Apple today announced iTunes 7, the most significant enhancement to the world’s most popular music jukebox and online music and video store since it debuted in 2001. iTunes 7 delivers stunning new features such as the new album and Cover Flow views of music, TV shows and movies, enabling users to quickly find titles in their library as well as casually browse through and re-discover titles they already own. In addition, the iTunes Store is now offering over 75 movies from Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar, Touchstone Pictures and Miramax Films, that customers can purchase and download to watch on their computers and iPods, and soon on their flat screen televisions with Apple’s upcoming iTV player. Movies will become available on the iTunes Store the same day they are released on DVD, with new releases priced at $12.99 when pre-ordered and during their first week of availability, and $14.99 thereafter, and library titles available for just $9.99 every day.
MacDailyNews Note: iTV is the project’s internal code name and will not be the final product name.
“Here we go again! First music, then TV shows, and now movies,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, in the press release. “In less than one year we’ve grown from offering just five TV shows to offering over 220 TV shows, and we hope to do the same with movies. iTunes is selling over one million videos a week, and we hope to match this with movies in less than a year.”
“ABC and Disney Channel were the first networks to offer television programming on iTunes, and we’re once again breaking new ground as The Walt Disney Studios becomes the first to debut feature films on the iTunes platform,” said Robert Iger, president and CEO, The Walt Disney Company, in the press release. “Disney is committed to providing innovative ways for audiences to enjoy their favorite entertainment content, and our association with Apple is yet another example of how we continue to reach consumers on their terms, regardless the time, location or device.”
“Steve Jobs and Apple have consistently demonstrated that they have their finger on the pulse of today’s audience with regard to legal downloads of music and television shows, and our presence on iTunes will now allow us to deliver Disney’s films in this popular and convenient format,” said Dick Cook, chairman of The Walt Disney Studios, in the press release. “Not only are we proud to be expanding our association with Apple, but we feel that this new venture meets a growing demand for movie viewing that will ultimately expand the market for our films.”
The iTunes Store has quickly become the world’s most popular video download store, selling over one million videos per week. The iTunes Store began selling TV shows with five shows from ABC/Disney less than a year ago, in October 2005, and rapidly expanded its library to over 220 television shows from over 40 networks today. The iTunes Store also features the world’s largest catalog of online music with over 3.5 million songs and has sold a stunning 1.5 billion songs, making it the world’s most popular digital music store.
The iTunes Store now features great new releases and library titles from Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar, Touchstone Pictures and Miramax Films, such as “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” “Shakespeare in Love,” “The Princess Diaries,” “The Incredibles,” “National Treasure,” “Toy Story,” “The Rock” and “The Rookie.” Customers can purchase and download movies from iTunes the same day they become available on DVD, or pre-order upcoming movies which are automatically downloaded when they become available. Customers get the same great one-click download experience for movies that they enjoy with music and TV shows.
With iTunes 7, all videos purchased from the iTunes Store are downloaded in near-DVD quality at a resolution of 640×480 (up to 480, depending on the aspect ratio), which is four times higher than before. Downloaded videos can be played on computers and iPods. iTunes 7 also includes new features to better organize and enjoy digital music and video, including expanded parental controls, an iTunes video playback window with on-screen controls, and the new Cover Flow view that lets you visually browse your entire video collection by cover artwork.
The iTunes Store now also offers downloads of popular video games for fifth generation iPods, including “Tetris,” “Mahjong” and “Mini Golf” from Electronic Arts Inc.; “Pac-Man” from Namco Networks America Inc.; “Cubis 2” from FreshGames, LLC; “Bejeweled” and “Zuma” from PopCap Games, Inc.; “Texas Hold’em” and “Vortex” developed by Apple, all available beginning today for $4.99 each.
iTunes 7 for Mac and Windows includes the iTunes Store and is available as a free download immediately from http://www.itunes.com . Purchase and download of content from the iTunes Store for Mac or Windows requires a valid credit card with a billing address in the country of purchase. Television shows and feature films are available in the US only, and video availability varies by country. Games are available for download in the 21 countries in which iTunes operates and play on the fifth generation iPod. New release feature films are $14.99 each and other feature-length films are $9.99 each, television shows are $1.99 per episode, music videos and short films are $1.99 each and games are $4.99 each.
More info and download link for iTunes 7 here.
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NFL and Apple team up to offer 2006 NFL game highlights via iTunes Store – September 12, 2006
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DLMeyer–
Did you actually watch it? You are clueless. It nailed everyone.
Did the visualizer button disappear?
Is iTunes not playing music files or is it just me?
Mp2, M4a, whatever…nothing
latest QT and iTunes, good files (play in QT and Finder), volumes up…
Click play and it sits there. Doesn’t play.
Trashed Prefs. Nothing.
Reinstalled iTunes 7….nothing.
iBook G3 700MHz – supported.
MDN MW = “works” LOL No it doesn’t…
I meant mp3 of course….
Not even the 30 second audio previews online…
Videos have their audio but not music files.
iTunes 7 is a really solid improvement. It makes everything else look dated. I do kind of miss the ability to enable and set “crossfade” playback to 0 seconds, which gave me gapless playback all of the time. I’ll have to see how this new gapless plaback system works.
