New iTunes Released

[Tara Davis]

The funny part is, I made a bunch of custom ringtones for my Pink RAZR last year using... that's right: iTunes.

It's trivially easy to use iTunes to transcode a 30-second copy of one of your tracks into whatever format your phone supports, then use Bluetooth to upload it to your phone.

Two questions:
1. Does anything about the new iTunes update break this capacity? (I don't see why it would.)

2. Is there any reason why I couldn't load my ringtones into an iPhone the same way I do with my RAZR?

 

[Loge]

I've mumbled to myself more than once, "does ANYONE at Apple listen to classical music?" Answer? Probably no one remotely associated with iTunes. Would it kill them to add conductor, orchestra, ensamble tags? I reported this exact problem almost 2 years ago, dev connection replied with the standard "already reported."

I agree, but the trouble is also when you get the info from the Gracenote DB it is generally all over the place, and you always have to do clean up.

I've now got used to simply putting composer in the artist field, since that's how I nearly always browse classical/opera and paste the conductor/orchestra info into the comments. Minor niggle really.

Other issue at the moment is that I can't find much album art for a lot of classical music and so it doesn't really go with coverflow.

 

[Tara Davis]

But you cant sync it to you iphone under ringtones without modding/hacking the iphone.

Wow. Really?

Another strike against the iPhone.

Let's go down the list, shall we?
1. It's expensive

2. It's tied to a provider I don't like

3. You *MUST* buy an EDGE data contract, even if you only intend to use data features via Wi-Fi

4. You can't load your own home-brew ringtones

5. No hard drive for storage of lots of movies & videos

... and the list goes on.

There are SO MANY features about the iPhone I like, but just enough that I won't buy it.

I've decided that what I really want is not an iPhone, but an iPod with a simple GSM phone grafted to it.

Make that for me, and I won't care if it costs hundreds of dollars. The savings in handbag space alone will make it worth a premium to me.

Add the iPod Touch features & a basic voice-only phone to the 160GB iPod classic, and I'll gladly shell out $800 for it. Heck, throw in an SDK and third-party support, and I wouldn't think twice about paying $1000.

In its current state, I'm not completely happy with any of the current offerings. I'm going to stick with my 5G iPod & RAZR for now, and tote along a laptop when I want to use cofeehouse Wi-Fi.

I agree, but the trouble is also when you get the info from the Gracenote DB it is generally all over the place, and you always have to do clean up.

I've now got used to simply putting composer in the artist field, since that's how I nearly always browse classical/opera and paste the conductor/orchestra info into the comments. Minor niggle really.

Other issue at the moment is that I can't find much album art for a lot of classical music and so it doesn't really go with coverflow.

Heck, the Gracenote DB doesn't even get the POP MUSIC stuff right more than half of the time. Wrong genre entries, spelling errors in titles, wildly incorrect composer credits, wrong release dates, Greatest Hits covers assigned to actual albums, disks labeled as multi-artist "compilations" that aren't... etc. It's become habitual for me to *always* go in and carefully clean up the tags on a CD before I import it, because it's extremely rare that something doesn't need fixing.

When it comes to the classical stuff, I would prefer that iTunes doesn't even try to fetch it for me. Gracenote sucks, and has only gotten worse over the years.

Apple would be far better off maintaining their own database, using info provided by the labels, at least for the iTMS stuff, and if you happen to rip a disk which is also available in the store, it should look for that data first before turning to Gracenote.

 

[Incog79]

classical album cover art

Other issue at the moment is that I can't find much album art for a lot of classical music and so it doesn't really go with coverflow.

I haven't done this yet myself, but it would be fairly easy to find an image of better-known composers and paste that it as your cover art. Much better than the default "no album art" icon, IMHO

 

[Incog79]

Another strike against the iPhone.

Let's go down the list, shall we?
1. It's expensive

2. It's tied to a provider I don't like

3. You *MUST* buy an EDGE data contract, even if you only intend to use data features via Wi-Fi

4. You can't load your own home-brew ringtones

5. No hard drive for storage of lots of movies & videos

...

Make that for me, and I won't care if it costs hundreds of dollars. The savings in handbag space alone will make it worth a premium to me.

Add the iPod Touch features & a basic voice-only phone to the 160GB iPod classic, and I'll gladly shell out $800 for it. Heck, throw in an SDK and third-party support, and I wouldn't think twice about paying $1000.

so it doesn't give you what you want right now. Fine, don't buy it. But how can you say you'd pay $1000 for a phone/PDA and then bitch that $400 is expensive? And do you seriously expect anyone to believe that you would *never* use the EDGE network? I live in NYC, and I even can't find free wireless everywhere I would want to use the internet. It has been repeatedly shown that #4 is possible (if you can't do it yourself, just pay someone else to - you appear to have the money), and with the price difference between what you would pay and what it would cost, you can buy yourself a shiny new 160GB iPod.

On a more practical note, does anyone know if the touch interface would work as well on a hard drive-based iPhone as it does on one with flash memory, given the stability and speed of the two?

 

[Homerun7dh]

Ok, so let's take a look at this whole situation from another perspective.

Dear Apple,

Thank you for giving me a FULL song, AND a ring tone for less than other carriers charge for a RINGTONE ALONE! How you squeezed that out of the record industry is beyond me, but thank you. Hopefully people charging $2.99 for a ringtone will be forced to lower their UNGODLY prices to $.99.
Also, thanks for letting me choose which 30 seconds I buy! Now if I want the bridge or prechorus to a song rather than the chorus repeated over and over, I can!

Do I have a point or do I have a point?

Also, I'd rather give my money to Apple for ringtones than those horrendous ring tone companies that plague television with poorly made commercials with crappy rap music. You think for $2.99 a ringone they could afford better advertising...

