Just a couple of days ago I read a music industry news letter explaining some numbers associated with the two main US music streaming services, Rdio and Spotify. The article highlighted the difficulty of getting people to move up from a free to a paid service. The service provider has to pay music royalties on all music paid, yet gets revenue from less than 10% of users who splash their cash. It's a tough business and the client churn rate is massive.
Enter Google with their music streaming service, All Access. Watching the announcement yesterday I was struck by how good the interface is (I'm not a fan of the new Spotify nor iTunes default). It's a paid service, no free option beyond a one month trial. So?
First, I believe people like try before you buy, it makes them feel comfortable. Is 30 days enough? Probably it is, given the number of your friends who will tell you how good streaming music is. If you want a longer term trial - opt for Spotify, if you like the style of the system you can then opt for the better provider. Trade up, makes sense.
Second, if I were Spotify I'd stay in bed today, for them this could be the beginning of the end.
If I were Apple I'd have been up extra early, now you have in Google and Amazon two guys who want to eat iTunes Music Store. Where's your streaming option?
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Thursday, May 09, 2013
International Family Sync
So here's the question - how do you make the following work?
Potential client travels extensively, homes in London and overseas, where members of his family (eight people in total) live, and of course enjoy music. He would like his music collection to be available to everyone, everywhere. They have a mix of iPods and iPhones.
Well my first thought was a cloud service such as Dropbox. That appears on your desktop pretty much as if it were a local drive, so computers in each location could be set up to reference their local version of a central Dropbox folder holding the family music. Two problems came to mind, one being the cost. Not the cost of using a CD ripping service but of buying close on 100 Gb of Dropbox space; but then if you can afford to live internationally I don't suppose the cost of a Dropbox account is a show stopper.
Second, and more significantly, is the fuss of adding more music to the library. A CD would need to be ripped then added to the Dropbox folder, then each local PC would have to reload their PC so that iTunes picks up the latest tracks. Sure you could simply "share" the central library but then the remote iPods won't be able to sync at all.
Having given this some thought the only viable solution I can see is to set up an iTunes Match account. It's around £25 pa, affordable, and you can connect up to 10 devices. Other Macs and PCs can be part of this network and changes made centrally are replicated across the network. Music can be streamed to the iPhones or loaded like an iPod in a sync process. This seems to me to be the most viable solution.
Potential client travels extensively, homes in London and overseas, where members of his family (eight people in total) live, and of course enjoy music. He would like his music collection to be available to everyone, everywhere. They have a mix of iPods and iPhones.
Well my first thought was a cloud service such as Dropbox. That appears on your desktop pretty much as if it were a local drive, so computers in each location could be set up to reference their local version of a central Dropbox folder holding the family music. Two problems came to mind, one being the cost. Not the cost of using a CD ripping service but of buying close on 100 Gb of Dropbox space; but then if you can afford to live internationally I don't suppose the cost of a Dropbox account is a show stopper.
Second, and more significantly, is the fuss of adding more music to the library. A CD would need to be ripped then added to the Dropbox folder, then each local PC would have to reload their PC so that iTunes picks up the latest tracks. Sure you could simply "share" the central library but then the remote iPods won't be able to sync at all.
Having given this some thought the only viable solution I can see is to set up an iTunes Match account. It's around £25 pa, affordable, and you can connect up to 10 devices. Other Macs and PCs can be part of this network and changes made centrally are replicated across the network. Music can be streamed to the iPhones or loaded like an iPod in a sync process. This seems to me to be the most viable solution.
Thursday, May 02, 2013
Add Album Art to AIFF Files
Are you one of those searching the internet for a method or maybe software that will embed album art into AIFF music files? If so I can suggest a workaround (in a paragraph or two).
First, why is it an issue? If you run iTunes you can search / add album art, free, if you have an iTunes store account. Dig around the iTunes menu and you'll find a way via Library to find and download album art. Then you'll see it neatly in your iTunes windows. But, suppose you don't use iTunes or you need to transfer tracks to another system. iTunes doesn't embed art into music files so you'll lose all those nice images. Ideally you'd like the little piccies stored safely along with the notes and other data.
Second, I am not ware of any software that will embed album art into AIFF files. We use three of the leading products in this field and none offers this function.
OK, patience repaid, here's the bodge method. If you rip your music CDs as Apple Lossless you'll find loads of programs that will add album art neatly into the right field. Then, use iTunes to convert from Lossless to AIFF, that will bring the cover images along with the music. Delete "source" Apple Lossless and you're done.
If you want to validate Lossless - AIFF against straight AIFF just use both methods and compare file sizes for each track from a couple of albums - will be the same. Simples.
First, why is it an issue? If you run iTunes you can search / add album art, free, if you have an iTunes store account. Dig around the iTunes menu and you'll find a way via Library to find and download album art. Then you'll see it neatly in your iTunes windows. But, suppose you don't use iTunes or you need to transfer tracks to another system. iTunes doesn't embed art into music files so you'll lose all those nice images. Ideally you'd like the little piccies stored safely along with the notes and other data.
Second, I am not ware of any software that will embed album art into AIFF files. We use three of the leading products in this field and none offers this function.
OK, patience repaid, here's the bodge method. If you rip your music CDs as Apple Lossless you'll find loads of programs that will add album art neatly into the right field. Then, use iTunes to convert from Lossless to AIFF, that will bring the cover images along with the music. Delete "source" Apple Lossless and you're done.
If you want to validate Lossless - AIFF against straight AIFF just use both methods and compare file sizes for each track from a couple of albums - will be the same. Simples.
Wednesday, May 01, 2013
Personalised iPhone Cases
While the number one use for scanned photos seems to be making photo albums we're always looking for innovative ways of using cherished digital images.
How about an iPhone case personalised with one (or more) of your own photos? Yes, photobox does them and not just for Apple's phones, but if you Google "personalised iPhone cover" you'll find a range of suppliers. If you only have printed photos and need digital, we can recommend a good photo scanning service.
How about an iPhone case personalised with one (or more) of your own photos? Yes, photobox does them and not just for Apple's phones, but if you Google "personalised iPhone cover" you'll find a range of suppliers. If you only have printed photos and need digital, we can recommend a good photo scanning service.
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