I noticed the similarity between the new iTunes cover art view and CoverFlow (a very cool way to view and select your music by album) and found this on the old CoverFlow site: “We are pleased to announce that all CoverFlow technology and intellectual property was recently sold to Apple. It has been incorporated into the latest version of iTunes. Please visit http://www.apple.com/itunes“
Way to go, Apple! But I can’t figure out if there’s a way to get the cover art view fullscreen like I can (still) with CoverFlow. Anybody else find a way?
the updates took a few extra clicks to find. wonder why it’s takes so long to show up in Software Update? No keyboard shortcut to the equalizer anymore, or a button.. bummer. Apparently they figure it’s best to make it slightly hidden, so that it’s flat for the movies/tv shows audio.
A pretty solid update… but it will get some 0.0.1 updates in the very near future methinks.
The biggest glitch (IMO) is in scanning with the scrubber bar… I can’t stop in a spot for a moment and hear what the music is like in that spot as I could in all other versions. Now it’s just loud ‘skippy’ noise until I LET GO of the scrubber.
Also… why can’t I select a SINGLE album to have artwork filled in? iTunes apparently thinks it has to go through my ENTIRE library looking for every artwork-less album, many of which I KNOW it won’t find matches for in the iTS. Arggghh.
I do think the gapless playback is the best enhancement in the package (for me at least)…. but I heard for years that it COULDN’T be done with MP3, M4A, etc.
I also noticed that iTunes updated my whole library to provide the gapless playback.
Can any developer or something give any ideas about how they did it?
to Darkness
Some of the songs which actually are in the Music Store do not get cover art either. Some songs do, others don’t. It seems to be totally random. Does anybody know already what determines whether a song gets cover art or not?
(And oh yes, for classical music it’s a total disaster, indeed.)
Anyone else notice that iTunes and Quicktime are both at version 7? Coincidence? I don’t think so. Apple flew through iTunes 5 in about 4 weeks or so and now has went from 6.0.5 to 7. Quicktime technology has been embedded in iTunes for quite a while now. I see these 2 apps growing closer together with time.
I’m going to wait to see what Microsoft will introduce with their new MediaPlayer in Vista. I bet it is better than iTunes. Hey, Carl, pass me the crack pipe!
Never mind that last complaint…… one CAN get just a single album’s artwork. (Highlight the album’s tracks, and CTRL-click for the option)
Just gimme a little more time with it…..
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Although I’m getting about a 20% success rate with album artwork fetching for albums I KNOW the iTS has.
Meh.
If I have albums without artwork, I usually look up the album on CDNow or Amazon; if they have it I just do an image copy then manually put it in. Or if no one has it, I’ll use a generic image (treble clef for classical, breakdancers for rap/hip-hop, etc.) for the “album cover”. If I can find a photo of the group, I’ll use that, like for my Doors songs I ripped from my Best of the Doors CD.
This new feature at least saves me a little bit of Web work…
me: “This wasn’t a “Showtime” or a “big event”. This was a modest product upgrade worthy of just happening.”
You completely lost the idia, probably. The point is that the world’s biggest base of buyers can now get a unified way to buy and play legally films on new iPods (and on computers, as well as on TVs in few months) — for the first time in history. You can now go to any trip and watch whatever you want, including full feature films.
It is totally new thing, it is milestone in the history of entertainment. Amazon’s attempt to “outrun” Apple with that is formal; in essence you can ascribe the innovation to Amazon just because they announced it few days earlier. And, most importantly, Amazon does not offer consumer experience of iPod+iTunes quality level.
What’s up with the funky new interface? Buttons/scrollbar look different. Less aqua-y. 🙁
But the cover browsing looks sweet. Yay!
Voyager,
You can right click on a song and choose “Get Album Artwork” for single songs/albums.
Oops, didn’t read the next post. You already discovered that.
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DenisRS:
I don’t miss anything. I’ve already bought some movies today. I work on my Apple MacBook Pro 18 out of 24 hours a day. Everyday! 7 dyas a week! But Apple NEEDS to stop this insatiable “big event” event.
The rumor sites have just enough inside Apple moles as they need to make Apple look foolish on these “big events”.
Apple ad the unified experience already. The movies and iPod announcement are not the “big events” one expects from Apple. It is an upgrade to the only “perfect” digital download experience. And the over hype the last two “big events” as made them “small events”. Anf Wall Street notices that more than anything. Apple up something like .13 cents. The iMac upgrades bring more revenue to Apple than what was announced today. Today was not a “big events”. Based on the expectations Apple itself has created for everyone.
Nobody’s mentioned the disappearance of the big round friendly button that used to be at the top right corner of iTunes! Where the hell is has it gone? How do I update my podcasts now? Waahh!
Re: Gazzah
It seems have to changed into a rectangular button, and moved to the lower right corner, and has a new name “refresh”. No worries.
Here’s the About link on Apples site for those who like to save them:
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/itunes70.html
Davida
Thanks for your responses to my cry for help in both threads. It was tough making my commute this morning without my daily podcasts to break the tedium. Looking forward to trying the new ‘refresh’ but I’m going to miss that big old friendly ‘eye’ button.
RE: For people having problems finding some features –
Apple should release a “users guide” PDF document with this release for those who need it. Especially if they change UI stuff. I know they have with QT. Maybe it’s in the works. But who am I? – I don’t even use iTunes! (although I updated because it was there)
I’m a cave man (unfrozen cave man lawyer?) that still listens to plastic discs they used to call CDs. Someday, when you’re old enough, I’ll tell ya all about ’em
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