Tag Archives | Digital Music

More About Google Audio

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 21, 2009 at 7:06 pm

Google AudioThis morning’s rumor about Google launching a music service is gradually getting rounded out. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch has blogged about a LaLa and iLike press event scheduled for next Wednesday that he says involves the incorporation of those companies’ music services into Google results. Search for an artist on Google, and you’ll be able to stream music (for free, at least the first time around?) and download it (for  pay?) via relationships with the two music companies. Greg Sandoval of Cnet has a few more details, and says the news doesn’t involve Google unveiling a true music service of its own.

This doesn’t sound like a transformative moment for Google or for music. Actually, as described by Arrington and Sandoval, it sounds at least generally similar to a fun feature Yahoo has offered for a couple of years through a partnership with Rhapsody. (In Yahoo’s version, you can listen to 25 songs a month for free.)

Miles Davis

Maybe there’s more to this than we know about just yet. But for now, the aspect of the deal I’m happiest about is the possibility of it putting some money in LaLa’s corporate pockets. It’s a wonderful service, and I hope it’s financially successful enough to stick around for a long time to come.

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Google Audio on Its Way?

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 21, 2009 at 7:08 am

Google AudioGoogle takes its mission of organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful really seriously. But music’s one great big area of information that it hasn’t done much to organize to date. That might be about to change: TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington is reporting that the company is striking deals with the major labels and will soon launch a music service, possibly to be called Google Audio. And that’s about all he has to say–it’s not even clear whether the service would involve streaming, downloading, or both.

I have no guesses what it might involve, but we in the U.S. could sure use something akin to Spotify…

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Sonos’s All-in-One Connected Speaker System

Posted by Dave Z on October 20, 2009 at 8:54 am

I’ve been talking to the Sonos folks for years. And everyone I know who owns their connected music system absolutely raves about it. Yet, I’ve never joined in given the steep price of entry (starting at ~$1000) and BYOS (bring your own speakers) requirement. Fortunately, Sonos has been listening and their new all-in-one S5 ($400) begins shipping next week.

In what’s become an annual tradition, I recently met up with Sonos CEO John MacFarlane to take a look at the new product. The S5 is a bit larger than the Bose SoundDock II ($300), weighing in at about 9lbs. But it packs in so much more, including the the components for the Sonos mesh network to stream DRM-free iTunes, Pandora, Rhapsody, etc with sound that John says “crushes” Bose. He went on to tell me that their primary focus with this all-in-one unit was nailing audio quality, going as far as consulting with Skywalker Ranch on performance. While I’m no audiophile, the full-bodied music emanating into a crowded Marriott lounge sounded quite good. And, in terms of volume, I have a feeling Sonos could have overtaken the room had we cranked it. (The S5 houses 5 speakers, including a sub woofer.)

The target audience for the S5 is music-loving iPhone or iPod Touch owners, who would use their handheld (and the free Sonos app) to control their entire Sonos infrastructure. (Although, one could optionally pick up a dedicated Sonos controller, starting at $250.) And John alluded to support for a pair of additional mobile platforms coming next year.

Sonos

The S5 provides integrated WiFi functionality yet, to maintain high availability audio streaming, Sonos units will only talk to each and hardwired connections. So, for true wireless freedom, many potential S5 owners will need to pick up a Zone Bridge ($99) to take the whole thing airborne. Given current networking reliability and my own experiences streaming video wirelessly (high def, no less), I’m not sure this is necessary. So while Sonos will indeed control the horizontal and vertical to ensure the music never stops, I wonder if this additional hardware requirement does more harm than good in providing another barrier to entry.

Of course, there are many ways to crack the home audio streaming nut. Some have AppleTV connected to a home theater system which is controlled via Apple’s iPhone remote while others cling to their aging Squeezeboxes. Not to mention, there are scores of nice, affordable iPhone/Touch speaker docks and clock “radios” these days. However, for my current minimalist gypsy lifestyle, Internet radio habit, and desire to keep my phone available as a phone, the portable Sonos S5 may be the proper solution to stream audio around my place. I only wish it could speak directly to my wireless router.

(This post republished from Zatz Not Funny.)

