Why We're Not Worried About Apple Music

It’s a week or so since Apple announced their new streaming music service called, err, Music. As expected it’s an all-you-can-eat music service priced at $9.99 per user in the USA. No UK price has yet been announced but if previous history is any guide Apple will just to pounds for dollars, £9.99 over here.

As a CD ripping service we’ll be blown out of the water, right? Have we been Uber-ed by Apple?

I don’t think so, and here’s why.

First, history is on our side. Over the last twelve years all sorts of technology has assailed us, each one (I have been told) is defined to consign CD ripping to the dustbin of history. Remember Limewire, the MP3 sharing system? Pirate Bay? AllofMP3? Each service supposedly offered ways of accessing your music in digital format.

Then in Europe we were treated to Spotify. Today that’s the music streaming service most people think of, and many people use it. Even among my clients less than 50% actually pay for it, so are interrupted by adverts, which puts them off. Rumours persist that Spotify will pull its free layer - it still pays royalties even if the listener isn’t a paying subscriber, and if you’ve been a user for 12, 24 or 36 months and haven’t opted to pay up, you’re not likely to - ever.

Apple may have learnt from all those who went before, their offer will be better, but not “killer”.

Second, it’s a cloud based streaming service. Is that a problem I hear you ask. Well not for Dropbox, Evernote, Microsoft, Amazon or other players but be honest - when it comes to the cloud Apple is dreadful. I’ve been an Apple user for over 25 years. I signed up for their internet service (after months of technical failures they “sold” it to AOL). I’ve been with .mac, with iCloud and iDrive. All have significant issues both at the “top” level and at the device level. iPhone to iPad to Mac synch services across Apple’s platform is horrible compared to Dropbox for example.

Suddenly, Apple is actually going to deliver a high capacity, high data content music streamer when it can’t synch my contacts?

A second feature under second, I don’t think users will love music streaming. Your music will comprise some pretty big files, sent from Cupertino across to your ISP then down a physical line (or your mobile phone line) to your PC or your phone handset. Yes, you get to pay for that with your data allowance. Prepare for eye watering bills. Wait for the complaints about breaks in service, streaming that cuts in and out, and ISPs bleating that they never signed up to be radio stations.

Third, artists and labels hate it. Already the music moguls and the small labels are laying into Apple. The payment to them is minuscule, Apple are offering a three month free trial during which no payment will be made for streamed music. Independent music industry figures are lining up to tell artists not to sign up for reasons that cover commercial and contract issues.

This leads to one of the biggest reasons why streaming falls down. The minute someone says “Have you heard that album?” and you find that artist / label isn’t on Apple Music so relevance of the system fails. Believe me, there’s a lot of music, both old and new, that won’t be on the Apple platform. If you need to sign up with Spotify and Apple and A N Other then the cost rockets and the bother of finding a track you want increases exponentially. Nobody wants that.

Fourth, as I’m very fond of saying, metadata matters. That’s essentially the key to cataloguing music and doing so in a way that enables users to find what they’re looking for. Let me assure you CDDB (the database service that Apple use for iTunes) is riddled with inconsistencies. This is much more of an issue on the classical side but it leads into the issue that people lose faith in a music service if they can’t find what they want to listen to. With CDDB as untidy as it is that is a problem.
Still with me? Good, here’s number five - social. Apple’s launch presentation majored on the social element of their system, a feature which will allow performers to be in touch with their fans. My little heart sinks. How many issues will this create. I’ll toss in some of my favourites - Karajan, DuPre, not to mention Beethoven and Mozart. All passed away.

Does Apple really think top name artists, even those still with a pulse, are going to take time out from their hedonistic lifestyles to post genuine content to their fans via Music? Do you even think their record making machines will let them? No, they will be “helped” by the social media gurus hired by the labels, treating fans to the typical synthetic slush they churn out now for Facebook and Twitter.

Remember that nice gesture by U2 a few months ago? They made their new album freely available via iTunes, and created a tsunami of complaints as everyone found the new tracks forced into their iPods, iPhones and computers. Stand by for more of the same.

