At the very least, it was the most noteworthy award that people in our industry took note of. At yesterday’s ceremony, accepting the award was Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, Eddy Cue. Cue had worked closely with Jobs for 15 years and was the one responsible for carrying out many of Jobs’s dreams and visions in the digital space.

This is the second time a Grammy Award has been awarded to Apple’s achievements in music. In 2002, the entire company won a Technical Grammy. During his speech on behalf of the late Jobs, Cue said, “Accepting this award means so much to me because music meant so much to him. He told us that music shaped his life…it made him who he was.”

[via MacRumors]

After all, music from The Beatles has never been offered on premium streaming outlets, which are well known in the industry as providing smaller royalties to artists than places like iTunes or Amazon MP3, where the revenue generated for each individual song that someone wants to access is far greater. They have continued to promise that as their user base grows, so will the royalty rates, but for McCartney it didn’t grow fast enough.

The former Beatle is not the only one shying away from the subscription-based models. Coldplay and Adele are two other heavy hitters who decided to pull the plug on sites like Rhapsody and MOG, although Coldplay did release its most recent album to Rhapsody after first launching it exclusively as a pay-per-download product online. McCartney’s music will of course continue to sold on iTunes, where he is growing an increasingly fond relationship.

[via CBS]

Being a pioneer of music in the digital realm was what Young hoped to let us all know he’d be carrying on via Jobs spirit. The first and probably largest hurdle for this particular device right out of the box (or before the box exists, rather), is the idea that each song will be taking 30 minutes to download due to its gigantic size. In addition to bringing high-fidelity back to the world of music, as he sees it, Young hopes to do so while he makes legally downloaded music as convenient as possible.

In response to concerns that a much longer download time would lead to inconvenience and therefor a less likely download in the end, Young disagreed, saying:

“While you’re sleeping, your device is working for you.” – Young

In regards to how and why he came to speak of Jobs for this device, he noted that he’d been speaking with Jobs about the project for some time now, but that his death shut down development of the project pretty much completely.

“Steve Jobs was a pioneer of digital music, but when he went home he listened to vinyl. I have to believe if he lived long enough he would have tried to do what I’m trying to do.” – Young

Young spoke also about Piracy and the state of the record company, saying that he liked his own company, but that the industry that exists today might be going away sooner than later.

“I look at Internet as the new radio and radio as gone. Piracy is the new radio; it’s how music gets around. … What I like about record companies is that they present and nurture artists. That doesn’t exist on iTunes, it doesn’t exist on Amazon. That’s what a record company does, and that’s why I like my record company. People look at record companies like they’re obsolete, but there’s a lot of soul in there — a lot of people who care about music, and that’s very important.” – Young

We hope for music’s sake that Young can make something happen in the digital realm other than big business attempting to cut down on piracy. The way to the future is to fight the absolutely free downloads that exist right this minute widely, and if a new device which brings ultra-high-fidelity downloads after 30 minutes a song can do it, so be it!

[via AllThingsD]

Have a peek at this example here, a photo of my dog. She’s a tiny dog and even when I take a photo of her sleeping, there’s always a shot or two that I want to flip sideways. Here with the app, that process is made super simple, the editor showing off its skills by filling in the edges in less than a few seconds where otherwise I’d have had to have taken minutes at least. As Sarah Perez says, “it’s a pretty amazing trick.”

This process doesn’t work for all photos of course, odd things like collections of oddly shaped items for example, but should you have a simple border like we’ve got here, presto! A good example how how this can create odd results is also contained in the gallery below — extend the dog! This application is a cool $0.99 on the iTunes App Store today.

The layout feels much like a paper planner, with individual courses represented iBooks-style and then opening up to a virtual spiral-bound book. We’ve seen textbooks before, though – from Apple today, in fact – but this goes several steps further, integrating with an educational to-do list for an e-course.

As you might expect, everything is tightly interlinked. Video content required for a certain lesson takes you not just to the clip itself, but the exact point referenced. That also gives Apple an opportunity to leverage the free iTunes U content into making schools and universities – along with itself – some money, linking purchases of apps and other textbooks in with one-click ease. All notes taken get pulled into the central iTunes U “My Notes” section, and clipping out portions – as well as changing color and the like – is tap-and-drag simple. iCloud is used to sync bookmarks and notes across multiple devices.

It’s potentially homeschoolers that could be the most impacted by iTunes U, especially when K-12 content begins to flood the app. All of a sudden, parents taking direct responsibility for their childrens’ education will have a full portfolio of lessons with which to work from. Even those in the traditional schooling system should find appeal here, though, with fewer of those “I don’t know how to help them learn” moments.

You can download the iTunes U app yourself from the App Store; let us know what you think in the comments!

