listing also makes reference to a double-slot, 7-inch touchscreen stereo system known so far as the IVA-W505; though few details are revealed, the unit will play video from supporting iPods as well as raw DivX videos. [via Audiojunkies]

source: ipodnn.com