Some iPhone users are finding that iTunes is no longer displaying whether it can make a purchased song a ringtone for the device within the application itself. This forces the user to search for the track within the iTunes Music Store to see if it is eligible, or just taking a chance and seeing if the track will work through attempting to use the “Create Ringtone” menu bar option.

I myself am a victim of this problem. I stumbled upon it after attempting to make a Christmas ringtone for my phone. I have about 400 purchased songs, and not a single one shows the little bell that signifies you can purchase a ringtone of that song.

At first, I thought it may have been some license dispute, so I checked to see if ringtones were still available on the iTMS. They are. Then I tried to make a ringtone. After finally finding a track that was eligible, I was able to purchase, transfer, and use it without a hitch.

A search of the Apple support forums finds a thread where this problem has been discussed, And here’s another. And yet another (there are more, but I’m not posting them all here). Users are reporting the same problems I’m seeing. It looks from the responses that Apple is not even sure why users have suddenly lost this functionality within iTunes.

I haven’t been able to find another person in my network of friends with iPhones that is seeing this problem, so whatever it is, its pretty localized. Yes, its not a showstopper, but its pretty darn annoying.

We’ve got a request out to Apple for comment on the problem.

The latest rumor-du-jour being served up by AppleInsider cites a French technology website claiming iTunes long love affair with DRM will come to an end tomorrow (Tuesday). Here’s how its put via a translation of the story that’s found here:

In French:

“Comme toujours avec Apple, nous avançons avec prudence. Toutefois, les signaux sont clairs aujourd’hui. iTunes devrait proposer les catalogues des trois majors Universal Music, SonyBMG et Waner Music débarrassés des mesures techniques de protection mardi prochain, le 9 décembre. La mutation vers le DRM Free devrait se faire à un niveau mondial (voir Les DRM objets de toutes les négocations).”

Translated (merci, my french-speaking friends):

“Apple always proceeds with prudence. However, the signals are clear today. iTunes should offer the catalogs of the three major labels — Universal Music, Sony BMG, and Warner Music — without DRM next Tuesday December 9. The switch to DRM-free should be worldwide.”

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Way back in February of 2006, I wrote about an early version of Songbird, a music-playing app that aspired to be an open-source rival to iTunes. I was guardedly positive. It took way longer than I would have guessed, but the Songbird folks finally unveiled an official version 1.0 of the application today. This final release bears surprisingly little resemblance to that first version. And while I’m still digging into it, I’m impressed.

Songbird’s interface still has some iTunes-like aspects, but it’s no longer the iTunes doppelganger that it seemed to be shaping up to be when I first looked at it. For one thing, it’s both a music player and a full-blown, Mozilla-based, tabbed browser–you can be listening to music in one tab and browsing the Web in another. A feature called mashTape automatically shows info, photos, and videos relating to the musicians whose stuff you listen to; it can also find local concerts by performers in your library. (I just discovered that Freda Payne will be here next April–maybe I’ll go see her.) It’s also got an add-in architecture so folks can extend its capabilities; several add-ons are already available.

In my 2006 post, I fretted about the fact that so much digital music was locked up with DRM that Songbird might not be able to deal with. Turns out I didn’t need to worry so much. For one thing, there’s far more DRM-free stuff out there today, thanks to no-DRM music stores from Amazon, Rhapsody, Lala, and others, as well as the iTunes Plus songs from Apple’s store. For another, Songbird can play songs protected with Apple’s FairPlay–something which I’m embarrassed to admit I didn’t know a non-Apple music player could do. (I think this feature only works on Macs, though.)

Songbird also imports iTunes libraries automatically. (It went reasonably well in my test, although Songbird imported videos which it then couldn’t play–and now it keeps telling me that it doesn’t know what to do with them.) It can also connect to iPods, but not, apparently, to iPhones as of yet.

This application isn’t perfect, but it’s inventive, fast, and surprisingly polished in most respects. It’s obvious that the Songbird folks have been busy over the past two years and nine months. If you love music and/or interesting free software, it’s very much worth checking out.

Ed Bott’s take on Microsoft’s new Zune Pass update over at ZDNet is glowing. But there’s no part of it that I agree with. Where do we start?

Essentially, the price of the subscription service stays the same at $15, but now you are given 10 free “credits” to keep some of the tracks you have downloaded.

This means the subscription portion of the service costs an extra $5 per month. Nothing really new here: Yahoo was offering a $5 a month subscription service years ago, so its not like this price is some novel idea. Zune was overpriced to begin with.

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Last week was one of comings and goings. iPhone NDA? Gone! Windows Cloud? On its way! RealDVD? Here, then gone! Windows XP? Six more months before it might be gone! And iTunes? Still here, thank heavens!
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iPod users may suddenly find themselves without iTunes if the music industry keeps pushing for higher royalty rates, according to previous comments by iTunes chief Eddy Cue. Although the statement was made nearly a year and a half ago, it did not come to light until Fortune made note of it Tuesday.

Cue’s words have apparently been publicly available here for quite awhile, it’s just that nobody took notice of it. The reason why most reporters missed this is likely due to the fact that at no time in the past has Apple made any overtures that it would do such a thing — only suggesting that higher royalty rates could lead to higher prices, and thus a return by customers to piracy. Cue reemphasizes this in his letter.

The labels are asking for the board to approve a 66% hike in royalties from 9 to 15 cents per track. Apple does not make much of a profit right now to begin with, and further cutting into that with additional royalty payments would make those profits smaller. The board is set to rule on Thursday, according to reports.