Teachers will be able to work with iBooks notes added by students working with the iBooks 2 app, work with full courses complete with videos, documents, apps, and Textbooks from the iBookstore, and more. The best thing about this app is that it’s free, of course. What Apple is doing here is giving the teachers and the students the tools they need to get into the interactive iPad-based world of the future, all of it for free.

In this way, this is the same model that’s been being used by video game console manufacturers, for example, for many years, where the actual tool is cheap, but the games cost a bit more. On the other hand, the iBooks Textbooks spoken about here and earlier today are only $14.99 apiece, tops. So let’s get into the future of education on the iPad, shall we? As Apple’s Phil Schiller says,

“We’re really proud of what the teams have done. They’ve worked so hard on this. They do it because all of us here at Apple know you can empower people through learning. And tech has a role to play in that, that’s one of the best things that’s built into the culture.” – Schiller

We’ll be checking out each of the applications that have been shown off at Apple’s NYC eduction event this week in turn, but note this: all of them are also available for you to download from iTunes or the Mac App Store today, most of this content completely for free – so have at it!

The 19 new countries to get iTunes Match, include Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Guatemala, Honduras, Latvia, Lithuania, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela. Most of these countries have just recently received the iTunes Music Store and this brings the total to 37 countries now with access to iTunes Match.

The iTunes Match service lets users access all of their music via the iCloud, including songs not originally purchased from iTunes. The service scans your collection and matches those songs to those existing in Apple’s massive library. If a match is found, it will stream those songs at an upgraded 256kbps quality. The service is optional and costs $24.99 a year in the US.

[via AppleInsider]

Album sales were used as Nielson and Billboard’s metric, but downloads of 10 individual songs were counted as an equivalent to an “album”. Using this criteria, total album sales increased for the first time since 2004. Not only have album sales seen a dramatic increase, but digital downloads dominated the market, accounting for a record 50.3% of all music sales in the U.S. last year.Nielson and Billboard’s report shows digital album sales passed the 100 million mark for the first time in 2011. Reaching 1.27 billion sales last year, individual digital track downloads are also setting new records.

It has taken some time for digital sales to flourish since the launch of iTunes eleven years ago. The biggest worry for music industries being piracy, however the Internet has changed quite a bit since then. With tablets and smartphones making such an impact, consumption of digital content will only increase. Digital content was lightly-treaded territory ten years ago, but now consumers can read their favorite books or catch up on the latest How I Met Your Mother episode with one simple download.

[via Guardian]

In its fourth year running, the 12 day promotion extends from the day after Christmas, December 26th, to January 6th and gifts its app users with a free digital download from iTunes each and every day. This year’s giveaway starts with a free digital copy of Coldplay’s live EP from the not so long ago Apple-sponsored iTunes Festival in London.

Apple says that each day’s free daily “gift” will only be available to download from iTunes for up to 24 hours. Moreover, iTunes users who don’t own an iOS device themselves can sign up for email alerts and download the content via iTunes on a computer. Our European and Canadian readers, how many of you are going to download the app?

[via MacRumors]

UZU

An app that’s been the #1 app in the App Store and was voted 2010′s Best Generative Art and Sound App, this magic creation machine never gets old. Touch your screen and let the magic flow, lines of color spinning and exploding in front of your eyes, all controlled by your fingertips. There are several versions of this app, free and pay, the one we’re most interested in is the plain ol’ Uzu. [Uzu on iTunes App Store] $1.99 USD

AC/DC Pinball

There are several pinball games available for the iPad made by the same group: Gameprom. This AC/DC pinball machine is hosted by a the same group that shows off SLAYER Pinball, an equally epic game, then the rest are hosted by Gameprom (shown in the iTunes App Store here). The AC/DC table is a great example of one that’ll instantly appeal to vast hoards of users because not only does it feature some excellent classic rock tunes, it’s one dern good pinball table as well. Gameprom is the current king of pinball in the mobile environment, no contest. [AC/DC Pinball on iTunes App Store] $2.99 USD

BONUS: Hands-on from launch day:

Soundrop

This absolutely impossibly simple application is so good, the developer was tapped to work with Bjork on her newest album because she wanted an app of her own. There’s nothing better for creating gravity-based beat music based on the dropping of digital balls and watching them bounce as they hit tune bars you place. Colors and sound assigning galore for one heck of a fun time for anyone and everyone. [Soundrop on iTunes App Store] FREE

Photo Transfer App

You can either go through the relatively laborious process of uploading all your photos taken with your iPad 2 to your computer with your cords and your apps and your waiting, you can connect both your iPad 2 and your computer to the same Wi-fi network and let it all work its magic with the amazingly simple titled “Photo Transfer App.” It has literally never failed to work for me and I use it all the time. [Photo Transfer App on iTunes App Store] $2.99 USD

