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More Apple News

iTunes Plus Price Drop

I mentioned Amazonmp3 a while back as welcome incentive for Apple to drop the price of its “iTunes Plus” DRM-free tracks. To my satisfaction, Apple just announced that iTunes Plus songs will henceforth go for $0.99 (from $1.25).

This means that a significant portion of the iTunes Music Store’s collection is now available without DRM, for the same price as the DRM-laden tracks. I’m not sure whether iTunes Plus will be an option or the default from this point forward, but be sure to check — you won’t want to turn down the higher audio quality, universal compatibility, and unlimited copying.

Though only certain labels have consented to allow Apple to sell their bands’ music as iTunes Plus tracks without DRM, the good news is that those labels kick ass: Sub Pop, Nettwerk, and The Orchard (to name a few) cover some of the best indie bands out there.

(Via Macworld)

iPhone and iPod Touch SDKs Going Public in February

Much more surprising than the iTunes Plus announcement is a post from Steve Jobs on the Apple site this morning:

Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February.

Wow. For those not versed in techspeak, this basically means that Apple is going to give software developers the proprietary code and knowhow they need to develop applications that will run natively on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Let me try to explain why this is exciting.

When Apple originally announced the iPhone, it insisted that the iPhone’s inner workings would remain absolutely secret and it would be closed to third-party applications. Instead, Apple proposed that developers create web-based applications for use in the iPhone’s capable Mobile Safari browser.

Developers who were stoked to have the opportunity to work with such innovative hardware on a platform they were familiar with (the iPhone does run on a stripped-down version of OS X) were miffed, but nevertheless a healthy assortment of useful web apps were born.

Predictably, however, iPhone users and developers were far more interested in hacking their devices to run applications natively — and hack they did. “Jailbroken” iPhones can run NES emulators, interfaces to our favorite web services, and a myriad of other awesome applications.

Apple didn’t really have much to say about the fact that there was an entire underground community of developers working on opening the iPhone and writing native applications for it — until today. Jobs’ announcement is what everyone was waiting to hear, and it’s definitely good news for Apple’s users and developers alike.

I’ve been strongly considering forking over for an iPod Touch, and this news just tempts me further. Open development means now there will be all sorts of terribly useful applications floating around that can really take advantage of the Touch’s nice screen and WiFi capabilities. I’m excited by the ability to check my email, read RSS, play all sorts of movie files, and stream music from my iPod to my laptop’s speakers wirelessly — all things that I’m absolutely positive the SDK release will bring to the Touch.

I am not really sure what Apple’s motivation was for keeping developers in the dark for so long, but there’s no doubt they’ve made the right decision by opening their mobile device platform to the masses.

(Via TUAW)