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DoubleTwist Adds a Music Store

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 7, 2009 at 10:10 am

DoubleTwist LogoHere’s what DoubleTwist was talking about in its Steve-Jobs-is-an-evil-overlord ad from last week: The company has released a new edition of the Mac version of its media-management software with Amazon’s MP3 Downloads store built in. That makes it a more formidable alternative to iTunes–and DoubleTwist’s key attraction remains the fact that it supports hundreds of phones, media players, and other devices rather than just iPods and iPhones:

DoubleTwist Devices

As with the rest of DoubleTwist, the store feels like a minimalist, defeatured iTunes. There’s no information about the artists or albums, no listener reviews, and no links to concert information. DoubleTwist also doesn’t provide access to Amazon’s video download store (it does, however, let you manage and convert unprotected videos you already have, as well as photos).

Basically, all you get is a search box and the ability to listen to samples and purchase tracks and albums:

Jelly Roll

In some ways, DoubleTwist’s extreme simplicity is a pleasant break from the bursting-at-the-seams behemoth that iTunes has turned into. Other than the expansive gadget support, the best thing about it is its pure speed: You can be in and out of the music store with a purchase far faster than in Amazon’s browser-based interface or in iTunes’ Music Store. (Every time I click the iTunes Store link in iTunes, I gird myself to mentally drum my fingers while it loads.)

All in all,the new DoubleTwist doesn’t justify an ad which seems to suggest its significance is worthy of comparison to the original Macintosh, or that users of iTunes (which DoubleTwist largely mimics) are zombies. But it’s well worth checking out, especially if you’ve got a Mac and a device that comes with poor vendor support for OS X, or none at all. (DoubleTwist says that the Amazon store will come soon to its Windows version.)

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Squeezebox Embraces App Store Phenomenon

Posted by Mari Silbey on October 1, 2009 at 1:46 am

Logitech Squeezebox App Gallery

I’m a long-time fan of the Squeezebox and have been continually impressed by feature additions over the last three years. Today an email popped up in my inbox announcing another firmware update and some major feature upgrades. Most importantly, Logitech is introducing an App Gallery that will organize all of the Squeezebox service options in the now-familiar “App Store” format. It also appears that Logitech may have finally corrected the way it allows Squeezebox users to access their own music collection versus streaming services. Those two functions have had separate top-level menus until now, but it appears that is changing.

As I have an older Squeezebox version, I’m curious to see how some of the features are implemented. For example, on the website describing the new App Gallery, there are apps listed for Flickr and Facebook. My screen real estate would not seem to support those features. Also, while details of the new firmware mention that Squeezebox Duet owners don’t have to switch between SqueezeNetwork and SqueezeCenter menus anymore (streaming versus personal music collection), there is no mention of earlier Squeezebox hardware. I’m looking forward to checking these upgrades out at home tonight.

Meanwhile, Logitech has other Squeezebox news out today too. People who buy one of the new Squeezebox Radios (yes, they are now available), will get “early access to the new Queen Absolute Greatest Hits album before it hits stores.” So for any Bohemian Rhapsody fans, go pick up your new Squeezebox Radio now. Or, you could always hold out for the December launch of the new Squeezebox Touch.

(This post republished from Zatz Not Funny.)

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Fifth-Generation iPod Nano: The Technologizer Review

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 11, 2009 at 5:57 pm

iPod NanosWeird but true: For Apple, 2009 has turned out to be the year of inner beauty. Most of the company’s new products, including the iPhone 3GS and the latest MacBooks, are virtually indistinguishable from their predecessors, but which pack meaningful improvements inside. The trend continues with the fifth-generation iPod Nano. For the first time, Apple’s annual reinvention of its most popular music player isn’t about aesthetics–in fact, the new Nano is the same size as the old one and differs visually only its slightly larger screen and slightly smaller clickwheel, the camera on its backside, and the slicker and more vividly colorful (and, I’m hoping, more scratch-resistant) finish on its aluminum case. But the latest Nano carries more new features than any of more outwardly revised predecessors.

