Apple [AAPL] today is expected to introduce its super-fast, voice-savvy,revolutionary fifth-generation iPhone. The company is also expected to unleash the file-sharing amnesty-like services of iCloud and iTunes Match – on a day which ironically also marks the tenth anniversary of the founding world’s first legal P2P music-sharing service, Wippit.

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Since its introduction in 2001, Apple’s [AAPL] iTunes Store has led the business, eventually becoming the world’s biggest music store. For a decade, the service has seen no great threat, but if the rumors from Facebook’s f8 conference have weight, the social network may give the iTunes hegemony its biggest scare yet.

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Those Apple [AAPL] iPhone 5/4S images are appearing everywhere as we enter the final days of the long wait for the new product(s), but what of the iPad 3, can we really expect that device this year?

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Apple is now selling more than one iPad every second, every minute, of every day. (An estimated 1.22 iPads per second, in fact). No one else in the space comes close, nor, in the current comptitive component supply chain fandango, is it possible to.

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This is not auspicious

There’s a market segment that’s desperately needing a little slice of Apple [AAPL] product marketing magic, and it’s 3DTV. Introduced with much brouhaha as a ‘must-have’ killer new feature, the technology has rapidly been relegated to just another spec, consumers like it, don’t love it. Does Apple have an iPad plan to make the technology interesting?

Glastonbury Festival is an international institution, and if you’re lucky enough to get a ticket then get on down — there’s no event next year as the fields get a well-earned rest….making the best of such a large-scale event can be a challenge, so perhaps Orange’s newly-available Glastonbury app will help you through.

Orange in association with the Guardian Guide have created the official app for  for iPhone, Android and Nokia which is available for free.

There’s some cool features, I particularly like the as it happens line-up upates and interactive map. There’s also some social networking integration, but I still see a long way to go before that becomes what it can be.

Feature as per Orange:

Schedule and programmable ‘My Planner’ in association with the Guardian Guide allowing the user to customise their own line up for the weekend.

Interactive map with one click ‘now and next’ listings for stages and ‘mood map’. 

News section featuring up to date content from Glastonbury Festival and The Guardian including direct updates from the festival over the weekend

Ability to share line-ups via Facebook before and during the festival

Clicking on individual stages will bring up acts playing now and next; clicking on a band currently playing will offer the option to share to Facebook and clicking on a variety of on-site locations will enable you to share how you’re feeling and be a part of a real time ‘mood map’.

Apple’s music cloud looks a lot finer than Amazon or Google’s attempts, and comes with two added extras: track bit rates will be improved, and there’s a chance the labels may get a little cash back from file-sharers — but who owns your data in the cloud?

Read all about it here

What happens when a real musician messes with GarageBand? Music, that’s what happens….

Via: Mashable (who seldom give it back).

SOURCE

Yesterday we learned that Apple is a religious experience, now the head of one of the UK’s biggest homeless self-help organizations wants to spread the new iSalvation as he moves to create an innovative street level news organization using iPhones.

This unique move will see homeless and near homeless street newspaper sellers given iPhone (5′s) by the head of the organization with which they’ll be asked to take pictures, videos and notes of what’s happening around them in order to send them back to the news room.

That’s what’s coming to Big Issue sellers in the UK. The Big Issue is a UK institution, founded by John Bird the principle is extremely simple: homeless or near homeless people can visit the magazine’s headquarters to buy a pile of the titles to sell on the street. They get to keep a half the £2 cover price.

The organization in turn ploughs the cash it makes back in the form of a string of homeless aid and recovery projects.

Speaking about The Big Issue’s new digital strategy, Bird said: “Big Issue vendors stand on streets up and down the country come rain or shine, hence they are uniquely connected to their local area. We want them to become the eyes and ears of their neighbourhoods, offering a unique perspective and simultaneously developing the skills which will get them off the streets.”

The idea is that by using their iPhones to gather news and information, disadvantaged people will get to participate in their local communities, and will learn new skills which could be of benefit to their future lives.

For example, they’ll be encouraged to write blogs, use Twitter and Facebook and generally get involved in the digital world. The content they return to Big issue headquarters will be used on the publication’s website.

The chance to engage in wider society can’t be dismissed as trivial. The idea of the magazine is that because vendors earn cash as they sell the mags, they also gain self-reliance and — so important to anyone enduring homelessness and associated emotional distress — self-respect. Getting a conventional job is insanely difficult if you’re also dealing with homelessness.

I think this is a wonderful idea. I’m looking forward to reading the news off of the UK’s streets.

Via: ShinyShiny

The Apple [AAPL] social network for music, Ping, seems set to become something you want to use, rather than an embarrassing relative you try to ignore. That’s because the company has reached a series of key major label deals to support its mythical cloud-based music services, even as its competitors — including Google and Amazon — fail to reach deals for their own unlicensed attempts. We’ve also learned that Apple has been developing the service for years, with a new patent filing showing a unique approach to service delivery.