Multiponk

In this game you’ve got a multi-player interface and high definition graphics combined with simple gameplay and a host of challenging computer opponents. Basically it’s PONG but with a slightly more 3D interface and it’s on the iPad. Because the iPad, like most tablets these days, has multi-point touch compatibility, you’ll be able to play with up to three friends in a four-way tournament, best bumper wins! [Multiponk on iTunes App Store] $4.99 USD

Asphalt 6 : Adrenaline HD

This is the greatest racing game to be released for the mobile platform thus far, no contest whatsoever. The only thing that comes close is Asphalt 5, and that’s not got nearly the fun we’re experiencing here. Race your favorite high-class car copied straight up from the real world, except for extraordinary details such as Adrenaline afterburners, and decide for yourself who will be your worthy opponent and who will be run off the road by your mighty hand. Crashing into your opponents encouraged! [Asphalt 6 : Adrenaline HD on iTunes App Store] $0.99 USD

SampleTank

When it’s time to get going with music making on the iPad, there’s nothing more diverse than SampleTank. And now that you’re fully functional on the iPad at full HD resolution, taps become hits on instruments of so many kinds your head will spin. Pull out the pads if you like patterns, key the keyboard if you’re an ivory superstar. Combine this with a variety of SampleTank associated hardware for a full concert-quality performance. [SampleTank on iTunes App Store] $19.99 USD

Google Currents

For reading blogs, there’s really nothing better than a brand new project created by Google and a host of partners that included SlashGear! Check in the Tech section for SlashGear sitting front and center, and be sure to search for Android Community while you’re at it – unless you’re a straight up Apple addict, of course, that’s your prerogative! [Google Currents on iTunes App Store] FREE

Shadowgun

There’s a third-person shooter adventure game on the mobile platform by the name of Shadowgun, and it’s the current benchmark in gameplay, controls, and graphics, to which all other similar games are compared. At the moment there’s no greater shooter game in the mobile world than Shadowgun, and it’s one whole heck of a lot of fun. Beware the zombie mutants around all corners. [Shadowgun on iTunes App Store] $2.99 USD

SlashGear

We’ve got our own app for the iPad and iPad 2 and yes, it does look and work pretty cool. You can get all your required reading in from an easy to navigate interface as well as check in on any new reviews we’ve done with futuristic projects from the gadgetsphere! Best of all, this whole situation is free of charge, of course! [SlashGear on iTunes App Store] FREE

MacRumors reports that when a user’s logged in and is viewing an iTunes Store page listing for a particuar season of a TV show, the Season Pass purchase price will be reduced by the number of previous single-episode purchases, allowing users to have access to the full season, without having to basically repurchase the episodes they had previously acquired singularly. If you’ve used the Complete My Album feature for music in iTunes, then this is essentially that, well, for TV show episodes/seasons.

Season passes for TV shows will usually be priced at a steep discount, compared to purchasing each season episode separately. It’s about time that Apple finally released this feature for the iTunes Store, just in time for the holiday season. So curl up with your loved ones and some hot spiced cider, and enjoy an entire season of your favorite show, instead of only a couple episodes.

[via MacRumors]

You’ll see everything this special edition has to offer in the video below: pay close attention to that Green Screen X-ray portion, that could lead to some big things in interactive movie entertainment if allowed to expand. For now though it seems like most of these special edition bits are limited to single “pivotal” scenes while the rest of the movie will be yours to continue thinking about on your own time. Deconstruction of scenes in simultaneous different-angled views.

You’ll also be getting the original screenplay as written by James Cameron, his scriptment of the movie – this being essentially a novella of some scenes complete with dialog, and one big gigantic gallery of 1,700 images. This release should be interesting to watch as Avatar is already the highest grossing film in history thus far and still holds the title for top-selling Blu-ray disk in history as well. Will you pick it up?

As we’ve already seen in the US, iTunes Match is Apple’s streamlined approach on cloud music storage. Rather than uploading all of your existing music, a potentially lengthy process depending on your broadband speed, iTunes Match scans your collection and pairs songs up with its own original copies in the cloud, at 256Kbps (even if the originals were lower – or indeed higher – quality).

That music can then be streamed to your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or Mac, meaning less time syncing and more time dancing at your desk at work, on the bus or in the privacy of your own lodgings. The iTunes Match app is available in iTunes; more details on how to use it here.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

The last update to iTunes 10.5.1 brought the iTunes Match feature, which lets you store your entire music collection in the iCloud, whether or not all the music was purchased through iTunes. Songs that matched those already in Apple’s libraries are streamed from 256kbps master copies, while songs that cannot be matched are uploaded for streaming.

iTunes 10.5.2 brings some improvements to iTunes Match, but mainly addresses the audio distortion problem that several users have experienced while trying to play or import certain CDs. The update for Mac computers requires OS X 10.5 or above, while the Windows version of the update comes in either 32-bit or 64-bit.