Given my tirade of negativity is it all bad news for Apple Music? No, of course not. The strongest feature of any streaming service is the opportunity it gives you to discover, enjoy (and then probably forget) new music and new artists. Speaking as someone who predates The Beatles and The Stones, history shows there are few gems amid the dross. Commercial experience shows that forcing fans (and I speak from bitter experience) to buy a whole album when it contains only one or two decent tracks is counter productive. Artists who produce great albums are outnumbered by those who are either one hit wonders or whose albums hold one or two specks of gold. A streaming service can highlight the newcomers, let you enjoy their best music, then move on when you’re bored.

Over the world millions of people will use and enjoy Apple Music. But rest assured we’ll continue to be ripping CDs for a good few years to come.

Automatically Add to iTunes?

How do you add music to your iTunes library? Well, pretty easily, we do it most days and when we complete a project we brief clients on how they can do this themselves. These days most of our digital music goes back on a small USB hard drive but the process is the same if you’re loading from a data CD or data DVD.

“Add folder to library”. It was in iTunes at the outset and in the first how-to notes we supplied with the first set of CDs we ripped some ten years ago. Reliable, proven and I don’t think we’ve edited our instruction sheet nor had anyone say it was difficult to follow.

A couple of years ago iTunes introduced a new folder which it creates along with your main iTunes music library file. It’s called Automatically Add to iTunes and there’s no escaping it. So, why? And what use is it for you? Why would you need a second way of adding music when the first works so well?

Let’s tackle the how first. Anything you put into this folder will be checked and then added to your iTunes library the next time iTunes is opened. As its a data file you can use normal tools such as drag and drop to get files across. Then just open iTunes, the rest is done for you.

More complex is the why?

In many ways its easier. You just drag and drop. If you have files from multiple sources you can scoop each group up, copy them over and away you go. If you’re restricted by the number of USB connections it is straightforward to copy several batches of files rather than plug in each unit and run through the Add folder loop.

It’s tolerant to breaks. I found this myself a couple of weeks ago when a lightning strike nearby caused our power to trip out. Not only did I need to go back to the beginning with Add folder but you’re never quite sure if the process completed properly.

You can start and stop. Not sure the files came across? Just drop the lot again and let the operating system sort out if there are any duplicates.

You don’t need to worry about file types. Just stick everything into Auto add and let iTunes sort out not just what goes where but also what should and shouldn’t be in iTunes. You can see any orphan files, they get left in the Auto add folder after you open iTunes. If you inadvertently include a Word document iTunes will leave it be.

You know the files have reached their destination. With add folder I’ve sometimes had a nagging doubt that it worked OK. Actually it had but Auto add offers a handy, comforting, open view of what has happened. I like the now you see it, now you don’t method.

Of course you don’t need to constrict yourself to music files, this method will handle movies and podcasts too. Just drop them into the magic folder and let the computer sort out the details.

I’m very tempted to revisit our advice to clients on how to load music. In fact i bounced this off a couple of friends over the weekend and got an unexpected response. Scepticism. They thought this was so simple, so foolproof, that it was almost too good to be true. Well then, go on and give it a try next time you need to add anything to iTunes,

iTunes Phishing Scam

I've just checked my emails and seen that Google has placed in my Spam folder a message that appears to be an invoice from iTunes for the cost of some downloads - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire - and in a nice touch, in brackets, unabridged. Total value of my supposed purchase - $289.90. Must say I liked that little touch, the supermarket psychologist's "just under" price point.

Thankfully the ever watchful Google reports other users believe this is a phishing fraud and indeed the body of the text suggests if I query the transaction, or believe my "account" has been hijacked I may indeed be asked for financial data.

Two giveaways for me. First, I can't imagine Apple or iTunes Media Store ever allowing anything out of its grasp without pre-payment. Second, the sender's email address is a tubarao.unimedsc.com.br address.

If you get anything like this, don't respond, if you can flag it to your email host that it's definitely spam / phishing. 

Equalizer

Last Monday I took a break from CD ripping to catch up on an outstanding chore, sorting out some scanned 35mm slides. I knew at the outset it would take all day so I decided to use iTunes as the source of entertainment to stave off the mind-numbing boredom of the task.

I spent the morning listening to various podcasts and streamed internet radio stations. Although it was fun, for a while, to listen to early morning local stations in America just after lunch I turned to what the iPod / iTunes ecosystem was designed for - music. We've just finished a library of 750+ CDs for a client so I dipped into that from the NAS drive we're running just now. I was using my Mac with the Soundsticks attached, a set up I love almost as much for how it sounds as for its looks.

