The Challenge: Get every free iTune (Free iTunes 2004)

[iMeowbot]

Has anybody looked at the source code for the iTunes e-mail that Apple sends to mailing list subscribers every Tuesday?

And I thought I was having a slow week.

Content-Type: multipart/alternative; charset="ISO-8859-1"; boundary="This_is_the_boundary_hip_ho"
Yep, seen stuff like this before in Apple mailings. Why oh why do people insist on generating such horribly long and ugly boundary strings? It serves no purpose.

The standard for this stuff (RFC 1521: Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME))

Things haven't changed dramatically, but we're on 2046 now (it's spread across 2045 thru 2049).

specifies only that the boundary string should be no more than length 70, not end with a space, consist of these characters: space A-Z a-z 0-9 ' ( ) + _ , - . / : ? and be a string that another e-mail encoder is unlikely to choose (to avoid random collisions with nested/forwarded messages).

...and that's the concept that results in big ugly useless boundaries. It's sufficient to make sure the boundary doesn't appear in the body parts. If each mailer performs this check, there's no need to worry about what other mailers might do, and the planet can be rescued from the plague of big ugly boundary strings!

Looks like Apple was having a little fun here!

I want a written apology from Apple, and five million trillion dollars in compensation for the trauma. Then I'm going to buy IBM and make someone answer for SGML.

 

[Abstract]

Sorry for interrupting this fascinating*cough* conversation, but I'm still trying to figure out why collecting every free iTune is challenging?

 

[Doctor Q]

Sorry for interrupting this fascinating*cough* conversation, but I'm still trying to figure out why collecting every free iTune is challenging?

Sorry about your cough, Abstract. You should see a doctor about that.

Getting through the first week without missing a tune was the challenging part. If you mistakenly took a nap, went to a movie, or worked on your homework instead of going online to pick up your tune before the day changed, you'd miss your one and only chance. Now that the pace is only two per week (including the Discovery Downloads), it's more of a hobby than a challenge.

 

[SilentPanda]

Sorry for interrupting this fascinating*cough* conversation, but I'm still trying to figure out why collecting every free iTune is challenging?

It's not incredibly challengeing but... it gives us something to do. Stop trying to steal our football!!!!!!

 

[Doctor Q]

I wonder if the free iTunes will ever be in the "Audiobooks" or "Disney" categories? Audiobooks aren't really "tunes" and Disney songs are less plentiful and probably harder to license than other genres.

Today's freebies are "Run" by Snow Patrol (Alternative) and "Maria Moita" by Rosalia de Souza (World).

I added genres to the Weekly iTunes chart, which has the links for all free tunes so far.

 

[SilentPanda]

I always skip the audiobooks and disney categories when looking for a discovery download. I just don't feel like it'd be there. That and I guess if I didn't find it in the others I'd look at those two then... but yeah... I'd agree with you that they probably won't have them there.

 

[SilentPanda]

*sniffle*

My last free tunes for a bit...

The Greatest - Planet Asia - Hip Hop/Rap

Disc. Download

Wake Up Older (Sessions@AOL) - Julie Roberts - Country

I couldn't get the discovery download to work at all (keeps saying the item is no longer available). Also the Planet Asia download said $0.99 on the page but added to the cart it was free. These things all might get fixed. Since they're fixing to release so much stuff I assume this is the least of their worries...

Good luck on the next two weeks of free downloads! Hopefully they'll be junk... 'cause I'll be in Romania (although I might be able to catch the 2nd weeks downloads as I'll be back home at 11pm on a Monday... )

 

[Doctor Q]

Planet Asia download said $0.99 on the page but added to the cart it was free.

They have now fixed this. It says "Free".

I couldn't get the discovery download to work at all (keeps saying the item is no longer available).

Not yet fixed.

 

[weldon]

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but how do people find the discovery download?

 

[Doctor Q]

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but how do people find the discovery download?

It's a deep dark secret that only certain special people are allowed to know. Oh, who am I kidding? I learned the trick from a fellow member earlier in this thread.

On the iTunes Music Store home page, select one of the genres from the drop-down list. Each one displays a store page for that genre, and the page for one of them will say "Discovery Download" under the middle tune at the top of the window. Click it and you've found the buried treasure!