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iPhones, iPads and other Apple [AAPL] products may be harder to get than usual as the impact of the terrible tragedy that hit Japan in March begins to be felt across the company’s supply chain. Confounding the problem it seems finding enough workers to help meet Apple’s aggressive iPad 2 and iPhone production orders is also challenging.

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Google’s digital music service falls short of ambition

“Generally there were demands on the business side that we think were unreasonable and don’t enable us to have a sustainable, scalable music business,” says some Google suit.

What annoys me here is that Google is blaming the labels for just how crappy its new digital music service is, yelling at the music ‘people’ because the cash they wanted wouldn’t let Google run a scaleable business…..in other words, the music biz wanted enough cash to pay itself and the artists, while Google wanted to pay peanuts for creativity in its mission to ensure all creativity is searchable and findable by people using those also crappy Google Chrome client terminals *$499, while stocks last, so get an iPad and don’t be simple-minded* and ‘the Google’ search engine. Also so that people sucking on the GOOG Kool-Aid “we’re beyond good and evil” post modern, neo-fascist, religio-philosophical bullshit can make their money while the people who, you know, actually make the music and other creative stuff, find the music and other creative stuff, sell the music and other creative stuff and support the music and other creative stuff starve. But that’s alright because it lets the Google location and user data glutton continue in its multinational quest to get rich simply by designing stupid computer programs which let you find stuff and thing, some of which you didn’t need a decade ago.

I’m waiting for Apple’s cloud. I love music. I love all the creative arts. I’m willing to pay for them. Google is a hitchhiker, but it has the cash it needs to buy its own car. Thanks for dropping in.

Oh come on, this is science fiction. That thing you wear on your wrist? It’s gonna Facetime for you, and be controlled by voice. OK, sure, it might not be this year, it could be next year, it could be later, but it’s on the way so get with the show. What we do with this new uber-connected reality where you can ask your wristwatch where the local vinyl exchange is and be told it got shut down by lazy labels in the digital dawn? Where you can ask your watch for coffee and it’ll tell you to go there for coffee. Where you can hit Grinder if you’re gay/lesbian or OK Cupid if you’re straight (or both if you’re both and frankly if you can handle that much time management challenge, hats off to you) and make an immediate date? This augmented reality, all carried on your wrists, well until old Woz’ future prediction gets it right and we all have AAPL-branded cyborgs in our ear….

Returning briefly to reality, here’s a pic of the Facetime camera on iPod nano. By which we’ve basically established a low power processor to handle the connectivity and call, even if only over Wi-Fi, so suddenly what’s up top doesn’t feel quite so crazy anymore, maybe…. Over to you, I take comments here, too.

[OK, sure, it might not be this year, it could be next year, it could be later, but it's on the way some day so get with the show.]

Fact or fake, doesn’t matter. You know something like this will happen. After all, I did say it was science fiction…

Apple [AAPL] seems set to kill the optical drive when it releases Mac OS X ‘Lion’ as a downloadable upgrade via the Mac App Store. While this begs questions — principally how a Mac user can launch a faulty Mac from disk, without a disk — this isn’t the first time Apple’s changed an industry. Here’s a short — and necessarily incomplete — list:

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Apple [AAPL] watchers are asking just how long it will be until Apple’s much-loved boss, Steve Jobs, moves aside to become special advisor to new Apple CEO, Tim Cook. Today I’m beginning to believe Steve has one more card he wants to play before he pulls back a little — he wants to reinvent television, and I hope he gets to do it.

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This is a wonderful thing, for which we need to thank British illustrator-animator Ian “Albinal” Ball. I would also like to thank Seattle Pi for bringing it to my attention.

While we wait for Apple to offer iTunes music streaming, here’s news for UK readers: Best Buy UK, the UK arm of US electronics powerhouse Best Buy, to introduce My Music Anywhere throughout UK Best Buy stores as well as Carphone Warehouse shops.

Coming as we wait on the EMI/MP3.com verdict, this is a cloud-based digital music locker service. Better yet, it works with iPhones and iPads and all Android tablets. Two services are being introduced. Free and Pro.

The ‘My Music Anywhere’ service, developed in partnership with Catch Media, works by fingerprinting the user’s personal music library, which is then made available to the user in the cloud and allows users to seamlessly stream those tracks to their desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone.

The ‘My Music Anywhere’ app is free for users to register and download from the Apple App Store, Android Market or the BlackBerry App World.

Lite is a free level of the service, enabling full access to a user’s music collection on any computer.  Plus with the new smartphone app, access to 16,000 internet radio stations, a selection of free songs and 30 second samples of the user’s music collection on a smartphone or tablet.  As part of the service, users can also organise their playlists, rate their favourite songs and view album artwork for every track.