Let the music play. But my attention was fading, my eyes were tired and the thought of cropping a couple of hundred more scans was less and less appealing. I wandered over to the iTunes equalizer settings. The control panel appears under the Window command in the top menu level. It's worth pointing out what this doesn't do, which is to alter any of your digital music files, nothing is changed.

The equalizer intervenes between your ripped music and your speakers and it massages the sound you hear. It allows you to fine tune how your music is played so you get sound playback that's better than the bog-standard settings. At the top you'll see some pre-programmed options designed to suit jazz, rock, classical music and so on, plus others to adapt to your system such as small speakers which I think works well on a laptop. Below that there are sliders which can boost or fade sections of the sound spectrum held within your digital files. You can also create your own pre-sets if you find a particular setting that works well for your music, your hi-fi / speakers and of course your ears.

So I played and fiddled. I tried the classical setting against Exile on Main Street, then to be impish I planted Hip-Hop on Haydn. I found myself fiendishly amused, well against image editing anyway, and the time slipped by. It was a couple of hours well spent.

Just one thought. I wonder if its possible to fix an equalizer setting to an individual track or maybe a genre. It's a powerful tool, certainly one I've neglected in the past.

Sonos - iTunes - Out of Sorts

This afternoon I was at a client's premises looking into some problems with their network and how that was handling music streaming. The client asked me to look at an issue that was puzzling him and it concerned music on his Sonos controller, compared to his iTunes library.

He showed me his Sonos hand held controller and accessed his Bach music. Right at the top of the list were two tracks that were obviously out of order. When we crossed to the Mac with iTunes, did the same search and looked at the result. A very different result. It was a trip down memory lane for me, back to my early days in IT when as a programmer you had to keep in mind a thing called "sort order".

I've deliberately put "sort order" in quotes, but if you saw that phrase among others, sorted alphabetically, where would you expect it to be slotted? In the good old days It manufacturers took different views and looking at the Sonos display it was obvious that the Sonos view is that single quotes and double quotes should come at the top of the list, like this -

'A
"A
A
B
C and so on.

Looking in iTunes it's clear Apple have set up iTunes to ignore any distractions such as the single or double quotes. So the track title will appear in the place it would be in if it didn't have those marks. Clever, would have saved me hours and hours all those years ago.

So if you have an iTunes / Sonos environment and you're experiencing some sort oddities take a look at your track names and album titles. My client's library is huge (2,700 albums) and I found four albums and 12 tracks that started with ' or ". It only took a few minutes to edit out those unnecessary characters and now iTunes and Sonos sort in harmony. Lovely.

iTunes - The Hidden Gem?

We've had some huge CD ripping projects since Christmas, today we complete an 1800 CD music library. The last few tracks are making their way across to the NAS drive now. It's a huge library covering what seems to be everything in the popular and classical catalogue. So, how does the owner of such a large music library get to enjoy the full benefits of their music? Time for the hidden gem in the iTunes system.

The Genius playlist facility. Here (in overview) is how it works. Highlight a track you like, hit the Genius icon, and the intelligence of Apple's computers will create a playlist for you based on that track. Once done you can re-order the list, delete items, and of course save the list. Saving allows you to create another list and access the previous list from the menu. As with any intelligence Apple's genius learns, and you can prompt the system to update its analysis of your music when you add new tracks to your library.

If you log into the iTunes Music Store after the Genius function is enabled you'll notice their brain has assembled some new tracks you might like. Cynics will say this is just a merciless sales tool, others will find it a clever way to find new music.

But there's more .... Genius Mixes. After your library has been scanned the Genius brain will create a set of mixes for you, just hit the icon for a selection of your music in the theme shown on the mix label. All done for you, as if by magic.

Any down side? Although you don't have to pay to use Genius you do need and iTunes Music Store account which requires an Apple ID. That's a pretty simple process. When you switch on Genius you'll be taken through the Apple small print and you need to understand Apple will have some summary data about your music library. Apple doesn't use the data for anything other than this process and it doesn't collect any more personal data than this, but you do need to be aware of this. Also, the process takes time and data is exchanged over the internet so you'll need a link and maybe some patience.

Aside from that this strikes me as a great way to tackle big music libraries and uncover some great tracks nestling in the hidden recesses of your music vault. Give it a try.

What Does the Little Cloud Symbol Mean?