[via 9to5Mac]

While below you’ll see the video we’re speaking about here, lower than that you’ll find another brand new Beatles-related bit that’s popped up on iTunes this month: The Beatles Yellow Submarine book for kids. This book is completely free on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch at the moment, and is certainly meant to push for a greater adoption of the iBooks application on the iOS platform for you to hold all your non-magazine reading material purchased from the iTunes store. This Yellow Submarine book is the only digital version of the perfectly classic little adventure based on the movie and can be read aloud by whatever iDevice you run it on.

As for the ad, once more, please take note that we’ve jumped into the record album covers, the vinyl covers that were (and are) oh so massive and beautiful. Here right out in the open you’ll find that Apple is re-invigorating (or just invigorating, depending on how old you are) your love for embracing the album cover rather than tossing it aside the moment you toss your CD into your expanded wallet of CDs. What digital music displayed on your mobile device (here in an iPhone or an iPad) has done is to bring the idea that the cover matters back to the forefront – and what better way to declare it than with some of the most masterfully crafted examples in the history of vinyl than this?

You can pick up the Yellow Submarine book as well as check out the extended Beatles collection on iTunes – and turn the crank on classics all holiday season long!

What we’re going to look at primarily here on SlashGear is the apps pieces as well as the top winners for movies, TV Shows, and Music. The rest you’ll have to find by heading straight to the portal: www.itunes.com/itunesrewind. From there you’ll get the whole pizazz complete with links to all the pages where you can buy the winning media bits. Of course this means that the rich get richer, and good for them! We’ll gladly see the Best Breakout Comedy win in its 4th season – seem strange to you?

It’s no less strange than the winner of that funny gold metal: Parks and Recreation. Leslie Knope and Ron Swanson take command of the airways in this perfectly awesome show that your humble narrator watches regularly – be there! Then there’s Most Quotable with Saturday Night Live, top selling episode “What Lies Ahead” from the show The Walking Dead and best selling season with season 6, part 2 of the newest edition of Doctor Who. For movies there’s Bridesmaids for Best Comedy, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 for Best Blockbuster, and little known actor Alex Shaffer winning Breakout Performance for the movie Win Win — a movie that’s pretty darn good if I do say so myself. Best selling movie of the year was The Social Network – imagine that!

For music there’s Adele as Artist of the Year, Wasting Light by the Foo Fighters as Album of the Year, and Nicki Minaj as Breaktrough Artist of the Year. The rest I’m sure you’ll be able to guess as it’s pop, pop, and more pop for best selling songs. Then it’s time for the good stuff, the apps, the pieces of software we use day in and day out, the newness!

There are two categories that really matter for Apple-voted winners, that’s App of the Year and Game of the Year, 2 awards each for iPhone and for iPad-based apps. For iPhone App of the Year, Instagram won for its photography prowess. For Game of the Year on iPhone it was Tiny Tower – ironic! iPad App of the Year was Snapseed, while Game of the Year for iPad was Dead Space. As far as sellers go, iPad had Angry Birds HD Free for its top FREE apps and Angry Birds HD for it’s top PAID apps – how about that! I wonder if Angry Birds will EVER stop being up there at the top?

It’s a bit different for the iPhone side of things, on the other hand, with Facebook, Pandora, and Words with Friends heading up the Free Apps. Paid apps for iPhone were similar to the iPad, showing iPhone’s Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, and Angry Birds Seasons to lead the pack. Notable iPad apps in the top ten for free are Netflix, The Weather Channel, and CNN. For paid iPad apps, some mention-worthy top-10 winners are Pages, Penultimate, and Cut the Rope HD. Check out all the rest on the www.itunes.com/itunesrewind portal right this second – or find the same page in iTunes by heading to the iTunes Store.

What you’ll see here is a high-definition table strewn with references to AC/DC tunes including a tiny Highway to Hell on the right, a Hells Bell up at the top complete with BONNNG noise when you hit it, and plenty of electricity throughout. There’s mini-games up the wazoo on this table including one where the bottom 1/3 of the table is blocked off and you have to hit metal bars that pop up from the surface, one where you toss the ball around on the guitar you see floating above the main table in the upper right, and a cannon fire situation where you’ve got to hit several targets with a blast.

This game once again proves that Gameprom got it right with Pinball HD and continue to get it right each time they release a new table. Now we’ve just got to wait for Metallica, Black Sabbath, maybe a few games for Star Wars, some horror movie themed tables, and of course an Addams Family table to round the whole set off. What do you think? Is the pinball revolution upon us?

Pick up AC/DC Pinball Rocks HD on the iTunes Appstore today for $2.99 USD. Do it! Do it now!