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The battle between Norway and Apple over its Fairplay digital rights management escalated on Monday, with the country’s consumer ombudsman Erik Thon saying he would approach the Norweigian court about intervening in the matter.

The two sides have been at odds since August 2006, when Norway first indicated that Apple’s closed system violated its laws. Thon ruled in January 2007 that the company’s refusal to open up iTunes was illegal. Jobs then called for the end of DRM altogether in an likely effort to save face.

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We all know the drill. A new music service comes out, the press or the company itself proclaims it a “iTunes killer,” the company gets its fifteen minutes of fame, and then it either flames out or is relegated to also-ran status just like the rest of them. But could there finally be a viable alternative to Apple’s juggernaut?

Enter MySpace Music. Monday brought news that the company has secured three new major advertisers for the service: McDonald’s, Toyota, and State Farm Insurance. Advertising is expected to be a major component of the service, allowing it to offer services that other competitors can’t at no charge.

Like Rhapsody, the service will allow for free streaming of the full song, much like it does already in many cases. (Fortune says the service would pay a penny to the labels each time a song is streamed.) Users will then have the option to purchase the song free of digital rights management, as well as purchase ringtones and merchandise.

While some may accurately point out that this is not much different from what the site already is doing, MySpace Music appears to be an attempt to more prominently promote its music offerings — and position it as one of the go-to places on the Web for such content.
There are some differences however. For example, the site would now allow for users to post playlists to their site — which would allow for multiple songs to appear on a profile as opposed to a single track. When a user wishes to purchase a song, it would be sold through Amazon’s MP3 store.

Three out of the four major labels are already on board: EMI is the lone holdout, although it is reported that MySpace is currently in discussions to bring them on board.

So how does this truly compete with iTunes? What makes it different from other attempts is the fact that it already has several things going for it. First off, take MySpace’s massive user base: about 115 million unique visitors per month frequent its pages.

At the snap of a finger, any launched service by the social networking giant is going to have a tremendous reach. It can be argued quite convincingly that no one else started in such a favorable position.

Sony suffered from its unwillingness to part from proprietary formats, and Microsoft shuttered its own music store after its own PlaysForSure basically flopped in the market as people opted for Apple players. Even Yahoo, which boasts a similar reach to MySpace, was unable to break into the market — also bowing out.

MySpace Music would start with a huge advantage, considering a large portion of its users already frequent its artist pages. I’m probably out of the target demographic here for MySpace by a bit, but I will even admit I’m frequently on the music side of the site.

If just a portion of these users begin to use the site to download music, it could seriously pose a threat to Apple as social networking has proven to be a way to spread word quickly about just about anything.

Users love convenience, and if it is easy enough for a friend to send a friend a link to a certain song, and it’s competitively priced with iTunes, and on top of that it’s compatible with the iPod (and they stress this in the marketing), and MySpace is able to automatically import the songs into a users iTunes library as it is being reported, what reason does a user have to go to the iTunes Music Store?

Of course, MySpace is not going to challenge Apple overnight. But the power of social networking should be enough for those in Cupertino to take MySpace as a serious threat to their considerable dominance in digital music.

[A note from Harry: This is the first post on Technologizer by someone other than me. But it won't be the last--as the the site grows, a variety of contributors will pop up. Ed Oswald is senior writer for BetaNews, a site I've long enjoyed; I'm pleased to welcome him to Technologizer's...er, pages.]

The iPod Nano isn’t just the smallest iPod with a screen–it’s also the one that Apple reinvents on the most aggressive schedule. It debuted as a skinny plastic music player in September 2005; became a skinny aluminum music player a year later; and transmogrified into a short, squat aluminum music and video player a year after that. And earlier this week, the Nano morphed once more: It’s now skinny again, but with the video capability of its third-generation predecessor, and a few new features and refinements.

The visual difference between the new, narrow fourth-generation Nano and the square model it replaces is the most striking industrial-design change for an Apple product since…well, since the square Nano replaced the narrower 2G model. The new Nano may look different, but its features haven’t changed radically; most owners of the previous Nano shouldn’t feel too lustful over its successor. But I ended up liking the new model more than I thought I would at first glance.

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It’s really tough to review any application or service that relates to musical tastes: The kind of music you like is intensely personal, and it can have a huge impact on how pleased you are with a product. Please bear that in mind as you read my initial impressions of iTunes 8–and know that my music collection, while quite sizable, consists mostly of stuff from the 1950s and 1960s. (Offhand, I’m not sure if I have more than fifty songs on my hard drive recorded in this century.)

iTunes 8, which Steve Jobs announced today at the Apple event in San Francisco, has a few major new features..

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I have a soft spot for TiVo, so today’s list is topped by some good news about the DVR that remains synonymous with DVRs. Plus: Two Google Chrome items (inevitably!) and two iTunes items!
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Today was Labor Day–and boy, did the blogosphere labor at talking about Chrome, Google’s new Web browser. Today’s the last day we can do it without having seen the thing; a beta goes up Tuesday.
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It’s a Friday in August, and there’s not a whole lotta shaking goin’ on in the tech world. So I’m not too sheepish about giving you a T-List that includes almost as much stuff from the 1980s as from 2008.
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Some Apple rumors make the T-List because they sound plausible. Others make it because they don’t. Item #1 today would be fall into that second category–which doesn’t mean it’s not true, of course…
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