Always happy to answer questions and we get many phone calls to resolve issues with CD ripping or other aspects of digital music. Last week I ran through a Q&A with a client day by day, over email. He's away on business so the stuttering conversation was the result of flights and time differences. Me, I remained stuck here in rain soaked Brentwood.

Q: What does the little cloud symbol with a down arrow mean in iTunes?

A: This indicates tracks that have been purchased from iTunes Music Store against the account to which that computer is linked, but haven't yet been downloaded.

Q: How did I make these purchases? Don't remember doing it and wouldn't they have downloaded when I bought them?

A: OK, couple of ways. maybe after buying the tracks the computer you were working on lost its internet connection. Or the transmission got screwed up. Alternatively you could have made the purchase from an iPhone or an iPod Touch. The tracks would have been sent to those devices over their data link, then synced with your computer later.

Q: Wouldn't they sync when I connected my iPhone or whatever to the computer at home?

A: I don't think so, I think syncing purchased music only goes one way, from iTunes Music Store to one of your five authorised devices.

Q: Would the symbol have anything to do with iTunes Match?

A: No, and you don't have an iTunes Match account (at least you didn't when I was with you last week).

Q: Do I have to enter a password when I buy music from iTunes Music Store?

A: I think that's optional. You can turn on one-click purchasing that side steps that, so anyone can make a purchase if that's set that way.

Q: So that explains why I've bough stuff from this Bon Jovi. Can I get a refund on music I don't like?

A: No, Apple doesn't do refunds.

The Worst Music Mess?

“Is this the worst mess you’ve ever seen?” It’s one of our most frequently asked questions, usually posed when we’re called onsite to deal with a home entertainment issue. In most cases the problems aren’t massive and it’s pretty easy to find a polite way to sidestep the question.

Except on Monday. By a county mile I cam across the worst mess I’ve ever come across.

I’ll give you a flavour of the issues by describing the hardware. A PC, an iMac, a Sonos system with ten zone players. Next to the iMac were three iPad devices - two Classics with stick on labels, then an iPod Touch in a labelled box. Nestling amongst the Sonos boxes were three iPod docks, and yes, each dock had its own iPod Classic.

Then I was told there was a Mac Mini, and sure enough next to the Sonos boxes and the router, in a basement cupboard, there was a little silvery box with a tray containing a flip up screen, keyboard and a mouse. Then I saw the WD My Book Live NAS drive.

How did this mess come about? Here’s the history. Initially the client had a PC and naturally they put their music on it. A while later they decided to move from the PC to the iMac, their music was copied across by the Apple install man. Using the Mac resulted in a larger music library on the Mac, and a stack of classical music CDs ready to be ripped.

Not wanting to rip the CDs themselves, and the Sonos installer not being prepared to do it for them, they hired a student to rip the CDs. The Mac Mini was bought to give the student something to work on, hence that unit.

While the student was ripping the CDs they decided to install the NAS drive because the client didn’t want to have to leave the iMac on when (in due course) the Sonos system was linked up. However once the Mac Mini project was completed nobody seemed to know how to get all the music onto the NAS drive, so various genres of music was downloaded to its own dedicated iPod Classic. Each iPod was planted in its own Sonos dock, so that the in-house music system had something to broadcast.

Where can I begin to describe the problems the household had with all this. First the music ripped onto the Mac Mini had vast gaping holes - none of it had genre information attached. As the Mini didn’t connect to the rest of the home network none of the music on that could be shared, it couldn’t be accessed on the iMac, it couldn't be put onto any of the other iPods. As the iPod Classics driving the Sonos system sit in docks all day, and the docks are in an airless cupboard they frequently seize up. When that happens nobody can access that genre of music in the house until some kind family member does a hard reset. A problem that’s happening more and more often, iPods simply aren’t meant to run all day every day.

The client doesn’t know how to add music, there’s effectively a berlin wall between the Apple iMac in-house and the Sonos system. They have a bag of new music they’d like to add but if they add it to the Mac Mini somebody has to stand in the cramped cupboard ripping CDs. Oh, and as the Mac Mini daren’t be connected to the internet, all track data has to be entered by hand.

Maybe I’m being picky but despite the effort that had been invested in CD ripping (including some poor soul who had stood ripping 400+ CDs onto the Mac Mini) the music had been ripped to Apple AAC at just 256 kbps. Now that’s more than fine for an iPod on the tube but a massive Sonos investment real ought to be driven by higher quality music, Apple Lossless.