At the moment only users in the USA are allowed to use the service, but users around the world can download the new version of iTunes via Apple’s iTunes 10.5.1 download page. This service will allow you to import all of your music to the iCloud where iTunes will either provide the highest-quality version of the tracks available or will use the version of the music file you uploaded when no match can be made. With this service, you’ll have your whole music library wherever you go with the opportunity to purchase as much physically represented music as you want to add to your library any time you want for no additional charge. Record stores may well see an influx of business from this.

This service will work starting immediately, and again even though outside the USA there is no compatibility with iTunes Match as of yet, a “coming soon” sign out front of the promo listings makes it seem like there might be a chance for the near future. Those of you that’ve tried iTunes Match so far: what do you think of it? Seem like something you’d recommend to all your friends? Worth the $25 USD a year to make it go?

iTunes Match was first announced back at WWDC 2011, when Apple also revealed the iCloud and iOS 5, which were all set to launch this fall. The iCloud and iOS 5 have both been released last month along with the iPhone 4S, but the iTunes Match feature has remained in developer beta testing since the end of August.

The service costs $24.99 a year and is designed to be an optional feature that allows users to stream via the iCloud both iTunes music as well as songs that they’ve purchased or acquired elsewhere. iTunes Match will attempt to find the song in Apple’s vast music library and if it’s already there, the service will automatically stream from the Apple master copy at 256kbps. If the song cannot be found then it will be uploaded to the user’s iCloud account for streaming.

[via MacRumors]

Meanwhile, Personal Pickup is a new array of services available to those using the app to buy new hardware and accessories. Instead of defaulting to delivering those purchases to your home or office address, shoppers can instead request to pick up their order from an Apple Store. The company is aiming to have orders ready for collection within an hour from the point of payment.

Finally, there’s a new tracking service within the app, giving shoppers eager to follow the progress of their online order a straightforward way to do so. It also allows you to see records of previous orders.

Personal Pickup and EasyPay are only available in the US at present, though the Apple Store app itself is, with the release of v2.0, available now in China and Canada. It requires iOS 4.2 or above, while EasyPay requires and iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S.

[via TNW]

The latest beta update for iTunes 10.5.1 brings with it updates for stability and performance improvements according to the change log. Match was updated alongside the new beta for iTunes and to continue to use the iTunes Match service, the updated version of iTunes is required. One the updated to the beta version of iTunes for devs iTunes Match storage can be enabled on all Apple devices.

iTunes Match is the service that allows the uploading of your entire iTunes Music catalog to iCloud. Once on iCloud the music can be accessed from any device including the Apple TV, iPad, and iPhone. For now, there is no new information when iTunes match will go public. It was previously slated for October and that month has come and went already.

[via Cultofmac"]

That tidbit – “It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine” – had analysts queuing up to voice their opinions on what the long-rumored TV might bring. Yesterday, it was suggested that Apple would integrate Siri and FaceTime into an iOS-based HDTV chassis, using the voice control system to intelligently search live, recorded and streaming content rather than navigate through several tiers of menus on different STBs.

Another analyst pointed to iCloud, arguing that the cloud-storage system launched alongside iOS 5 would make the ideal digital repository for multimedia, shared both with the Apple HDTV and mobile iOS devices such as the iPhone and iPad. However, others have pointed to the notoriously low margins involved in TVs, and argued that Apple would struggle to persuade shoppers that its models were worth a premium. Sony, which adopted Google TV, encountered sluggish demand for its smart TV sets that integrated Google’s interpretation of a search-led home entertainment platform, and was forced to sharply discount the sets soon after launch.

In short, while there’s plenty of talk of prototypes already in development, we’re no closer to a cast-iron Apple TV set than we were before. Apple already has the Apple TV, a compact STB allowing iTunes access on any television, and that would seem an obvious starting point for adding Siri voice control, perhaps using an iPhone 4S as a touchscreen, voice-activated remote.

Many users have reported seeing the iTunes Match toggle appear in the Music section under the Settings app. That toggle had been available to developers for testing but had disappeared recently only to reappear again today for both developers as well as the general public.

But if you’re not a developer and you attempt to toggle-on the service, you’ll receive a message to subscribe via iTunes on your computer. And you’ll then find that the service is labeled “coming soon” on your iTunes.

iTunes Match will likely roll out with iTunes 10.5.1, which is still under going beta testing by developers. The service costs $24.99 a year and allows you to sync all your music, including songs not purchased from iTunes. It will likely roll out by the end of this month in the US, followed by releases in other parts of the world later on.

[via MacRumors]

Despite Apple’s system being a rival to Ultraviolet, several of the studios are reportedly keen to welcome the Cupertino company to the industry all the same. The existing heft of iTunes for movie sales has made it a force to be reckoned with, and insiders close to the deals say the extra focus on the segment is just what studios are looking for.

Ultraviolet offers a digital copy of a purchased DVD or Blu-ray, available for streaming to DRM-compatible devices. It’s the DRM that the studios have been most concerned with, given the piracy issue. Apple’s version is expected to function in a similar way to the new iCloud system, which currently allows users to stream their music – purchased from iTunes, unless they upgrade to iTunes Match – from a remote server on any device.