Pro offers all the benefits of Lite but most importantly adds fully-streamed tracks and uninterrupted offline play on smartphones and tablets.

Tom Guy, Group Head of Digital Services, at Best Buy Europe said: “We realise how important it is for our customers to access their music collection whenever and wherever they choose, so we’re excited to be able to offer this improved service to both The Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy customers in the UK. My Music Anywhere’ is a ‘must-have’ for music fans as it lets you listen to your collection at home or on the go, through any computer, tablet and by downloading the mobile app, giving you access to thousands of tracks and radio stations whenever you want.”

Harry Maloney, Chief Executive of Catch Media UK commented “Having a major retailer such as Best Buy Europe join as a partner, adding radio stations and extending the service to iPads and tablets are all exciting steps forward. The new features will make My Music Anywhere even more compelling for music fans who now have an array of options for signing up – in-store, online, app stores, QR codes and by text.”

The Pro version is available for £3.99 per month – with no tie-in period after the first month – or £29.99 annually and is available at The Carphone Warehouse’s and Best Buy’s UK stores as well as online at www.my-hub.co.uk and www.bestbuy.co.uk/music.

Q&A below:

Q&As
What Is My Music Anywhere?
My Music Anywhere gives you all the music you love, wherever you are. It’s a revolutionary new service that allows Best Buy UK and The Carphone Warehouse customers to access their music collection from anywhere in the world via their mobile handset, tablet or computer.
Built using Catch Media’s Play Anywhere™ technology, My Music Anywhere is the first fully licensed service of its type. My Music Anywhere isn’t about new music, it’s about allowing the end user to make the most of the music they already own.

What Makes This Service Unique?
My Music Anywhere is the first licensed service rolled out by major retailers. It provides music fans the ability to listen to their music collection and playlists through their Android, BlackBerry and Apple iPhone smartphone as well as Android and Apple iPad tablets seamlessly and wirelessly synced, just like their e-mail.

So How Does It Work?
When you first install the My Music Anywhere application on your computer it accesses your music library, but rather than copy the files to your handset it builds a database from your music’s metadata and stores it in the cloud, so it knows what music you should be able to access and will also have a record of all your existing playlists.

When you access your music from a remote location, you are in fact streaming music from Catch Media’s servers. A major benefit of this is that because we don’t copy the actual file, just the metadata, it doesn’t matter what format your music is stored as, whether MP3, WMA, or AAC, it will still be streamable through My Music Anywhere.

Will It Recognise All My Music?
Play Anywhere™ is comprehensively licensed, with deals in place with all four major record labels, independent aggregators and all relevant publishing agencies such as PRS in the UK, and BMI, HFA and ASCAP in the USA. These licenses cover over 6,000,000 different tracks.

I’ve Got Some Pretty Obscure Music…
If there are any media files in your library that are not recognised, that recording of Aunty Gladys singing ‘Stairway To Heaven’ at Uncle Monty’s funeral for instance, we copy that file to a digital locker so it will still be available.

What Happens When I Add New Music To My Collection?
Once My Music Anywhere has been setup it will continue to sync with your music library, so as and when you add new music or create new playlists, they will be available through My Music Anywhere.

Is There A Limit To How Many Songs I Can Access Through My Music Anywhere?
No.

I Have 10,000 Songs In My Music Library How Long Will It Take To Set Up?
If your song is already in our cloud collection of songs it will only take a few seconds to sync that song with an average internet connection.  If the song is not in our collection that song is actually uploaded to your own personal My Music Anywhere locker, which will take a longer time and the speed will depend on the size of the song and your internet connection speed.
Will I Be Able To Access My Music When I Am Offline?
Whilst you will need to be online to access your complete music library, as you use My Music Anywhere it will begin to ‘smartcache’  500 of your most played tracks on your handset. This means caching is done intelligently, according to your own playlists and listening habits. These 500 tracks will then be available at any time, whether on or offline.

Can I Access My Music When I’m Abroad?
Depending on your data plan, yes, as long as you can get online you will be able to access your entire music collection even when abroad.

Who Is The Target Audience?
Smartphone and tablet owners who have a collection of music and playlists on their PC who want to listen to their music collection on the go.

Who Are The Biggest Competitors?
There are a number of music lockers on the market, none of which are licensed by the music industry, and there are also a number of cloud based services that are available at a much higher price point.

Why Not Just Use Spotify?
While Spotify is a great way of discovering as well as playing your own music, the £9.99 monthly premium service is not yet available across the world and is more expensive than MMA.
There are also still gaps to Spotify’s library, such as bands that are available on a la carte purchasing services like Amazon, iTunes or Napster. Therefore many prefer this option and the ability to listen to their entire collection over paying a premium for a music rental service like Spotify.