The way ahead?

After some head scratching I think the place to head towards is one where all the family’s music is stored in a single place. That should be the NAS drive. How do we do this? Well the Mac Mini has been dragged from its subterranean lair and the music has been removed to another drive.

As the iMac is connected to the internet and the home network the music recovered from the Mini will be plugged into that, where we’ll spend a few hours tidying up the resulting music library. Once that’s done we’ll copy that all onto the NAS drive, setting the iMac to rip into Apple Lossless for any music they might rip themselves in the future.

Once that’s done we’ll make sure the Sonos system is connected to the same router as the rest of the system, and that the Sonos Controller program points to the shared drive on the NAS. When that’s been done all the music will be available on each computer or Sonos unit in the home, any iPod could be loaded with any selection of music regardless of genre. When this is achieved the client will have a few iPods and iPods Sonos docks surplus to requirements.

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.

CD Ripping & Album Artist Field

They don't always take our advice, and although I'm being paid to do it in a few minutes I have to grind my way through 100+ edits of album data for a client.

He has a substantial number of what iTunes thinks of a compilation CDs. Hotel Costes springs to mind, where a famous DJ puts together a collection of tracks; each one under its own artist attribution but the whole CD is directed by another person. How best to handle this?

My suggestion was to use the field "Album Artist" which we can add during CD ripping. This would result in the album name being what you see on the cover, each track is credited to the right artist but inside the Music file (should you ever need to look) the tracks are filed under that person's name, who can also be searched on and is listed in iTunes. No, this wasn't my clients desired strategy so instead I will need to insert the DJ's name before the name of the album in the album title field.

Had we done it my way the DJ's name would still appear in the Artist column in iTunes, and still be available to search, and the album name would remain untouched. But then the customer is always right (even when he's wrong) and I keep telling myself we are a service business so stick a smile on your face and get on with it.

iTunes Revamp - Time for a Rethink?

I don't know many people who have used iTunes longer than us, nor many who depend on it as part of their business. As I've often said, without Apple, the iPod and of course iTunes we wouldn't have a CD ripping service business.

Over the years I've helped people on iTunes and staunchly defended it against people in love with the latest gee-whiz music player, ripper, music management system or whatever. However even the most ardent Apple fan can't help but notice a sure and rising tide of negative comments about iTunes. Someone derided iTunes a day or two ago by referring to the latest version as a vain attempt to apply lipstick to a pig. That's a phrase that's been rattling round my head all week as I've been using the latest incarnation of iTunes. Hmmmm .....

I still want to try to defend iTunes but the latest tweaks have done nothing to help Apple's cause. Take a simple stat, how many tracks are there in your library? In the past a simple number at the bottom of the screen told you, but not now, it has simply been removed. That little number helped us enormously, particularly in a diagnostic situations, but now its gone. We miss it, why did Apple delete it?

For some reason iTunes reverts to the display which shows all your album covers, not the more detailed album / track / genre display. We don't find this very helpful but there's no way to override Apple's reference. Would that have been hard? Surely not.

Well I could go on - and I'll skip the massive size of the iTunes program - but I'm hoping Apple have recognised the tide has turned against them and us. I'm hoping a completely new iTunes is in the works. Soon, please.

CD Ripping - What 2013 Holds

Welcome to the New Year, and it's hard to believe another year of CD ripping lies ahead. Born of a period of childhood fads there have been times when I've thought people would lose interest in mobile music, or maybe streaming services such as Spotify would render us all pointless; but no, we are still here and looking forward to processing more CDs.

We are resolved to do better. First, we have taken steps to significantly improve throughput. During our first few years order sizes were around 200 - 250 CDs, we could handle this best by working around 9-17 using what has become six PCs. However when we got larger orders, 500+, it was a challenge to get this voulume of music converted in seven days. Over the last couple of years CD collections of over 1,000 discs have become common. We'd like to get those out in a week but it's hard to do that using the previous process of distributed systems. About six months ago we invested in a Nimbie CD ripper. This enables us to load up around 100 CDs and leave those to be ripped in a batch. Add a few evenings of unattended operation and throughput has gone up. For this reason we have another robotic CD ripping system on its way to us and we are hopeful that big collections next year will be ripped as quickly as smaller collections.

