iTimes with Tony Bove

So far there have been no reports of trouble with the iTunes 7.1 update. People are mostly thrilled by the full-screen CoverFlow feature for browsing by album covers. But iTunes 7.1 is truly welcome in one corner of the universe — folks who use MusicMatch Jukebox.

Apple this week released iTunes 7.1 for Mac and Windows. Besides providing support for the new Apple TV product, it now offers a new full screen Cover Flow and improved sorting options to let you decide how iTunes should sort your favorite artists, albums, and songs. Apple also released QuickTime 7.1.5 which delivers numerous bug fixes and addresses critical security issues.

Several YouTube videos describe in detail some of the iPhone demonstrations Steve Jobs gave at the Macworld Expo keynote speech in January.

Rumors about Apple are swirling a week after Steve Jobs’ open letter to the music industry (for an excellent summary of reactions, see Engadget’s “DRM: the state of disrepair” by Thomas Ricker). But several developments warrant particular attention:
1. Apple is patenting wireless docking. According to AppleInsider, Apple is developing a dock connector for handheld gadgets […]

Beatles music was a turning point in the history of pop music, and its power will once again prove to be a turning point in the history of online music. Baby boomers are excited by the Beatles coming out online, and that’s why record labels should also be excited — baby boomers are the folks more likely to buy music, compared to the younger generations that are used to downloading free music.

Steve Jobs has put the music industry labels on notice about Digital Rights Management (DRM). It may just be the right time for Steve to speak out — from a position of strength.

Apple, Inc. (formerly Apple Computer) and Apple Records (the label for the Beatles) have finally laid to rest all legal problems involving use of the name. This marks an end to the long-running copyright feud between the two companies and replaces an earlier agreement that limited Apple Inc.’s abilities to distribute music.

Issues that occur with iTunes 7.0.2 on Vista include purchased songs not playing, iPod synch problems, iPod eject problems, failure to sync contacts and calendars with an iPod, and slow cover art animation.

Apple has established a design platform for launching new commercial devices, from less expensive iPhone models down the road to less expensive video-enabled iPods by this summer, all with larger touch-screen displays and gesture recognition.