It’s been rumoured for a while, but now a “reliable Apple source” seems to have confirmed that the company is soon to lunch a cloud version of its iTunes software.

Wanted by its users for quite some time now, the move was first reported by the well respected Boy Genius Report which claims that a source has “filled us in on some of the company’s iTunes plans, and they’re exciting”. Continue Reading

In a worrying development for any Android worshippers out there, security software experts SMobile Systems has released a report which claims that one in five Android mobile phone applications is insecure.

"Some of the apps could make calls and send text messages without the mobile user doing anything."

SMobile Systems said that 20% of the 48,000 apps in the Android marketplace allow a third-party application access to sensitive or private information. Continue Reading

It’s been claimed that Google will roll out a music download service tied to its search engine later this year, followed by an online cloud-based subscription service in 2011.

People using Google.com to look for a particular group or song will be served a link to the company's music store.

Un-named Google sources were pinned down for comment by the Wall Street Journal, though despite being guaranteed anonymity, they weren’t exactly forthcoming with that many juicy details. As the report on the matter says: Continue Reading

Rumours are circulating across US media outlets that the Justice Department there is beginning to investigate Apple’s tactics in the digital music market. Staff members from the Department are already said have talked to major music labels and internet music companies, according to “several people briefed on the conversations”.

The anti-trust inquiry is in the early stages and the conversations have, according to the NY Times, “revolved broadly around the dynamics of selling music online.” Investigators were said had asked in particular about recent allegations that Apple used its dominant market position to persuade music labels to refuse to give Amazon.com exclusive access to music about to be released. Continue Reading

There will no doubt be a few groans of disappointment in Spotify’s various European offices after the announcement that Apple is to launch its first online music service that allows customers to listen to tracks streamed over the internet.

The service is expected to be built around a website called iTunes.com.

As The Times quite rightly points out, the move could pose a significant threat to existing music operations such as Spotify and We7. The paper quotes “music industry insiders” as saying that iTunes customers will be given access to a “digital locker” that will automatically store songs bought through Apple’s music store.

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It seems that Apple’s recent decision to remove a morass of applications from its App Store because they were predicated on sexual content has thrown up some more interesting news today, with the revelation that the company could be planning to add an “explicit” category to its App Store.

Image, clearly, courtesy of Cult of Mac

Word of the development comes from Cult of Mac, which cites an App Store developer as having said that the whole debate may well come to a close with some changes made to the App Store. According to the developer, it “looks like Apple are adding a category called Explicit to the App Store … It’s available for selection when adding a new app to iTunesConnect although I can’t see any sign of it in the App Store yet.”

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They may have had a typo when they first announced it, but it’s still pretty impressive. Despite telling the world that the number of downloads on the iTunes Store had hit the “10 billions” mark, when the dust settled and the guy who tapped in the unnecessary ‘s’ had been dressed down (and he will have been if this LA Times report is to be believed) there was still a lot of happy Apple execs celebrating when the milestone of 10 billion was reached at around 1am GMT today.

Oops!

Following seven years of the iTunes Store selling to the masses, the person who downloaded the song that sent Apple over the edge will be announced over the coming days, once he or she is presented with a $10,000 iTunes gift voucher. Continue Reading

Having used their services to watch a good portion of seasons two and three of Entourage I’m a bit disappointed to learn today of the demise of Veoh Networks which has been declared bankrupt.  Assets will be sold to repay creditors and thus far the bulk of the blame is being put on a costly legal battle with Universal Music Group.

Ari Gold's colourful vocabulary was one of the highlights of Veoh viewing.

The case, which Veoh ultimately won last September, centered around accusations from the music label that Veoh had infringed on its copyrights by distributing online videos that featured music from its artists, but a federal judge ruled the Digital Millennium Copyright Act protected Veoh. However, all the time spent fighting the case has caught up on them it seems.

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With the trend started by the Amazon MacMillan spat, towards ebooks costing as much (if not a little more) than their physical counterparts, is being more firmly cemented over time, it’s interesting to see statistics from iTunes pricing model.

Looks like these bad boys will be sticking around for a while yet

According to MediaMemo, it seems that Apple gave music publishers the ability to raise the price of their music on its iTunes service early last year, which resulted in some record labels bumping the prices of some songs upwards, while others took the opportunity to drop the prices of certain tracks. The overall result has been an interesting one.

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It seems that Hewlett-Packard is to offer a built-in music service with its PCs as they ship, rather than having users register for any old service later on.

Word comes via YahooNews of the move, which will see HP launching its own music service through the relatively simple medium of PCs it sells on to customers. Indeed, that could well be a more substantial market than most will have imagined, given that HP is currently the largest vendor of PC hardware in the industry (with Acer fast catching up). We’ll be curious to see just how well HP’s new service does, as well as how many of its users opt to stay with it once they’ve got their hands on their machines.

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The latest piece of speculation courtesy of the current press-obsession with Apple is that the company could move elements of its iTunes service into the ever-nebulous “cloud.” Still, there’s more to this one than most.

It seems as though Apple is on a bit of a roll at the moment, with the world and its mother speculating on just what it is, could be or might one day build or offer through its existing services. While most of the buzz has been around the upcoming tablet offering, there’s also a lot around the iPhone’s rumoured new OS, the latest from the Wall Street Journal indicates something of a shift in the established iTunes model.

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Open source media player Songbird has received a massive boost today with the announcement that it will be bundled with Philips’ MP3 players, pushing the software to vast numbers of new users.

For those who haven’t encountered Songbird, it’s an entirely open source media player, with a look-and-feel that’s not entirely dissimilar from Apple’s iTunes setup. Indeed, Songbird has made something of a name for itself as a customisable alternative to iTunes, which many find to be too much of a headache to use under Windows. The deal with Philips will see Songbird distributed with the companies new line of GoGear MP3 players.

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