So Will My Music Anywhere Work On All Smart Phones and Tablets?
Catch Media’s Play Anywhere™ technology is compatible with over 500 different mobile handsets and all tablets.  This means My Music Anywhere subscribers will be able to access their music through all iPad, iPhone, Android and Blackberry devices.

What Effect Will My Music Anywhere Have On My Mobile Data Plan?
The application on the mobile phone will store your favourite songs so that as you listen to them they will not use up your data plan after listening the first time.

Am I Limited In The Number Of Handsets That I Can Access My Music From?
With My Music Anywhere you can stream your music to one mobile handset and to any computers that have the My Music Anywhere application installed, however you can only login via one PC at any one time, this is designed to stop file sharing.

Do The Labels Or Artists Get Paid When I Play Their Songs Through My Music Anywhere?
Yes, as we said Play Anywhere™ and hence My Music Anywhere are fully licensed.
Subscription revenues are split with rights holders, pro-rated according to the amount a track has been played, on a monthly basis.  Accounting is completely transparent, with no black boxes, and no right holders owning equity stakes in Catch Media.
My Music Anywhere also provides a unique service to labels in that we can provide real time statistics on where and how often their music is being accessed.

How was the first version of the service received by CPW customers last Summer?
Very positively.  The great news is that this 2.0 version has a whole host of new and improved features and now both The Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy’s customers can take advantage of this unique service.

What are the new features in this updated version?
A striking new design, built in access to 16,000 global radio stations, album artwork and a selection of free tracks available.  It’s also available as a free ‘Lite’ version and for Android and Apple tablet users too.

How do I get the app on my device?
The ‘My Music Anywhere’ app is free for users to register and download from the Apple App Store, Android Market or the BlackBerry App World.  To download the right app consumers can also scan a QR code using compatible smartphones and The Carphone Warehouse customers can send a free text ‘music’ to 80091 with Best Buy customers able to send a free text ‘mma’ to 80091.  In each case a link will be sent leading to the app store compatible with the phone.

Not sure how new this is, but I’ve not come across it before, hit band The Chemical Brothers are offering a mixed media iTunes Pass deal to fans in the US and Canada.

In conjunction with EMI Music’s Astralwerks Records the ground-breaking electronica makers, The Chemical Brothers are offering this iTunes Pass: What this means is fans of the band will get new and exclusive singles, video and other content.

This is available today in conjunction with The Chemical Brothers’ forthcoming seventh studio album, Further, to be released on June 22nd in the US. The album is the band’s first to include the distinctive visuals fans usually only experience at a live show. Buy the iTunes Pass and you’ll receive an instant download featuring an uninterrupted 51-minute audio/visual experience of the full album, Further.

On June 15, fans will automatically receive a 20 minute “Making Of” feature that goes behind the scenes revealing how the groundbreaking visuals for this album were made.

On the album’s official street date of June 22 fans will receive the iTunes LP featuring the entire 8-track album in audio form including an additional exclusive audio track “Don’t Think” as well as the album’s 8 videos that can be viewed individually. This special iTunes LP format also includes an art image gallery as well as an extensive photo gallery of how the visuals were shot and created.

Finally, on June 29, fans will receive yet another bonus – the exclusive track “Pourquoi.”

“We are delighted to work with iTunes and EMI Astralwerks in this special edition iTunes pass” said the band’s manager, Robert Linney.

“With this iTunes Pass, fans of The Chemical Brothers can now get a slice of what it’s like to experience a live show, Glenn Mendlinger, Senior Vice President/GM for EMI’s Astralwerks label.  “It’s the first time fans have had access to their extraordinary visuals that have previously only been part of the band’s amazing live gigs.  The combination of high quality audio and video in the iTunes Pass format has helped Tom and Ed realize their creative vision for Further:  to give fans a way to experience the music and visuals together.”

“We wanted to offer the Chemical Brothers’ huge die-hard fan base a special package that would give them first access to special content before, on and after street date, said Dominic Pandiscia, Executive Vice President, EMI Music Services in North America.  “From previous experience, we know that super-fans really like and respond to this kind of iTunes offering.”

As well as an eight-track album, Further is the band’s first proper partnership with long-time visuals collaborators Adam Smith and Marcus Lyall. Now a respected TV and film director, Adam – aka Flat Nose George – has been responsible for creating the visual backdrop for every Chemical Brothers gig since their live debut in 1994. Visuals for Further have been created to correspond with each track on the album and have been planned during the recording of the record.

In addition to the digital album and iTunes pass, Further will also be available as a deluxe edition CD/DVD (including the 8 films plus a ‘making of’ video), a standard audio CD and as a double vinyl LP.