In fact, this is the first Nano that feels a little less like a music player and a little more like a Swiss Army Knife. Much of what Apple has added has nothing to do with music: The Nano is now a video camera, a stand-alone voice recorder, and a pedometer. And the major new music feature–an FM radio–is so retro that I’d long ago assumed that Apple would never add one to one of its products. Like most Swiss Army Knives, the new Nano doesn’t match every single-purpose product in every respect, but the improvements add up to a fun upgrade that retains a logical place in the iPod family even in the era of the much fancier and more versatile iPod Touch.

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Rhapsody for iPhone: It’s Live

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 9, 2009 at 9:01 pm

RhapsodyWhen Real said that it had submitted a version of its Rhapsody music service to the iPhone App Store, I was still smarting from the Google Voice Voice debacle and feared the worst. Would Apple decide that Rhapsody would confuse users and reject it, or send it into limbo? But the news tonight is good: Rhapsody was approved and should be live on the App Store as you read this. And it’s quite good–maybe the best thing to happen to music on the iPhone (and iPod Touch) since the iPhone, in fact.

In most respects, it’s very much like the Rhapsody that’s been available for PCs for eons, but with an iPhone-esque interface that’s a close cousin to Apple’s own iPod app. You can search for albums, songs, and artists from Real’s catalog of 8,000,000 tracks; add them to your queue for listening; create playlists and save music to your library; browse preprogrammed radio stations in various genres and autogenerated ones based on the work of any artist; and read about artists as you listen to their work. Everything’s integrated with PC-based Rhapsody, so the music you save to your library shows up anywhere you can listen to the service.

All of this music is streaming, so it’s available anywhere you can get cellular or Wi-Fi access, and isn’t anywhere you can’t (such as on airplane flights, for instance, unless Wi-Fi is available and you pay to connect your iPhone or Touch to it). Real says it may release a version of Rhapsody that can store music locally; for now, it’s integrated the app with the iTunes Store. When you listen to something you like so much that you want to own it, you can tap and hold the song title to bop over to iTunes and purchase it in downloadable form.

In most respects that matter, Rhapsody is well done. The quibbles I have all stem from my attempts to listen to it on the road via my car stereo. Like all iPhone streaming audio apps, it occasionally loses its connection; when it does, it gives you an error screen without any buttons or clear indications of what you should do. (I exited the app and reconnected, but I’d rather that it gracefully reconnected on its own.) And it’s lacking two features which I wish all iPhone music apps had: landscape mode view and the ability to keep the iPhone screen on indefinitely when it’s plugged into a power source. (Okay, it’s also missing the ability to play in the background while you use another app, but there’s nothing that Real can do about that.)

If music fans have a major issue with Rhapsody on the iPhone, I think it’s going to relate to the cost, not the app or the service. Real is making iPhone users pay for a $14.99 a month Rhapsody to Go subscription, the plan designed for handheld listening. But on other portable devices, Rhapsody permits downloading to the gadget itself so you can listen without an Internet connection; Rhapsody for the iPhone is closer in capabilities to the PC version which costs $12.99 a month. And even that is pricey given that archrival Napster charges $5 a month for unlimited streaming and five downloads a month. (Napster says it’s written an iPhone app but music rights issues would make it unrealistically expensive to offer; maybe Real is locked into the price it’s charging by licensing issues.)

Ultimately, I think that Rhapsody is worth fifteen bucks a month to some folks, since it gives the iPhone unlimited on-demand listening for the first time and costs as much as an album-and-a-half from iTunes. (If it could store songs on the iPhone itself, it would definitely be worth it–and I’m fearing the worst again just thinking about whether Apple would approve such a version.) In any event, I’m glad the service has landed on the iPhone; this is the first time that a subscription music service has been available on an Apple device, and it’ll be fascinating to see if it it catches on. (There’s a seven-day free trial–if you give it a try, let us know what you think.)

After the jump, some screen shots.

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Fifteen Questions Prompted by Today’s Apple Event

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 9, 2009 at 1:24 pm

iPod Nano with VideoIt seems to be a mandatory component of the kabuki that is Apple press events and coverage thereof: Nearly every such product rollout is initially dismissed as a disappointment. Despite the welcome return of Steve Jobs, this morning’s one certainly is certainly getting lukewarm reviews, in part because it failed to involve even such relatively mundane rumored gizmos as an iPod Touch with a camera.

