Songbird, the open-source, Mozilla-based music player, has a bunch of new features in version 1.2 that make it worth taking a look at. The most important addition is 2-way iTunes syncing, so you can import and export songs and playlists back and forth between Songbird and iTunes. If you thought the whole point of Songbird was to keep you from having to use iTunes, this feature won't make you happy, but if you have an iPod or iPhone that you want to put music on, this is the closest Songbird gets to letting you do that.

The other new features include an integrated Last.fm radio add-on. Songbird already supported Last.fm scrobbling, but now it supports Last.fm listening, too, so you may be able ditch your existing Last.fm client and just go with this. There's also automatic library organization, which is something you might be familiar with in iTunes. It can move all your music files to one location and sort them based on artist and album metadata. Last, but not least if you're an audiophile, is a 10-band equalizer.

Meta-iPod is a Windows app that can clean up and repair the metadata on your iTunes songs - stuff like star ratings and album artwork - with a whole bunch of useful automated features. It can find and delete duplicates and locate tracks on your computer that aren't in your iTunes library. It can also fix files that have been moved from their original location and thus unlinked from iTunes (the ones iTunes marks with a (!)).

Additionally, meta-iPod can transfer music from an iPod to iTunes, and it can transfer star ratings and play counts from an iPod too. This is really useful if you're rebuilding your music library from scratch for some reason. You might think your iTunes metadata is gone, but it's right there on your iPod, waiting to be collected with meta-iPod. Unfortunately, for Mac users, this is one instance where Windows has an iTunes-related tool the Mac doesn't: meta-iPod is Windows-only.

If you've been looking for a way to stream music from your iTunes library on the web that "just works," you should give pulpTunes a look. With pulpTunes, it's extremely easy to set up a stream at a private URL, and even password protect it. Even better, it's available on all platforms.

The basic premise of a web server for your music is pretty cool, but pulpTunes throws in a lot of other iTunes-ish perks, including AAC support, album art, and iTunes DJ support. You can also download songs from your iTunes, or share a direct link to a song or playlist with your friends. That's a lot of features for an app that's so simple to set up.

[via AppScout]

One of the selling points of the Palm Pre is that it can sync with iTunes just like an iPhone can, minus the ability to play old DRM-protected purchases from the Apple store. The thing is, that amazing iTunes support comes from a hacky workaround where the Pre passes itself off as Apple hardware when it's connected. It won't show up in iTunes as a "Palm Pre," it'll show up as an iPod.

What can Apple do about it, though? An escalating battle to break the hack could require Apple to release firmware updates, which is always annoying for users, or could be fixed on the software side with an iTunes update. The newest release of iTunes, 8.2, reportedly doesn't break Pre's syncing support.

What will the outcome be? Do you think we'll see a lawsuit, a firmware or iTunes-side fix from Apple, or something completely different?

The visualizer that is built in to the latest versions of iTunes used to be called Magnetosphere before Apple bought it and rebranded it simply "iTunes Visualizer". Strangely, the number of visualizers that iTunes ships with now is very small, probably in accordance with Apple's declaration that their new visualizer is the last visualizer you will ever need. While I like looking at Magnetosphere, for my tastes it isn't responsive enough to the actual music that is playing.

If you're also left a little cold by the iTunes Visualizer, you might want to check out UsingMac's list of "funtastic" iTunes visualizers. In particular take a look at Fountain Music and Cubism as examples of visualizers that really respond to the music that is actually playing.

There have been plenty of "Apple stupidly rejects app X" posts over the last couple of months. The reason for rejection may vary, though usually it's blamed on inappropriate content - which makes no sense if you take a listen to some of the albums for sale through iTunes.

What makes even less sense is Cartier (yes, the fancy-pants watch, jewelry, and knick-knack people) threatening to sue Apple for trademark infringement.

Apple didn't develop the apps in question, but since they allowed the apps into the store and possibly profited from them that gives Cartier all the legal ammunition they need to release the hounds. It doesn't matter that Apple's 30% take may have netted them ten or twenty bucks in this case.