Apple’s system could also end up working with Ultraviolet, if further details in the negotiations go to plan. According to the sources, there’s talk of customers being able to access their Ultraviolet-stored content through Apple’s offering, though the reverse would not be true: iTunes-bought movies would only be accessible on Apple hardware.

Like Google Latitude does on Android, Find My Friends will allow iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users to see their friends’ locations. Access to your position can be granted permanently, or groups set up to reveal location for a specific length of time: for instance, until the end of a day out to the beach or a theme park.

There’s also a single switch that turns off all location sharing, for those times you want to be completely off the grid. There’s full details on Find My Friends in the SlashGear iOS 5 review.

[via 9 to 5 Mac]

To download the newest version of iTunes, you’ve only to head over to the Apple support page for iTunes and snatch it up. Download, update, and win. There you’ll find a few updates, but they’re all life-changing if your live revolves around Apple’s media empire. First, you can re-download music you’ve previously purchased on any machine you’ve signed in on. The same is true of TV, movies, and books – in fact, I just downloaded a Ratatat song on my iPad 2 that I purchased several months ago – it was just THERE, how convenient!

In addition to this re-download push, there’s the new ability to have your devices automatically download the media when you first buy it. Next, again, there’s wireless syncing of your devices as long as their on the same Wi-fi network. Finally, there’s a COMING SOON symbol on iTunes match.

If you’ll remember back to the last time we spoke about Match, it’s a $24.99 a year service which allows you to access songs that you’ve added to your iTunes library via CD, (supposing you’ve actually got a real physical CD, that is,) and do it via the iCloud at 256-Kbps AAC DRM-free quality, EVEN IF your original copy of the music was at lower quality. Of course this wont work with every single song ever, but Apple DOES have a rather vast music library, so you’ve got a pretty good chance, no worries.

Go download iTunes 10.5 now, what are you waiting for!?

This information comes from Japanese Apple blog Macotakara who say they’ve got a “reliable source” that says OS X Lion Update 10.7.2 as well as iTunes 10.5 will be out early this next week. From what we understand, iTunes 10.5 is still in Beta mode for testers while developers have been given the Gold Master copy of Mac OS X 10.7.2, this meaning that the release is RIGHT around the corner.

NOTE: for all the information you could possibly need at this point on iCloud, head to our SlashGear 101: What is iCloud? post and get educated!

October 12th will be the release of both iOS 5 with iCloud support AND the iPhone 4S (plus the other newly price-adjusted iPhone collection) in stores. The three biggest mobile carriers in the USA and Apple have reported that iPhone 4S pre-order stock is sold out, so if you’re going to be amongst those getting one on October 12th, you’re going to have to head to the front-door camp. Meanwhile we expect iOS 5 to be pushed to all other compatible Apple devices sometime this week – hopefully, again, the 12th!

[via AppleInsider]

What twitter user SonnyDickson appears to have found is a set of five simple codes, the first asking if you’d like to start playing an app, the second being the key – saying that apps are automatically removed from your iTunes library at the end of the rental period, the third and fourth reminding you that the app will be deleted, the fourth simply reading App. This seems like a possibility for iOS – sucking an app back up into the mainframe once it’s expired, why not? But here’s the thing: this may not be used for what you think it’ll be used for.

Consider, for instance, in-flight entertainment – this link shows a situation in which you’ll already have to have a device in order to get rental media, and the media at hand is simply movies in this case, but imagine renting a game exclusive to that flight? What if you could rent a special American Airlines version of Angry Birds? Or perhaps you get handed an iPad in first class on the flight, for instance, and you want to play a game, but don’t want to buy it because you don’t actually OWN an iDevice for yourself. How about a rental?

Then there’s the idea that some apps are too expensive for how many times you end up using them. How about if you’ve got a unique situation in which you need to edit some video, but you never plan on doing the same thing again? Rental!

Other than that, who knows – Apple just ended TV Episode rentals, so perhaps this is a lost cause immediately – or maybe it won’t arrive at all! We’ll see you tomorrow at http://live.slashgear.com/ where we’ll be Livecasting all the details of the Apple iPhone event straight from the source. We’ll also have full coverage here in the main news feed, so sit tight!

[via TheTechErra]

Other information that’s piling up here, if you’ve been following along, includes an 8 megapixel camera, 512MB of RAM, the same A5 processor that’s in the iPad 2 as well as dual graphics, all of this inside what’s essentially the same chassis as we’re still seeing in the iPhone 4. This iPhone 4S has the code-name N94 and has for some time, all of this tied to a two-color strategy with, as the same source as above reports, 60 percent of production going to black, the rest to white.

