iTunes 9 - the vinyl countdown

iTunes LP offers a vinyl-like selection of features - liner notes, even video content.

Everyone's wondering when The Beatles will be sold on iTunes. You might find it odd, if you never though about it before, that The Beatles' songs aren't available in the ubiquitous iTunes Store.

Even The Beatles wonder that, apparently - Paul McCartney reckons it's not the remaining Beatles' fault. He blamed record company EMI. He told The Observer the holdup was due to EMI's concern about the prospects for piracy.

That would be those terrible piracy prospects that don't seem to bother any of the other legions of megastars making money out of iTunes sales, then.

Ex-Beatle McCartney said he, Ringo Starr, John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono and George Harrison's widow Olivia Harrison wanted to release their music on iTunes. However, it's EMI that owns the master recordings.

So that's what happened - the Beatles have just rereleased some remastered album packs almost coinciding with Apple's last announcements, but there was no "Beatles on iTunes1" announcement.

Perhaps it was all insider code from the start, calling Apple's event 'It's only Rock 'n' Roll' after a Rolling Stones' song, to flag it was never going to be about The Beatles.

You probably know about the release of new iPods, but Apple also released iTunes 9, in versions for Macs and PCs. iTunes 9 not only looks different, it adds a few new features, plus a new LP-style package has become available.

iTunes has always been great for singles sales but never that strong for selling entire albums.

There are several problems with online album sales. Once upon a time, 'Long Players' were great big, lavish 33rpm vinyl records. This meant the covers were nice and big so could be nice and graphic, too.

With a CD, you're lucky if you get an unreadably small booklet jammed into the jewel case. Buy the thing in iTunes and you get even less, despite the album price being pretty competitive. But people are used to getting singles being almost bereft of other material. Even vinyl singles (45s) came in little sleeves, so buying singles online and just getting a song was not a real paradigm shift for consumers.

The other problem with album sales is people like me. I hardly ever buy albums. I don't like listening to the same artist for too long, for one thing. I might be old, but I've always got bored easily.

And many albums sound like they've been arbitrarily padded out, to me, using lesser material as stuffing to fulfil contractual arrangements.

But Apple has launched a new thing to try and bring back some of the 'opening a present' aspects of big albums, even if it is digital.

As Apple says, "The visual experience of the record album returns with iTunes LP." You just buy and download select 'iTunes LP' albums and you get a designed, interactive experience right there in your iTunes library.

This will work on Mac or those other things that comprise the vast majority of desktop computers, but which are so cheap and so awesome and so wonderful.

The LP idea lets musicians get creative again. While listening to songs, you can dive into animated lyrics and liner notes, watch performance videos, look at photos and enjoy other bonus stuff.

So where's Doc At the Radar station, I ask you? Come on, Mr Van Fleet, you know you want to ...

Anyway, I digress. iTunes LP is quite a neat idea. If you've got used to staring at your computer's screen all day, as I have, it's no stretch to have your iTunes showing interactive track lists, artistic backgrounds and the like. Especially if you have two monitors running.

So far, when I looked, there was just the Doors, Muse, Jay-Z, Grateful Dead, Tyrese Gibson, Bob Dylan (Highway 61 Revisited) and Norah Jones. I've heard of a couple of those ... I guess it represents a range of genres, anyway. I'd be interested to know if Indy bands can set to and create all this stuff for themselves then submit it to iTunes. It sounds like the perfect job you can do yourself on your Mac, using iMovie and Pages and iPhoto ... I prefer Indy bands, you see. They tend to be hands-on and 'can-do' and interesting, without that glossy 'no quirkiness allowed' patina that big companies (like EMI) impart.

If so, iTunes LP could well lead to some interesting offerings. So, Apple, is there an SDK for iTunes LP, or what?

With rumours of a replacement Apple TV somewhere in the works, it really does seem that Apple is angling to be the centre of your 'entertainment hub' (a phrase that sounds quaint already).

iTunes has allowed you to share song libraries for a while and one of my all-time favourite things is being able to stream iTunes through my stereo using a little wireless AirPort Express. iTunes 9, though, makes it even easier to share music - and movies and more, actually - between networked computers.

That new option is called Home Sharing. With it you can browse the iTunes' libraries of up to five authorised computers on your network, import what you like from one to another, and automatically add new purchases made on any of the computers to your own library.

You can also just play someone else's collection through your Mac. This is a boon in my house with three people buying songs and hiring movies at different times. We used to move songs between computers on a USB drive. Pah!

You'll find Home Sharing in the iTunes 9 Advanced menu. There's a good story about Home Sharing at The Apple Blog. If you prefer moving pictures, Engadget embedded a video  showing how it works. On the other side of the coin, a CNet writer found it problematic when he tried to use it between a Mac and a PC, mostly due to the two computers having different iTunes user accounts set. (Good Lord, am I exhibiting balance by providing that link? Heavens to Betsy!)

There are lots of other little refinements and enhancements through iTunes too. Even the iTunes Store looks different. What do you think?

- Mark Webster mac.nz