As mentioned by Tim Cook towards the close of today's big keynote event, U2's close relationship with Apple goes way back. From the Irish quartet being featured on the iconic Vertigo ad to the release of the limited edition black and red U2 iPods, Bono and his band have been an almost permanent fixture of Apple's romance with the music industry, and having performed as a special guest at the end of the Flint Center's iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch announcement, U2's new album is available to download for free on Apple's iTunes Music Store.
As part of a touching tribute to the American actor and stand-up comedian Robin Williams, Apple has created a unique section withi its iTunes Store that houses a number of his globally loved movies as well as some of his most famous comedy routines that made him a household name around the world. The "Remembering Robin Williams" section of the iTunes Store is Apple's method of paying tribute to "one of the most beloved and unforgettable performers in the history of show business".
Apple regularly rolls out freebies across its range of content stores, and in an apparent attempt to promote iTunes First Play, an upcoming album by a very popular artist is already available to stream for free.
It's been a busy day for software-in-progress over at Apple today, and as well as rolling out OS X Yosemite 10.10 Developer Preview 4 and iOS 8 Beta 4, the Cupertino giant has also made iTunes 12 Beta available as part of Yosemite. As well as some serious design tweaks, there are also quite a few new features packed into this release, and as ever, you can check the details - as well as some first-hand screenshots - right here.
When Apple started extending the previews of songs that were longer than 2 minutes and 30 seconds back in 2010, licensing was a big factor in reason that not all songs received the updated 90 second previews at the same time. Now, Apple appears to be reducing some of those previews to just 30 seconds, no matter the length of the song, across both the desktop and mobile versions of the iTunes Store.
Apple has just rolled out version 11.3 of its iTunes app for Windows and Mac, bringing a bunch of notable new features as well as the customary performance tweaks. Details, as ever, can be seen after the fold.
We're always partial to a freebie or two here, and having featured a bunch of different apps and games from the App Store as well as Google's Play Store for Android over the past few weeks, we're now going to show you how - in a couple of simple steps - you can get your hands on a total of eight free songs on iTunes. This is a pretty decent saving on the regular price of these hits, and if you're interested in stocking up your library with some new tracks, then check the finer details below.
Apple has just released iTunes 11.2.2 - a fairly rudimentary update that fixes issues relating to podcasts. Apparently, some users were finding that podcast episodes were accidentally downloading after the previous installment, which was iTunes 11.1.1, and thus, Apple felt it necessary to push another update that also includes a bunch of stability improvements.
Some things are just never going to happen. Some things are just highly unlikely. With Steve Jobs around it was unthinkable for Apple to bring the iTunes Store to Google's Android mobile platform, but in a post-Steve Jobs world, it's looking increasingly possible that those packing non-Apple hardware could be able to buy songs from iTunes.
Apple has, for a good while now, been looking to expand the reach, functionality and general usefulness of the Apple Store app. In short, the Cupertino company wants it to serve as the focal point of the consumer's Apple experience, and in order to help familiarize iOS users with the service, the company has been running a series of promotional giveaways. Going on the premise that everybody loves a freebie, we've already seen paid apps go free through the Apple Store app, and over the festive period, a special free playlist of tracks was compiled and distributed in the spirit of the occasion. Today, Apple is back with another free mixtape of sorts, pushing a three-song bundle out focusing on new artists for 2014.