Second, we've taken steps to improve the quality of our Data Grooming service. These are very much 'under the hood' but we hope our clients like the results, even though it is a bit frustrating that clients don't normally appreciate just how much better their metadata is than it might have been.

Third, we're gaining more experience at delivering even higher quality music. When we started iTunes Music Store supplied music at 128 Kbps but we opted for twice that level with 256 Kbps AAC files. Today more clients are looking for lossless music which means returning files on DVDs has become unrealistic. So we've been down the USB thumbdrive route into USB connected external drives and into NAS drives. Additionally we're able to supply music on hard drives which can be installed inside a tower style system or in a bay of your NAS unit.

Taking these enhancements we're confident that 2013 will be our biggest and best year yet, and if you become one of our clients, we look forward to meeting you.

Buffalo Link Station Duo

I'm looking at a Buffalo Link Station Duo 4.0 Tb dual drive with RAID, web access, built-in media server and "enhanced performance". We've become good friends, we've spent a lot of time together, a lot of time. Too much time. Let me tell you the whole story before I return this glorious red box back to its owner, our client.

We ripped over 800 CDs, almost exclusively classical. The drive is to provide a home for the music and serve music to a new Sonos music system. Nothing too challenging there, except that the unit arrived several days into the ripping. We've worked with Buffalo drives before and they're very good, as is this unit, even after the week we've had. We rip using recent Windows and Apple systems, all of which support long file names; and with classical music track names can be very long (and in Italian though that doesn't matter in this instance). Pop songs tend to be snappy (She Loves You - The Beatles) while operatic tracks are long and folder names incorporate performer, conductor and orchestra. No problem for NTFS and HFS drives.

We've been asked to rip into both FLAC and MP3, so believe me, we have a lot of data to transfer. The MP3s were just over 100 Gb, the FLAC files much bigger.

So when the ripping part was completed I hooked up the Buffalo to our network and installed the driver software that comes with the unit. After a couple of glitches (I'll put that down to me) the Buffalo popped up on my Mac's finder window. I copied the MP3s from the locally connected drive onto the Shared folder on the Buffalo. Wait a while, off it goes. I went to bed - yes, it's that long a job so I generally schedule this kind of thing over night. At 19:00 it was going OK.

Next morning, disaster. Whole list of file errors and the NAS had gone offline. I put this down to the router in the office losing its internet connection, and thus its IP address pool, which caused the Mac to stop seeing the Buffalo.

Tried again that night. Next morning, same failure. Decided I should delete the files that had been copied across. That in itself takes a while, but its bearable. Decided to try again that night, instead connecting the local USB drive into a Vista machine rather than the Mac. As I closed up the office files were flying over the network like magic. Next morning, the file transfer was still running, so it wasn't until nearly lunchtime that I saw there were errors in the transfer.

That night I thought I'd clear down the errant MP3s and then try with the FLAC files, from the Windows box. All looked OK so shut up shop. I slept with my fingers crossed.

Opened office next morning, there was an error message. This time I was given a hint that the file name was unsupported, along with a mighty list of the files that had not copied over. OK, mass delete, head scratch time. I looked in the supplied PDF and saw nothing to suggest that a drag & drop copy shouldn't work, but I found another site (not an official Buffalo page I think) which suggested this particular box runs a version of Unix which cannot support long file names. The explanation of the issue certainly fitted my problem.

So, Mr Buffalo, what do you do with 12,000+ files - all with very long names - and it's a four day Jubilee bank Holiday weekend? You can't edit those names down to 12, 20 or however many characters. Instead, I had a brainwave.

Thankfully we work from source files (AIFF) in circumstances where clients require alternative file formats. So I loaded all the original files (held on three USB drives attached to our Pogoplug) and from there, imported them into iTunes. I used iTunes to convert from AIFF into MP3, but pointed the output files at a folder on the Buffalo Link Station Duo. Writing the files under the Link station operating system produced files the drive was happy with. Did the same (or similar, for FLAC - we don't use iTunes for that as it doesn't handle FLAC) and that worked too.

Trouble is each conversion run took in excess of 28 hours, which is why this box is going back to the client very, very late.

iTunes Starts At Will

Most of my (non CD ripping) work is done on a Mac Mini. One of the great things about the Apple platform is that it just works. Having faith in Apple I tend to just accept the messages to say there are new versions of the operating system or key applications and install them soon after they become available. Which is what I did yesterday, to a whole batch of updates - including to iTunes.

