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Distributing iTunes LPs without iTunes
Filed under: iTunes, Music
Within days of the iTunes 9 and iTunes LP announcement, people had already thoroughly hacked apart the iTunes LP format only to discover it was just a clever combination of images, HTML, CSS and Javascript. Because any web developer could create an iTunes LP, it seemed strange that indie labels were left out in the cold, with LPs having a high cost of entry and no distribution of their LPs on the iTunes Store.

We do have a report this morning of Apple announcing that they'll be opening up the LP format, but a few inventive artists appear to have leapfrogged that step towards glasnost. It was only a matter of time before someone starting offering iTunes LPs in other ways, and iTunesLP.net is that someone. They're already offering up Disney's Fantasia in the iTunes LP format, but no music is included.

Installing the LP is as easy and double-clicking the downloaded file, but for the music to play properly it must be correctly tagged and named, and of course you need a legitimate way to get the music in question. Even though the site only offers 1 LP currently, it has plenty of tutorials and directions on how to create and distribute your own.

As long as no copyright laws are being broken, I think creating and distributing these LPs is a great idea. It offers users the chance to create visually stunning LPs for older music that the labels wouldn't bother with, and it offers indie labels the chance to get iTunes LPs out there, even if they're not yet available directly in the iTunes Store. With Apple's new policy towards opening up the LP format, this may be a brief opportunity for the workaround, but it's nice to see.
TUAW Distributing iTunes LPs without iTunes originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sponsored Topics: iTunes Store - Apple - iTunes LP - LP album - Unofficial Apple Weblog
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Count The Beats: Interview with a film & TV composer
Filed under: Audio, Hardware, Features, Rig of the Week, Music
If you've ever played Gears of War 2 (who hasn't), or watched Desperate Housewives (we know you secretly love Mrs Van De Kamp), then chances are you've heard music composed by Pieter A. Schlosser from PaaxMusic in Los Angeles.

Pieter's been in the music business for the last five years working on a whole lot of tunes for film, TV and gaming. From CSI New York to composing in "French" for The Sims 3, he's got a wealth of experience in this field and, must be mentioned, he's an avid reader of TUAW too.

When Pieter got in touch with us regarding our 'Count The Beats' series, and sent us the above picture of his studio, suffice to say that the TUAW offices descended into a flurry of excitement (papers flying in the air and everything). What can we say, we love a picture of an inspiring setup.

The logical next step was to sit down with Pieter and talk shop. Read on to find out how the complexities of this mighty setup come together, how the iPhone works as a part of the composing journey, a little bit on DAWs, the "dream upgrade" and how to get the job done when all else is failing.

A word of warning, there is some serious music tech geekery ahead. If in doubt, just pretend that it all makes sense and slowly nod your head, then move onto the next paragraph. That's what most of us do anyway!
Continue reading Count The Beats: Interview with a film & TV composer
TUAW Count The Beats: Interview with a film & TV composer originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sponsored Topics: iPhone - Apple - TUAW - Los Angeles - Television
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TomTom car kit makes first appearance in the (UK) wild
Filed under: iPhone
It's here, at least if you are in the U.K. One of our readers tipped us that he was able to buy the TomTom kit for £99.95 from the Apple Store at Bluewater in Kent.

The kit has its own GPS chip which is supposed to be more sensitive than the GPS chip built into the iPhone. The car kit is listed as 'coming soon' at the U.S. Apple Store. It's expected to cost US$119.95, and when added to the cost of the TomTom app brings the total to more than $200.

That high price has caused some to question paying that much money for a GPS unit, when a standalone model can be bought for less. We'll be following the user comments on the car kit, and hope to get one ourselves for testing soon.

The whole category of GPS solutions for the Phone is moving very fast, and it seems almost every week a new app comes out with more and more features giving the iPhone parity with the separate units you can buy.

TomTom hopes to offer a high performance solution while still letting a person carry one device that does it all, unless you count the car kit as another device, of course.

Thanks to Stu for the tip.
TUAW TomTom car kit makes first appearance in the (UK) wild originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 23:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sponsored Topics: iPhone - TomTom - TUAW - GPS - Apple
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MobileMe mixup: Address book snafu exposes personal data to strangers?
Filed under: Bad Apple, Security, .Mac, MobileMe
Face it: your address book and your contacts, they're personal. They reveal a lot about you: your friends, your business partners, your cake buying proclivities, and more. The address book you see at the top of this post appears to be for someone in the Denver area. I know that because of the REI Denver listing and Le Bakery Sensual on 6th, which I drive by whenever I head East from Broadway.