I came with my expectations firmly in check, and saw at least one bit of news which will change my life as a user of technology for the better (iTunes’ new tools for managing iPhone apps). So while I may not have been wowed, I also wasn’t nonplussed by the lack of all-new products or other major developments. And as usual, a lot of what was interesting at this event had as much to do with implications as the concrete facts. After the photo of Steve, fourteen questions and attempts at answers…

Steve Jobs

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Your Predictions For Wednesday’s Apple Event

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 8, 2009 at 11:13 pm

Apple Music EventTwelve hours from now, Apple’s music event will be underway, and I’ll be  sitting in the audience providing liveblog coverage right here. The big news won’t quite have come yet, but by noon we’ll know all. For now, though, it’s still predictin’ time–and here are some from you guys.

Yesterday night, I posted a quick survey about the event, asking you to pick which items would happen from a list covering some things that have been rumored or predicted, or which just sound logical. If we define a prediction as something which more than fifty percent of the folks who took the survey think will occur, only three made the grade: You think we’ll see an iPod Touch with a camera, that Steve Jobs will make an appearance, and that there will be a new version of iTunes with social networking features. It now looks like the Beatles won’t show up on iTunes tomorrow; you made an almost-prediction that they would, with exactly fifty percent of respondents predicting their arrival.

Here’s everything you voted on. (I should have also asked about Apple’s reported “Cocktail” format for digital albums, but didn’t).

I also asked whether Apple will discontinue the iPod Classic tomorrow. You predicted it would, in a squeaker: 51 percent versus 49 percent.

Thanks for voting, everyone; I’ll check back in tomorrow with a final tally of how we did…

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The Beatles (Not) For Sale. Again!

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 8, 2009 at 12:40 pm

The Long and Winding RoadIt looks all but certain that the longest-running soap opera in digital music will run at least a little longer. The obligatory annual rumors that Apple was about to announce the availability of the Beatles on the iTunes Store have given way to disappointing sound bites from some pretty knowledgeable sources.

Sir Paul McCartney told NME, not very convincingly, that the appearance tomorrow of the Beatles version of the Rock Band game is a satisfactory alternative to Beatles downloads:

We’ve kind of bypassed that [download problems] because now you can do it in ‘Rock Band’,” he said. “I always liked that, when you’re told you can’t do something and suddenly there’s a little route round the back.

Meanwhile EMI’s global catalog president told the Financial Times that the company wants to make the Fab Four’s music available for download–eventually:

“Conversations between Apple and EMI are ongoing and we look forward to the day when we can make the music available digitally. But it’s not tomorrow,” Ernesto Schmitt, EMI’s global catalog  president, told the FT’s Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson.

(In this case, I’m assuming that “not tomorrow” means both “not September 9th, 2009” and “not in the immediate future.”)

The word of Sir Paul and EMI isn’t enough for you? MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka seems to have found a third source with bad news:

The Beatles estate, Electronic Arts (ERTS) and Viacom’s (VIA) MTV will be releasing a new version of “Rock Band” that features the band’s songs tomorrow. And on the same day, EMI Music Group will release all of the band’s music on remastered compact discs.

But that’s it, a source familiar with the band’s plans tells me. For now.

As Kafka says, the theory that Apple would coordinate its announcement with tomorrow’s other Beatles news always seemed a tad unlikely: Why would it want to promote Rock Band, a game that doesn’t run on Apple hardware?

I’m not going to entirely discount the possibility of a surprise tomorrow until the event (which I’ll be liveblogging) ends and Paul McCartney hasn’t emerged from behind the curtain. I’m not sure why I care, since I long ago ripped the music I wanted from CD. Like most Beatles fans who have gone digital. Perhaps the band and EMI wants us to buy the music one last time on CD in these new remastered versions before it gives us the chance to purchase it yet again in downloadable form.

This whole saga is as old as the iTunes Store: It began with the news that the Beatles were suing Apple over iTunes and the lads’ Apple Corps trademark, segued into musings on whether digital Beatles were in the offing after the spat was settled, and in recent years has involved repeated rumors that a deal had already been struck and was about to be announced. After the jump, a recap of the last six years of developments.

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