iTunes festival highlights on ITV
Missed out on bagging some free tickets to the rather excellent iTunes Festival 08, featuring performances from no less than N*E*R*D, Paul Weller, Hadouken!, The Feeling, Roots Manuva, Elliot Minor, Black Kids, The Ting Tings, Lightspeed Champion, Death Cab For Cutie and a bunch more? Fret not! For not only can you download exclusive EPs from many of the performances direct from the iTunes Store, but you can also catch up with highlights from the festival at ITV.com or on the regular old television, if you’re reading this today.
Tune in to ITV1 at 11:40pm for the latest highlights, hosted by music presenter types Peaches Geldof and Dave Berry, or if you’re more inclined to consume your media on the interweb, by following this very link (programmes available for a limited time only).
The videos are time-limited, and ITV.com’s performance with Macs has been the subject of some debate, but with some judicious settings-manipulation you should be well on your way to corporate festival nirvana in no time.
Paying the (UK) price for iPhone 3g (good) and iTunes (bad)
In the week where Mac News Network’s investigations back up an earlier speculative post right here on The Wee Apple that, amongst carriers offering unlimited data plans at least, the UK is one of the cheapest places in the world to own an iPhone 3G, a whole bunch of reports are picking up on Apple’s decision to reign us back in by backing out of an earlier plan to lower UK iTunes pricing to fall in line with pan-European price points.
Seems that, in the 6 months or so since Steve Jobs was leant on ever-so-slightly by the EU to announce parity of pricing across the European region, our old friend the exchange rate has bailed Apple out of a headache-inducing mass-price-point change by strengthening the euro to the point that a €0.99 download in Europe equates quite nicely to a £0.79 purchase here in the UK.
So, no cheaper downloads for now - it’s also not clear at present whether a world in which the euro continues to gain ground on the humble pound would lead to an increase in prices for UK customers, although one could easily read the EU ruling in that way.
Amazon bringing MP3 store to UK
Picking up on a report in the Telegraph a few days ago (sorry!), it seems Amazon are making preparations to launch their Amazon MP3 Store in the UK, after previously launching in the US to generally favourable reviews.
In the States, the Amazon store competes head-to-head with iTunes and others and received plaudits for its competitive pricing and DRM-free library - at a time when iTunes was just dipping its feet into DRM-free (but to my memory, after Steve Jobs’ infamous open letter to the music industry).
According to the report, which is a little speculative and should really be taken with a pinch of salt, we may see the Amazon MP3 Store by the end of the year. It will be interesting to see how iTunes stacks up against one of the first genuine competitors to enter the market in some time.
Computer Music: GarageBand special
A quick trip to your nearest well-stocked newsagent plus £5.99 is all it will cost you to pick up a copy of top digital music creation mag Computer Music’s latest special, all about your favourite (free) music creation tool, GarageBand - included, lest we forget, free with every new Mac and also available to the rest of us as part of the still very reasonable iLife ‘08 package.
The special edition includes a bunch of really quite in-depth features on everything from the very basics, just putting your first tracks together, to some very advanced tips ‘n’ tricks that start to make that oft-put-off Logic purchase worth waiting a little longer for.
Best of all, there’s a free CD bundled in with tons of tutorial-type goodness, plus a selection of 200 hand-picked Apple loops from the various Jam Packs available.
Well worth checking out if you’re at all interested in music creation on your Mac.