What does matter is that Apple has deep pockets. Who can afford to pay damages - Apple, or the guy who skinned his watch app with a Cartier Tank? Apple, of course.

It's a good thing Cartier was successful with their threat. Maybe now they can go after Adobe for allowing users to Photoshop images of Tank watches.

[via the Register]

Get your sad trombone button ready.

According to several recording industry sources, the recent price hikes on iTunes haven't been much of a benefit to the people that wanted them the most - the record labels. Despite their Mr. Crab's like shouts of "Where's me money?!" the increase has had the exact opposite effect.

Digital Music News reports that labels have seen a drop in both sales and profits from iTunes since the new pricing structure went into effect. The 30-cent jump could have yielded more profit even with a small drop in sales. A couple weeks in, and that hasn't happened yet - the reduction in sales has more than neutralized the increased profit margin.

So what happened to all the buyers? Chances are good that they've turned to free alternatives - streaming services like Last.Fm and Blip.Fm, or even (shudder!) more nefarious sources like torrent sites and Limewire.

What will the next step be? Reduced pricing? Possibly. One source stated "various price-points are probably going to be adjusted in an attempt to increase and optimize results."

Results? Gee, thanks. That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy about the monetary support I provide.

[via AfterDawn and Digital Music News]

Echodio is a solution for syncing iTunes libraries across multiple Macs and sending music to your TV or home theatre with Boxee. It's as simple as putting the songs you want to sync into your Echodio playlist, and letting them sync in the background with any other machines you've set up. Echodio can sync silently in the background, or show notifications, but keeping your Echodio playlist updated across all your Macs is automatic.

Echodio is also a way to store and back up your music library. It's launching with 1GB of storage, but it will eventually support plans that let you pay by the gig for as much storage as you need. It will also sync your tags and ratings across multiple computers, and a web-based player for your stored music is in the works now.

The people behind the Firefox web browser have been thinking long and hard about the way it handles browser tabs for a few months now. Most of the discussion has centered around how new tabs should behave. Should they show a blank screen? RSS updates? A list of frequently visited pages? But one developer has a novel idea: what if Firefox didn't have any tabs at all?

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Once upon a time Firefox, Internet Explorer, and all the other browsers didn't have tabs. Life has become much simpler since tabs were invented. But developer Oliver Reichenstein says browser tabs worked well back when we'd only have a few web pages open at a time. Now that it's not uncommon for users to have a dozen or more tabs, it's increasingly difficult to tell what's going on in the browser tab bar or find the tab you're looking for.

Reichenstein created a mockup of a version of Firefox that looks a lot like iTunes. Instead of tabs and bookmarks, you could tag web pages to make it easy to sort or search for pages by category. Each time you click on a link it would take you to the page as you last visited it.

Somehow I doubt we'll see Mozilla take this radical a departure from the common browser tab in time for the launch of Firefox 3.5. But perhaps a no-tab interface could be available as an option in future builds.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

It's fine for Apple to have policies about what kind of apps they will and won't approve for sale on iTunes. It's their platform, after all, so they've got every right to decide what gets put on the store's virtual shelves.

But I need some help with this one.

You've seen those pens with the sex kitten in the barrel? Tip the pen and giggle like a schoolboy as her clothes go floating away. They're harmless, and hardly what most people would classify "excessively sexual content."

So if you were to, say, turn that concept into an iPhone app it would be equally harmless, right? Apparently not.

Peekababe, we're told, was rejected on precisely those grounds. Check it out for yourself on YouTube. Now convince me that the images presented are in any way more lewd than, say, the lyrics of 2 Live Crew. Seriously.

If I can buy Me So Horny or any of their other tracks with less publishable titles in the iTunes store, how can Apple justify banning an app for images that you can find in any Sears catalog or plastered in the front window of a Victoria's Secret?

