News tagged ‘music’

In an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine Bon Jovi said that he hates iTunes and thinks that Steve Jobs is responsible for killing the music business. Actually, according to Bon Jovi the man just took away the magic of buying physical records and firing up your walkman.

Kids today have missed the whole experience of putting the headphones on, turning it up to 10, holding the jacket, closing their eyes and getting lost in an album; and the beauty of taking your allowance money and making a decision based on the jacket, not knowing what the record sounded like, and looking at a couple of still pictures and imagining it. God, it was a magical, magical time. I hate to sound like an old man now, but I am, and you mark my words, in a generation from now people are going to say: ‘What happened?’. Steve Jobs is personally responsible for killing the music business.

Forbes released its annual list of the world’s billionaires this week. Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs was ranked at number 110 with a net worth $8.3 billion. Jobs' net worth also ranks 34th among billionaires in the United States. Last year he was placed at 136th place with $5.5 billion.

Insanely creative Apple chief transforms a multibillion-dollar industry every few years. First, personal computers with Apple II, Macintosh; then film with Pixar; music (iTunes), mobile (iPhone). Now iPad is treated as messiah tablet, savior for publishing industry. Apple still sells computers, but twice as much revenue now comes from music distribution and hand-held devices. Shot past long-time rival Microsoft as world's most valuable tech company in May. Shares of Apple surged more than 80% over the last year. Still, the majority of Job's fortune comes from Disney; as largest shareholder he owns about $4.4 billion of stock.

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Apple just released new iOS 4.3 firmware. Jailbreakers and unlockers should wait for new tools. Everybody else will benefit. iOS 4.3 has Safari speed improvements, AirPlay features, hotspot, Home sharing, a new option for customizing the iPad's side switch to serve as a mute toggle or screen orientation lock and much more:

This update contains new features and improvements, including the following:

* Personal Hotspot
- Share iPhone 4 cellular data with up to 5 devices (combination of up to 3 Wi-Fi, 3 Bluetooth, and 1 USB)

* iTunes Home Sharing
- Play music, movies, and TV shows from a shared iTunes library on a Mac or PC (requires iTunes 10.2)

* New AirPlay features
- Play videos from the Photos app including the Camera Roll album, iTunes previews, enabled third-party apps and websites on Apple TV
- Play slideshows from Photos on Apple TV using transitions available on Apple TV

* Faster Safari performance with Apple Nitro JavaScript engine

* HD video out using the Apple Digital AV Adapter
- View 720p HD videos from Videos app, iPod app, Photos, YouTube, Safari, Keynote, and enabled third-party apps on an HDMI display

* Ping features
- Push notifications for comments and follow requests
- Post and Like songs directly from the Now Playing screen
- Parental controls

* New Settings
- Messages setting for number of times to repeat an alert
- iPad side switch setting to lock screen rotation or mute audio notifications and sound effects

* Single tap conference call dialing with a pause to send a passcode

* Bug fixes

Products compatible with the software update:

• iPhone 4 (GSM model)
• iPhone 3GS
• iPad
• iPod touch (4th generation)
• iPod touch (3rd generation)
• Apple TV 2G

iPhone 3G, iPod Touch 2G and iPhone 4 Verizon do not have iOS 4.3 update.

Here are the direct links to download iOS 4.3:

device
version
release date


AppleTV(2G) (AppleTV2,1)
4.3 (8F191m)
03/09/2011 13:07:02


iPad (iPad1,1)
4.3 (8F190)
03/09/2011 13:07:02


iPad2,1 (iPad2,1)
4.3 (8F191)
03/09/2011 13:07:02


iPad2,2 (iPad2,2)
4.3 (8F191)
03/09/2011 13:07:02


iPad2,3 (iPad2,3)
4.3 (8F191)
03/09/2011 13:07:02


iPhone3GS (iPhone2,1)
4.3 (8F190)
03/09/2011 13:07:02


iPhone4 (iPhone3,1)
4.3 (8F190)
03/09/2011 13:07:02


iPodTouch(3G) (iPod3,1)
4.3 (8F190)
03/09/2011 13:07:02


iPodTouch(4G) (iPod4,1)
4.3 (8F190)
03/09/2011 13:07:02

During yesterday’s iPad 2 media event Apple announced that the new iOS 4.3 is to be released on March 11th.