You all have to realize that Apple is entering a new territory: ring tones. And they already are the most promising company offering ring tones.

Get it in your head. Ringtones will never be free. Why? The Record Industry is in such bad shape that the relatively little money they make from them is needed. If you don't want to pay for ringtones, buy one of those computer programs. I, for one, don't mind paying Apple 99 cents for the 3 or 4 ring tones I'll have.

 

[Porco]

Ok, so let's take a look at this whole situation from another perspective.

Dear Apple,

Thank you for giving me a FULL song, AND a ring tone for less than other carriers charge for a RINGTONE ALONE! How you squeezed that out of the record industry is beyond me, but thank you. Hopefully people charging $2.99 for a ringtone will be forced to lower their UNGODLY prices to $.99.
Also, thanks for letting me choose which 30 seconds I buy! Now if I want the bridge or prechorus to a song rather than the chorus repeated over and over, I can!

Do I have a point or do I have a point?

You have the point that others have also made that Apple's pricing for ringtones is less egregious than elsewhere. But two wrongs don't make a right, and your point, though true, is still ignoring the fact that apparently the only reason they have artificially crippled the iPhone's ability to play audio files upon receiving a call, as is the case with many other phones, is in order to force people unaware of the hacks/3rd party apps to spend more money on music they've already purchased once.

Again, it's not the fact Apple are selling ringtones (at whatever price, though I think 100% of the original price is terrible too) that I find as disgusting as much as the fact that they are purposefully crippling their own device (which has nothing to do with the music companies) in order to boost the sales of those ringtones.

 

[mambodancer]

$.99 ringtones

Was just listening to the latest MacNotables Podcast and Chuck Joiner was saying that ringtones are only $.99. It's only $2 if you want to create a ringtone AND own the song as well. In fact, from the podcast, the advantage of owning the song is that you can change the location or edit the ringtone anytime you want after paying the $.99 ringtone fee. Apparantely, if you don't want to purchase the entire song, you can make the ringtone for $.99, you just can't go back and change it again without paying another $.99 or just buying the song outright.

Have to verify this when the feature is turned on but that makes complete sense given that there are many pre-existing ringtones on the iTunes store already. These are files that are from 10-30 seconds in length. Additionally, there are hundreds of sound effects files on the iTunes store that could also be used as ringtones.

So, the rumor that ringtones cost $1.98 may not be specifically true depending on the way you buy ringtones from the store.

 

[Rantipole]

I make my own ringtones for my RAZR. But I can definitely see many people justifying the $0.99 cost to have the software do most of the work for them. It is a bit of a pain to make your own. I'm a cheap bastard, however, so I will continue making my own.

 

[hatfinch]

Ok, so let's take a look at this whole situation from another perspective.

Dear Apple,

Thank you for giving me a FULL song, AND a ring tone for less than other carriers charge for a RINGTONE ALONE! How you squeezed that out of the record industry is beyond me, but thank you. Hopefully people charging $2.99 for a ringtone will be forced to lower their UNGODLY prices to $.99.
Also, thanks for letting me choose which 30 seconds I buy! Now if I want the bridge or prechorus to a song rather than the chorus repeated over and over, I can!

Do I have a point or do I have a point?

Remind me to come round sometime and extort money from you at slightly less than the going rate of other gangsters in your area. I can't believe you are anything less than furious that you have to pay extra to listen to an excerpt of music you've already bought.

People will buy shareware apps to make their ringtones. And they'll find they can't make ringtones out of the music they bought at the iTMS (unless they paid extra for certain EMI tunes). So they'll have to go find that music again on Limewire or whatever, in which case they'll be asking themselves, why did I bother to pay, when the free stuff is less restrictive?

 

[Doctor Q]

People will buy shareware apps to make their ringtones. And they'll find they can't make ringtones out of the music they bought at the iTMS (unless they paid extra for certain EMI tunes). So they'll have to go find that music again on Limewire or whatever, in which case they'll be asking themselves, why did I bother to pay, when the free stuff is less restrictive?

If it's on the honor system, will these same people really send in their shareware fees?

 

[Tara Davis]

If it's on the honor system, will these same people really send in their shareware fees?

What shareware? With my RAZR, I make all my ringtones using iTunes.

Cost: $0.

Like I've said several times before, stuff my 80GB iPod and my pink RAZR into the same small gizmo, and you get my money. Try to sell a slightly crippled phone tied to AT&T with an iPod nano built into it, and I'll pass for now.

 

[Tara Davis]

But how can you say you'd pay $1000 for a phone/PDA and then bitch that $400 is expensive?

Because $400 is too much for a phone that doesn't cut it, and $1000 is fine by me for a phone/iPod that meets my needs.

 

[Tara Davis]

I live in NYC, and I even can't find free wireless everywhere I would want to use the internet.

I live in what you people consider "fly-over country", and I can ALWAYS find free wi-fi when I need it. Maybe your precious East Cost metropolis is not the high-tech paradise you imagine it to be.

 

[Incog79]

I live in what you people consider "fly-over country", and I can ALWAYS find free wi-fi when I need it. Maybe your precious East Cost metropolis is not the high-tech paradise you imagine it to be.

Not everyone who lives in New York thinks it is a paradise, or that other parts of the country are nothing but an impediment to getting to Los Angeles. I just made the reasonable assumption that a densely-populated area like New York is more likely to have more free wi-fi than a suburban area, and I stand by the guess that NYC has more available free wi-fi than most other cities and towns.

Anyway, I agree that the iPhone is missing some key features that other phones have - definitely so at a $600 price point, perhaps not for $400. If I had $1000 to spend on a phone now, though, I wouldn't hesitate to get one today for $400. By the time Apple adds those features, spending another $400-600 whenever that happens wouldn't be a big deal, and I'd get to play with one for that much longer.