It's time for some consistency, Apple. If you allow audio tracks laden with lyrics that compete with scenes from a Vivid Video release in the iTunes store, it doesn't make sense to block an app that amounts to a slightly rude bachelor party favor.

Thanks for the tip, Tom!

Getting songs from your computer to your iPod is a pretty simple affair. After all, that's what iTunes is for. When you want to go the other way, though, and get the songs back from your iPod to your hard drive, Pod to Mac is one option. And, with features like search and video preview, and compatibility with iPod Touches and iPhones, it looks like a pretty good one.

Pod to Mac is still in the early stages of its development, but it supports stuff like transferring playlists, previewing tracks and videos, and showing track ratings from within the app. It's not just for music, either: you can also use it to transfer images from your iPod. I know it's called Pod to Mac, but Windows users shouldn't despair: there's also a Pod to PC from the same developer.

Starting April 7, Apple's long-standing policy of selling every song in the iTunes Store for 99 cents is reportedly going to be shaken up. Hot tracks will go up to $1.29, and some less-than-hot selections will drop to 69 cents.

The LA Times is reporting that most songs will probably stay at the current 99 cent price, and that the lower price could be used to promote new artists. Meanwhile, some classic artists with consistent high sales might end up at the higher $1.29 price.

If you're a fan of obscure bands, this could work for you by lowering prices at the end of the long tail, saving you money on your hidden gems. On the other hand, popular songs wouldn't be popular if they didn't have a lot of fans -- fans who could get angry at having the price jacked up suddenly after years of paying one price for a track, regardless of popularity.

Good news for everyone, though: tracks at all price points are reportedly going to be DRM free and playable on any mp3-playing gadget.

Apple announced earlier this month that iTunes music sales were dropping the DRM, and now almost entirely in AAC format. It was a significant announcement and made the DRM-loathing camp (myself included very happy). One of the few bones we had left to pick was that to upgrade existing DRMed purchases to the new higher-bitrate DRM-free files you basically were held to ransom: upgrade your entire library ("show us the money") or go away. In my case, that would mean forking out another $100 which, given a big Christmas (and international travels) pushed it to the back of my mind.

Thankfully, Apple has now made it possible to upgrade songs à la carte to iTunes Plus. You pay the same fees (30¢ a song, 20% of an album's price etc) and simply pick and choose which iTunes purchases you want to upgrade. You'll need (at least for now) to be using the 1-Click iTunes purchasing as the Shopping Cart isn't working for upgrades, however if you've been yearning for DRM-free upgrades but can't stomach the large library-wide upgrade fee your prayers have been answered.

[via TUAW]

Apple's iTunes store may be a great place to find music, movies, or iPhone apps. But there's one little catch: You can only browse the iTunes store if you have installed the iTunes application on your Windows or Mac computer. If you're using Linux, or just don't feel like installing the app until you're sure there's something you want to download, you're out of luck.

Or rather, you were out of luck. But not anymore. Because a third paty developer has put together a web-based tool that lets you browse iTunes store listings without installing iTunes. The App Store is hosted on Google App Engine, and lets you browse by category and view product descriptions and prices.

There's no integrated search function. And you can't actually download files from the utility. But if you find what you're looking for you can always click the "view in iTunes" button which will prompt you to install iTunes so you can grab your files.

[via Digital Inspiration]

Just over a month after the first release candidate made its ways to the masses, Songbird 1.0 is available for download. Songbird is an open source music player built on Mozilla code.

The cross-platform music player comes in Mac, Windows, and Linux versions, and can handle playback of most music formats. Like most Mozilla-based software, Songbird supports plugins, including a QuickTime Playback plugin that adds the ability to play music purchased from the iTunes store. There's also a plugin that allows you to sync your music with portable media players including an iPod.

Songbird is much more than a music player. It's also an online music browser. You can visit web sites using the built in browser and automatically stream or download MP3 music from those pages. And thanks to the Last.fm integration, you can get additional information about songs and artists you're playing, or stream related songs from Last.fm.