"With more than 160 million iOS devices worldwide, including over 100 million iPhones, the growth of the iOS platform has been unprecedented," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "iOS 4.3 adds even more features to the world's most advanced mobile operating system, across three blockbuster devices-iPad, iPhone and iPod touch-providing an ecosystem that offers customers an incredibly rich experience and developers unlimited opportunities."

iOS 4.3 will include a number of new features such as:

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Models
Size and Weight1	Height: 9.50 inches (241.2 mm) Width: 7.31 inches (185.7 mm) Depth: 0.34 inch (8.8 mm) Weight: 1.33 pounds (601 g)			Height: 9.50 inches (241.2 mm) Width: 7.31 inches (185.7 mm) Depth: 0.34 inch (8.8 mm) Weight: 1.35 pounds (613 g) Weight: 1.34 pounds (607 g) (Verizon)
Storage2	16GB 32GB 64GB			16GB 32GB 64GB

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According to CNN, Apple is currently negotiating with different record labels to improve the quality of songs available in the iTunes Music Store.

Current songs can be downloaded in 16-bit format, and Apple wants to increase the quality of downloads to 24-bit high-fidelity format. This is a format in which studio recordings are being originally captured. Then they usually get downgraded to 16-bit format and delivered to CDs and iTunes.

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AppleInsider confirms that the lineup of the next-gen MacBook Pros will be officially unveiled this Thursday because this day is also Steve Jobs' birthday. On February 24 Apple's CEO turns 56.

In the first place, previously MacRumors reported that Thursday is the earliest date when Apple can unveil its new models, though next-gen MacBook Pros were originally expected to be released in early March. In the second place, traditionally Apple has been launching its new laptops on Tuesday.

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Yesterday Apple has unveiled its new App Store subscription service, which allows publishers to offer recurring billing.

When The Daily was presented last month, the same digital billing service was launched along with it, but then Eddy Cue, who is an Apple's iTunes chief, said that more details on the subscription service will be revealed in the near future, and that is finally happened.

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As you may remember, this week Bloomberg reported about the fact that Apple is working on a new iPhone with a 2.3" screen. Today this information was also confirmed by the Wall Street Journal.

"One of the people, who saw a prototype of the phone late last year, said the device is intended for sale alongside Apple's existing line. The new device would be about half the size of the iPhone 4, which is the current model. The new phone would be available to carriers at about half the price of the main iPhone repertoire. "

The latter allows to suggest that this summer we'll see iPhone 5 at usual price of $199/$299, discounted iPhone 4 at $99, and iPhone Nano at $49.

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Last week Apple launched the first Mac App Store section: Personal Projects, in which it displays apps for a specific creative audience. There are apps for musicians, designers, photographers and video editors to organize their projects and ideas at home. Now there are only five apps featured in each of four categories (covering things from design to music and photography). It looks like Apple had trouble finding enough quality apps to fill the space.

Last week Toshiba introduced a new 1.8-inch hard drive. The highest capacity of those drives reaches 220 GB, while keeping the same thickness of 5 mm, the same hard drives found in the iPod classic. That means that the iPod classic capacity might be enlarged from 60 GB to 220 GB. That’s enough for 55,000 songs, 275 hours of video or over 34,000 photos. Moreover, the new drive uses less power, so we can expect more impressive battery life. Today’s iPod classic offers 36-hours. All this changes are likely to come in September’s iPod refresh. Tell the truth, the iPod classic isn’t Apple’s main product now, but it still sells. Everything tends to show that Apple kept it in its line only not to lose the small market of very high capacity music players.

A hacker named Chpwn has recently posted a video where he uses his new jailbreak-only app called VoiceActivator. It allows you to fully configure what voice commands you may give to your iPhone/iPod touch and what the device should do after it'll hear it. For example, it can open webpages, make screenshots, and, as it seen from the video above, many other actions from the long list.

Chpwn didn't mention what will be the price for the app, but we may assume it will be cheap enough (and thus not free). We can expect it to be released next week.

The built-in iOS voice control application (which can be activated if you press and hold Home button for some time) allows to dial phone numbers, ask for the time, initiate FaceTime calls and control music playback. It is also known that Apple is going to incorporate the idea of VoiceActivator in future versions of iOS. Maybe, it will be the one of the ways to refuse from using Home button.

Yesterday Apple released iTunes 10.1.2 which provide support for the upcoming Verizon CDMA iPhone 4. The update offers stability and performance improvements.” iTunes 10.1.2 syncs music, movies, and more with iPhone 4 (CDMA model)”, - Apples claimed.

Remind you that the previous iTunes 10.1 came with several new features and improvements, including:

• Use AirPlay to instantly and wirelessly stream videos from iTunes to the all-new Apple TV.
• Sync with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iOS 4.2.

Download iTunes 10.1.2

Apple seems to be working on integrating more social features to iOS. The code (see below) found in the latest iOS 4.3 beta 2 has revealed that Apple is planning to bring Photo and Media Streaming to its devices. There are several files and folders references to two new features related to MobileMe called “Photo Stream” and “Media Stream”.  Apple is likely to be working on a serious MobileMe overhaul to offer social networking functionalities that would appear in iOS 5.

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