Kuo notes that Foxconn will be responsible for manufacturing a grand 85 percent of Apple’s iPhone 4S (and/or iPhone 5) line with the other 15 percent going to Pegatron. For those of you having never heard of either manufacturing group before, I assure you, they are not transformers, and will not be doing battle any time soon. For more information on leaks and rumors, I suggest you head back to our iPhone 5 Details Roundup and get a taste.

Meanwhile we’ll be live at Apple this Tuesday right on time at the iPhone event to see what the real deal is. We’ll be live-blogging this event through out live portal and I suggest you get front and center to get the business asap!

[via AppleInsider]

Developers testing out the iTunes Match beta will have to keep backing up regularly and are advised not to delete songs from their computers after they’ve added to the iCloud because Apple may periodically delete all iCloud libraries. This will require developers to scan, match, upload songs all over again.

The release notes also point out that some of the features and optimizations of iTunes Match may not be available in this beta. Some songs that are matched in the iTunes library may not be recognized and will have to uploaded still. And music can only be added from one computer at a time.

The iTunes Match feature is optional and costs $24.99 per year. The music matching service should be launching with iOS 5 and the iCloud and will allow users to sync music across all their devices, even the songs they didn’t purchase from iTunes. We’re expecting a big reveal next Tuesday, October 4, when Apple will be unveiling its next-gen iPhone. Stay tuned as we’ll be live blogging the event here: http://live.slashgear.com

[via Cult of Mac]

Apps for the Windows 8 Store were originally thought to be free of any cuts on sales, but following a check on developer terms, the Windows Weekly podcast reports that only conventional apps get to dodge the 30 percent cut. Microsoft won’t require apps to publish through its App Store, but being in the official channel would give apps more exposure.

Microsoft also seems open to key competitors writing apps for Windows 8 Metro. During the an analyst meeting this week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that his company would welcome Metro-native Amazon Kindle or Apple iTunes apps.

For more details on the recent Windows 8 developments, make sure to check out our coverage of Build 2011 as well as this complete guide to the latest Windows 8 developer preview.

[via Electronista]

“In our view, Apple should be in no rush” J.P. Morgan proffered in an investor note. “The other tablet entrants have stumbled so far, and that trend-line could persist deep into 2012. [Motorola] and RIM have been recent disappointments, and we expect more stumbles from others.”

Meanwhile, MobileTrax analyst Gerry Purdy has spent the time to write an open letter to Cook, flagging up some of what he reckons would be “insanely great” things to do now that he’s at the helm. Ranging from rebranding – changing “iTunes” to “iMedia” – to boosting the iPhone and iPad ranges with various model sizes, Purdy’s advice also includes dipping into the company’s $70bn purse to acquire TiVo, a firm he reckons has “an excellent UI but could do 100 times the business as part of Apple.”

The analyst also calls for broader support for rival platforms from iCloud, “so that [it] can truly transform mobile computing while allowing users to own any smartphone or tablet mobile device they want in order to benefit from iCloud’s services.” That, frankly, sounds about as far away from something Apple would choose to do as imaginable. The company’s strategy right now is creating an almost hermetically sealed ecosystem for its products and services to operate within, and unlocking the door for Android, Windows Phone or any other platform would inevitably take its toll on usability and simplicity (not to mention potentially cut into sales of Apple’s own products).

Whether Cook will pay any attention to the unsolicited suggestions remains to be seen, though our sneaking suspicion is that Apple, as when Jobs was at the helm, will continue to plot its own strategy rather than take the advice of others.

[via AllThingsD and via TNW; Image credit Evil Mad Scientist]

Similarly, Apple might be competing with OS X and iOS, but Ballmer draws a distinction between the iTunes ecosystem that serves iPods, iPads, iPhones and Macs with digital media, and the hardware itself. Apple of course already offers an iTunes version for Windows, though it’s unclear whether the company will also develop a Metro version that fits into Microsoft’s new touch-centric interface in Windows 8.

“Amazon is an example. They may have a device competitor, but they have certainly behaved like their fundamental business is the service. They’ve done a lot to try to have good support of other folks’ device. We welcome them. We’d welcome Metro-style apps from Amazon. We’d welcome Metro- style applications from Apple in the iTunes case. I don’t know what we’d see there but we’d certainly welcome those. And, because of compatibility, there’s certainly a path forward for everybody” Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft

That could prove to be a sticking point for Windows 8 hardware running on ARM chipsets, since Microsoft has also confirmed that x86 Windows 7/8 software won’t be compatible with its version of the OS for ARM processors like Tegra 3. Considering the majority of ARM-based devices running Windows 8 are expected to be tablets, Apple could well decide that they step too closely to its own iPad range, and opt out of releasing a specific ARM build.