No fuss, no drama. I had to restart the computer (not always required) but carried on just as normal. Then a horrible screeching sound, starting quietly and getting louder. For some reason iTunes had fired up and started playing the first track in the library, which happened to be an audio book for kids about a scary spider - and the weird sound was a special effect that opens the tale. Mystery explained, shut down iTunes and carried on.

That same thing happened every few minutes yesterday afternoon. And evening. Finally I took the hint and left iTunes running. Spent most of the evening thinking "It's never done that before". And it's done it again this morning.

I don't know if this stems from something in iTunes, the operating system, Safari or OS X. The library to which iTunes presently points is stored on an external USB hard drive. What happens is that apparently spontaneously iTunes loads, opens and starts to play the first track in the library.

From yesterday's experience the phantom iTunes start doesn't seem directly coincidental to any other action such as accessing the external drive, opening a particular program or any hardware related action. I went out to the Post Office, leaving a silent office, and came back to find iTunes was open and telling a story.

If this is happening to you I regret I can't explain what's going on, or how to stop it.

A New iTunes?

I have got to the point where I have even bored myself predicting a new solid state storage based iPod model to replace the iPod Classic. If it happens, it happens - you heard it here first and a long time ago. Then I suddenly thought, what about iTunes itself?

History first. When Apple launched their first portable music player they relied on a non-Apple pice of software, MusicMatch. It wasn't bad, very mainstream computing interface. It was subsequently swallowed up by Yahoo, pretty much faded away. When iTunes hit it was a breath of fresh air, particularly compared with Microsoft's Windows Media Player. You could tell iTunes was built by music lovers, it did what people want when they enjoy music. And it put the track (not the album / CD) at the centre of the music library. Of course it was imbued with all the loveliness that so many people like about the Apple brand. It wasn't to everyone's taste, and there's still a cottage industry in non-Apple, non-WMP music playing and ripping systems. However for 95%+ of the tune loving populace, it has to be iTunes.

Just looking across the range of Apple's current applications, on a daily basis I use iPhoto, Aperture, Pages, address book and calendar, I get the feeling iTunes is creaking a little. So what next for the music monster?

First - CD ripping. OK, that's my business and it's where my thoughts turn first. I'd like ripping to be faster, maybe that will happen. For the typical iPod owner why do they even have to bother? Couldn't they just say they have bought a CD and allow Apple's vast music cloud to place that set of tracks into their library, to be downloaded as and when necessary?

Second - compression. When we started people had tiny hard drives against big record collections. Today the collections are only a little bigger, but iPod drives (not to mention laptops and desktops) are huge. If Apple could do to their Apple Lossless codec what they seem to have done to their jpg algorithm in Aperture, you'd get effectively lossless music quality in file sizes only a little larger than decent AAC files. Then, users wouldn't have to dance to the AAC, MP3, Lossless jig and agonise on what's right for them.

Third - DVD ripping. Movies are as much part of home entertainment as music, Come on Apple.

Fourth - bury the database. Yes, easier said than done, but all that wordage on the standard iTunes screen just confuses most users. Sure it needs to be under the hood but the look and feel of iTunes is dated and clunky. Apple is brilliant at interface design, this one needs an overhaul.

MP5? Apple Less-than-lossless?

A few weeks ago rumours appeared suggesting Apple may be about to release a new music file format, one that would make music sound better. Well, suggestions are that this will see the light of day at an imminent product launch Apple have scheduled. Also, over the weekend I noticed the company behind the maths that made MP3 possible had launched a new way of making sound better on mobile phones.

An idle thought - MP4 is taken for movie files - so maybe this will be MP5? From Apple's perspective a new format, now, will cause a headache for them and their users. Generally better sound means more hard drive space. This won't help Apple directly as they buy in drives and it will put more pressure on the ageing iPod Classic, more than due an upgrade. Bigger files would be a major ouch for iPhone users too.

If I were Apple, why? Well someone is going to do it so it might as well be you. It would head off an interloper gaining traction within iTunes, it would keep the iPod / iPhone / iPad ahead of the game. maybe it would give Apple a toe hold in non IOS areas too. However they'd probably have to re-encode their entire iTunes Music Store library to keep their Music Match function operable and that's no small task.

I think it would be a positive move, one we'd jump on and would be appreciated by our clients. Better sound, what's not to like?