 

[SilentPanda]

Great! Now I have to order another T-Shirt since you've divulged this information again... who's paying for all these "I know how to find discovery downloads" t-shirts anyway???!?!

 

[Doctor Q]

Great! Now I have to order another T-Shirt since you've divulged this information again

It's still a deep dark secret that only certain special people are allowed to know, namely all MacRumors forum members.

 

[SilentPanda]

True, true.

Good luck at keeping up with them for the next two weeks... Yer on your own...

 

[Doctor Q]

Thanks. Have a good trip and say hello to all the Romans -- ya know, the people in Romania!

 

[SilentPanda]

Romanians! *sigh* I still have to pack... and ya know... buy stuff to pack. Ah well. I'll put pictures and such on my site once I get back. Not that anybody much will look at 'em... but that's okay. Man I'm sleepy...

.replaceAll("\?+", "Zzzz");

Is the "Steve-note" on the 28th or the 29th? If it's on the 28th I won't get to experience it live (which could be good so I can just come home and get all the goods at once) but if it's on the 29th I can experience it live... although last year I got updates at the Amsterdam airport...

 

[mkrishnan]

Is it just me, or ABOUT TIME there was some hip-hop action in the free iTunes? Although I liked some of the others too, esp. the pavement cracks song from Annie Lenox. But Planet Asia is pretty tight.

 

[Amani]

I've downloaded my second free song this week, Planet Asia's "The Greatest." The song seriously jams--reminds me of Dead Prez, but the rest of this music collection didn't seem too appealing. Maybe I'll go back for re-listen.

I'll also try to download every free song from now on. It might make me open to songs I would nomally never list to.

I'm also starting to develop a collection of free Garage Band amature cuts that I get from MacJams.com

 

[mkrishnan]

I'll also try to download every free song from now on. It might make me open to songs I would nomally never list to.

Yeah, I think so too. So far I've pretty much gotten everything. There was another song, "You Don't Have to be Strong" by Breana that I really liked that I would never have heard of otherwise.

 

[Elan0204]

This weeks's free songs are:

Single of the Week: Rachael Yamagata - Letter Read

Discovery Download (from the Electronic genre): Sofa Surfers - See The Light

 

[Doctor Q]

At the exact times that new freebies are being added, the music store does some pretty odd things, such as:

1. Show you this week's new free tune on the home page, but take you to last week's free tune when you click on it.

2. Show the song as Free in some places and 99 cents in other views of the same song from the same album.

And just now, two more oddities:

3. The reverse of #1. It showed me last week's Discovery Download but clicking it took me to the new one.

4. I clicked on the free tune after searching by artist (to avoid problem #2), and I got "Could not add an item to your cart. An unknown error occurred (5555). There was an error in the Music Store. Please try again later." Then it apparently fixed itself.

Anyhow, this weeks tunes are now available. As always, see post #1 for details.

 

[Amani]

This week's free iTunes download is "They," by Jem Griffiths. I haven't found the discovery selection yet.

 

[mkrishnan]

This week's free iTunes download is "They," by Jem Griffiths. I haven't found the discovery selection yet.

This song is kinda goofy, but mad catchy. Now I'm going to have it in my head all day.

 

[Pipian]

Discovery Download is "Sweet on you" by Clarence Bucaro

 

[Elan0204]

If you look at the genre where the two latest singles are on iTMS and then look at the genre in the tag after you buy the song, they don't match.

"They" by Jem is listed under Rock in the store, but after you purchase it iTunes lists the song as Electronic.

"Sweet on you" by Clarence Bucaro is listed under Vocal in the store, but after you download it iTunes says the song is Pop.

Strange. I'd have to say that I agree more with the genre listed on iTMS than with the genre included in the tag after you download the song.

 

[Doctor Q]

This week's free iTunes download is "They," by Jem Griffiths. I haven't found the discovery selection yet.

I think you and others don't realize that I update the first post in this thread every Tuesday morning, so you don't have to work hard for your free tunes. Just bookmark this thread and use the links in the first post every Tuesday.

I'm in the Pacific time zone, so they may not be there early in the day for those of you east of me. This week, however, I happened to be up late last night, so the links were there before most of you woke up this morning.