These contacts, along with their notes, their phone numbers, dates of birth, and other information say a lot about the person whose address book this is, and also about the people who appear in that contact list, with all their personal and professional info.

There's one big problem. The screen shot you see wasn't made by the person who owns this me.com account. Under certain very specific conditions, Apple is inadvertently sharing data from other people's accounts. Ouch.

A TUAW reader sent us a video made as he renewed his me.com account from the UK. The address book data he accessed during that time included this Denver-based set shown here, as well as data from an Ireland-based user of Polish descent (all his contacts were back in Poland although his business was based in Ireland).

This all went down during the period when his MobileMe account was renewing. Each time he logged off and back on, he was presented with yet another set of contacts--none of them his. He writes, "Each time I logged off and on I got a different address book. All the other options were disabled (because my renewal was being processed) but clicking the Contacts icon showed me *an* address book," just not his address book.

With a little Internet-fu, he checked out some of the numbers and found that they were valid and operational. This leads him to believe that this is real data. My inspection of the local Denver data from his screen shots convinces me of the same. Further inspection of work addresses and personal family names makes us believe we know whose Denver-based address book this is. We've attempted to contact this person but as yet have not heard back.

The address book glitch ended once the registration process finished, leaving our TUAW reader with a series of screen shots and videos and a deep concern about Apple's ability to safeguard personal data. He's already contacted Apple about the bug. "I contacted them by two means: their web-chat thing where they told me that they 'had no reports of such an issue'. They suggested closing and reopening Safari (helpful eh?) and a generic autoresponse saying they'd reply within 5 days when i sent an email." He adds, "I don't think the people manning the help desk appreciated the seriousness of the situation."

TUAW has sent a heads-up to Apple and will keep monitoring the situation to see how it develops.
TUAW MobileMe mixup: Address book snafu exposes personal data to strangers? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sponsored Topics: Apple - TUAW - Unofficial Apple Weblog - MobileMe - Safari
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Logic Pro 9.0.2 is out and ready for updating
Filed under: Audio, Software Update
Apple has just released an update to Logic Pro, revving it to version 9.0.2. This update provides numerous fixes and enhancements, as well as addressing several issues.

These fixes include:
- Flex Markers can align & snap to MIDI notes
- Performing a punch-in recording with Replace Mode now behaves correctly
- The I/O plug-in adds an option for latency measurement
- TDM plug-ins now behave as expected. (Only affects users with Pro Tools HD audio hardware.)
It's 183MB, and is available through Software Update or the listing on the Apple Support Downloads page. This update is available for all users of Logic Studio 9.0 and later, which was released this July.
TUAW Logic Pro 9.0.2 is out and ready for updating originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sponsored Topics: Logic Pro - Apple - TUAW - Software Update Apple - Plug-in
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The T-Mobile Sidekick data failure, and what it means to iPhone users
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Enterprise, Odds and ends, Internet, MobileMe
You may not have heard about the recent loss of data for T-Mobile Sidekick users; after all, this is an Apple-focused site and there probably aren't as many Sidekick owners out there as there are iPhone users. I'll explain the situation, and how it could happen to anyone depending on cloud-based data stores for their mobile devices.

The Sidekick is made and supported by Danger, which since April of 2008 has been owned by Microsoft. As such, all of the personal information on the Sidekicks was stored on servers owned and operated by Microsoft. During the last week, Danger / Microsoft had hired Hitachi to do an upgrade to their Storage Area Network (SAN). That's usually not a problem, as the owner of the data (Microsoft in this case) performs a backup of all the data in case of an issue.

Well, something went wrong, and it appears that Danger / Microsoft did not have a backup in place. The result is a catastrophe for Sidekick users. T-Mobile sent out a statement last week explaining the situation, and placing the blame directly on Microsoft and Danger: "Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger's latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device -- such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos -- that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger."
Continue reading The T-Mobile Sidekick data failure, and what it means to iPhone users
TUAW The T-Mobile Sidekick data failure, and what it means to iPhone users originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sponsored Topics: Microsoft - IPhone - Danger - T-Mobile Sidekick - Apple
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