Game, Set and iTunes Match

I was asked a question last night and suddenly had a shock to remember this CD ripping business is still operating. Some years ago somebody suggested iTunes and iTunes Music Sore would be transformed into a cloud based service. Rather than ripping CDs and storing them locally, then adding to that music archive with purchased tracks, all our music would be moved away to a gigantic data centre in America.

What then would be the point of having a CD ripping business, focusing on care and service, wouldn't Apple be doing that all for us?

I'm pleased to say iTunes Match - the cloud based option - is now with us, and podServe is still here, ripping more CDs than ever. Why? Well, even if you adopt iTunes Match, you still have to have a ripped track to start with, you can't just say you've got this and that CD which then appears in your library. You aren't given Spotify type access to their back catalogue and yes you have to pay for it.

iTunes match in the UK costs about half the price of a big USB drive per year. As an off-site backup option it isn't greatly compelling (it doesn't handle photos for example). Plus if you have high quality music (Apple Lossless or AIFF) you'll experience a drop in quality. I have mixed feelings, but I'm unequivocally glad we're still here, ripping CDs, untouched and unmatched.

Android Music from iTunes - Take Two

Just to update an earlier post, software to synch music between your computer and iTunes.

While I still like Doubletwist Lifehacker is now recommending iSyncr (available here). They now favour this over Doubletwist as you only need to install this on your Android phone; Doubletwist needs an iTunes lookalike program installed on your PC or Mac.

Like Doubletwist there's both a wired and wifi version available.

iPod Killer? Android?

Over the last seven years running a CD ripping service I have mainly been working with Apple iPods. When we started it was something of a gamble, there were so many vanilla flavoured MP3 players around, so many people preferred Windows Media Player to iTunes. Quickly it became apparent that Apple had secured pole position in the race, the rest is history. Today pretty much any portable music player will, like hoover and xerox before, will be described as an iPod.

Over the last seven years I've lost count of the number of times I've read of the coming of an "iPod killer". Remember the various cute players from Sony? Sansa? Archos? These devices have popped up, received critical acclaim, and largely sunk without trace. Who today even knows what ATRAC is let alone has software to play it. According to Nokia its all down to ecosystems. Certainly that's why they have done so badly in the smartphone market and why Apple and Android have done so well. Ecosystem, not the cute device, however cute.

So my mind said "iPod killer?" when I saw that a small manufacturer (Cowon of Korea) has launched an Android based portable music player. As I've read so many times before this unit has some great features (brilliant screen, wi-fi, plays any music file type, tremendous sound, apps) alongside as many negatives (price, battery life and more) but it did make me think "ecosystem". If there were an end to end music support package to compete with iPod / iTunes / iTunes Music Store the Android umbrella is a great place to be. Plus, you get the support of Google who seem to be just about the only company able to lay a finger on Apple.

Watch the Android space, an iPod killer might just be lurking in the shadows.

Jeff Underwood
www.podserve.co.uk

iTunes + Cloud? CloudTunes?

The rumour mill is grinding away in advance of the Apple media event coming up in the next few days. Most it's concentrated on the Apple tablet (iSlate? iSlice? iSlab?) but some brave souls have been speculating on an implementation of iTunes which draws on the latest IT hot topic - cloud computing. What would this mean to most users?

The answer has to be peace of mind and convenience. Let me explain why.

About the only thing you can be sure of with computer hard drives is that sooner or later, they will fail. Today users have massive amounts of data, unbelievable only a couple of years ago. When we began ripping CDs we stored clients work on an 80 Gb drive and it tooks weeks before it was filled. Just a few years later this laptop has the same amount of storage, small by many of today's machines. Can it be backed up? Technically yes but very few of us have the discipline to backup our discs, and what do we backup to? Yes, another hard drive with all the risks of that failing. Our moves into photo scanning have shown how people are adding to their storage demands.

CloudTunes would allow you to migrate your precious music from your local PC or laptop away to a centralised data warehouse professionally managed. A location where systems and hardware are in place to keep your music safe.

Convenience? Suppose you're working late in your office and you'd like to listen to your music. Simply point your PC to your iTunes part of the cloud and play away. Kids at uni? Draw on the cloud. Pump music around the house? Just point each PC to the cloud. Tired of waiting for music to download? It will appear instantly if your library links into the cloud.

If it's not this week it is surely time for clouds to gather over iTunes.