The iTunes 10.5 beta 8 will be needed to continue using the iTunes Match feature and developers are encouraged to sign up for the $24.99 per year service. For testing the service, however, developers do get extra months of service in return. The iWork beta 3 for iOS also brings some bug fixes and will ultimately include document syncing with the iCloud.

However, missing from this latest batch of updates is a new beta for the iOS 5 itself. This suggests that Apple is winding down on development for iOS 5 and is mainly working out the integration of other Apple software with the platform and fine tuning its cloud-based features.

[via Cult of Mac]

Since the Financial Times wouldn’t come to compliance with the iTunes rule, Apple has now removed the app from the App Store. That means iPad and iPhone users can no longer get the apps to view the paper. Apparently, the digital subscriptions are important to the publication. It has been growing its digital subscribers at a robust rate.

Reports claim that since the FT app launched 10% of the digital subscriptions to the paper were made on the iPad. The FT had gained 100,000 new subscribers to its digital edition so as many as 10,000 readers may have been using the iPad. The FT launched a web application in June to replace the app on Apple device. The web app reportedly has 550,000 users.

[via PaidContent]

The iTunes Match feature differentiates Apple’s iCloud music service from competitors because it saves time from uploading your entire music collection and lets you stream songs not purchased from iTunes. The service scans your music collection and uploads only the songs that do not exist in Apple’s music library. For the songs that can be found in Apple’s music library, the service will stream directly from the Apple master copy at 256kbps to your Mac or iOS device.

However, the service is optional and will cost $25 a year. If you don’t want to pay that amount, you can still manually upload the songs you did not purchase from iTunes, although this limit is set to 25,000 songs. And even better is that the 25,000 songs are in addition to your free 5GB of iCloud storage space.

Below are two videos from Insanely Great Mac that walkthrough the iCloud and iTunes Match service on both the Mac and iOS.

[via MacRumors]

The second option is of course the one that’s been proven successful since its inception: allowing users to pay for the show once and keep it forever. One of the two groups on board with the TV episode rental program’s 2010 price drop was Fox as owned by News Corp, (the other being Disney, a group which Steve Jobs is and was on the board of directors and is the company’s largest individual shareholder,) they recently noted the following about the now-axed rental program:

“After carefully considering the results of the rental trial, it became clear that content ownership is a more attractive long-term value proposition both for iTunes customers and for our business. To further enhance the value of ownership, we are working with Apple to make content available within their new cloud-based service.” – Fox

Meanwhile Apple has been watching the numbers, racking them all up on their abacuses, and have found that yes, indeed, users do not like to rent television shows. The following message comes from Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr speaking with AllThingsD:

“iTunes customers have shown they overwhelmingly prefer buying TV shows. iTunes in the Cloud lets customers download and watch their past TV purchases from their iOS devices, Apple TV, Mac or PC allowing them to enjoy their programming whenever and however they choose.” – Tom Neumayr

What do you think? Will you miss your ability to pay an amount of cash to have a TV show for a set amount of time? Or are you more keen on paying JUST a bit more to keep that TV show forever?

[via AllThingsD]

The reason behind the delay, it’s suggested, is the so-called HBO window, industry shorthand for the electronic distribution period in which HBO has exclusive rights to digital content from 20th Century Focx, Warner Bros. and Universal. During that period, while DVD sales are permitted, any electronic streaming distribution is not.

HBO is reportedly not averse to cloud streaming delivery, at least where customers have already purchased copies of content and are re-accessing them as iTunes Replay supposedly allows, but the complexity of the licensing agreements – and the fast-moving pace of digital entertainment – means negotiations have been difficult. The company is supposedly cautious that pay-per-view streaming could evolve into subscription-based services, eating into its own profits.

As the original rumors had it, iTunes Replay would allow customers to re-access content they had purchased through the digital download store as far back as the beginning of 2009. However the new sources claim that persistent rumors of a Netflix-style subscription package – despite HBO’s fears – are not true.

The promotion is an extension of the existing “Orange Wednesdays” scheme, where subscribers to the network can get 2-for-1 movie tickets one day each week. Film To Go is available to pre-pay and contract mobile customers, those with business accounts and mobile broadband users, as well as those with Orange Broadband in the UK.

This week’s film is “My Blueberry Nights” while next week’s will be “The Wrestler”; users can apply for a voucher code at any time during the preceding week, but only actually use it on the Thursday. While the scheme is open to mobile broadband subscribers, Orange is pretty keen that they use WiFi not 3G to actually download the iTunes movies themselves.

Twitter’s approach to monetization has long been a lingering question around the short-message social network, and it’s not clear if the site gains referral payments for each purchase made via a tweeted link. So far there’s no similar functionality in the official mobile clients, though we’re guessing that could well be on the cards.

The service announced at the top of this month that it had secured a new round of funding and was seeing 200m tweets sent each day. That money will be used for “international expansion,” though the exact nature of that expansion is yet to be revealed.

[via The Digital Reader]