Category Archives: ITunes

 Memo To Apple And Taylor Swift: Well Played. Love GTG

 Taylor Swift, 1989 

Picture Credit: 1989/Taylor Swift

Now that two days have past and I have had time to contemplate the supposed brouhaha between Taylor Swift and Apple, a different sort of light is shining on this historic event. 

Yes, I said historic, because when has Apple ever listened to anyone regarding its policies and made an abrupt change to a policy in a 24-hour turnaround?   Read the rest of this entry

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WWDC 15 Promises To  Address Your Home And Entertainment Needs

 
  Picture Credit: Apple.Com

Well, folks, another year, another World Wide Developer Conference in the very near horizon. But, as much I love these Apple get – togethers, I am beyond “bummed” that the anticipated redo of the Apple TV unit is quite possibly cancelled. Yes, cancelled. Again. 

Why? 

Because television content providers aka the TV Networks are making life a living hell for Apple and its consumers.  Boy, is this story ever getting old and annoying. When will the networks release themselves from the dinosaur age and embrace all that technology can offer its consumer? 

One answer: Money. It makes the world go round. Just not ours.  Read the rest of this entry

Apple To LiveStream It’s Keynote Event Via Apple TV And Their Home Page

20121023-103602.jpgBoy – today’s Apple Event must be huge, huge, huge!

Apple has pulled out all the stops making the event available to pretty much anyone that has a computer or iDevice.

That’s right! The event will be available for viewing via a LiveStream link that can be accessed in many ways.

You simply have to visit the LiveStream Page over on the Apple.Com site or, something new and exciting, you can access it via Apple TV in the new Apple Events section.

However, Apple TV owners must have either a 2nd or 3rd generation model to see this event.

And, as I mentioned above, you can access this link via Safari on your iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Mac or Windows PC. Sorry Samsung geeks.

Scheduled to be unveiled today is the much-anticipated iPad Mini. But, Apple has a few other surprises tucked in their back pocket, one of which will be the newly designed iTunes interface, iTunes 11.

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And, with the possibility of a revamped version of the new full-sized iPad, a refresh of the Mac Mini and new iMacs and a 13-inch Retina Display MacBook Pro, Apple stands an incredible chance to, once again, wipe the floor with their competition.

The “big shew” begins at 10:00 A.M. Pacific (1:00 P.M. Eastern) and, given other Apple Event scenarios, will probably last two hours.

I will provide key updates on the inside page of this blog topic. Please come back and add your thoughts in the comments section. Live Updates inside.

Read the rest of this entry

Troubleshooting The Placement Of The Audio Clip In The IMovie IPad App

You don’t need to take computer classes to find your way around Apple devices – although it does make the process a quicker one.

However, if you are semi-retired, as I am, with a ton of time on your hands to fiddle with your devices, you can easily problem-solve a technical issue or two.

Recently, when I was working on a family-themed video, I ran across a nagging and frustrating glitch in the IMovie App.

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When I tried to insert audio of any kind, particular from my ITunes library, the music immediately snapped to the front of the video. And, unlike IMovie on the Mac, this audio clip could not be moved to a preferred placement in your video.

It was frustrating – I found it impossible to edit the length of the music backwards and forwards.

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Then, I turned off the loop music function, selected the video clip and two yellow handles appeared. However, only the back handle ( the one on the right) was editable; the handle on the left would not budge. So the music could be re-positioned from the back and not the front? Strange.

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I then split the clip where I wanted the music to begin, thinking that if I selected that clip before adding the audio clip, the music would place itself below the beginning of that clip.

No again! The music gabbed the entire video. Well, this was a nightmare!

So off I went to the Apple Store and posed my problem. However, six days later the creative team gave up and sent the problem to Cupertino. Did I find a glitch? Well, sort of.

Not one to give up easily, I continued to play around with the video, exploring every option and this is what I think is a pretty good work around until Apple addresses this issue.

The Fix:

Once again, I split my video in two, but this time, I decided to add the music twice – one to the first clip and the other to the second. But, at first this did not work.

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The audio insisted on attaching itself to both video clips, I had to grab the back handle of the audio clip and move it all the way forward to the end of the first clip.

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Then, because I didn’t want to hear the audio in this first clip, I double clicked the audio clip to bring up the audio features and turned down the volume all the way to the left. Alternatively, one could also just set the audio to the “off”position. So, although the music was there, one could not hear it.

Now I was left with the second clip minus the audio. Because this is where I wanted the music to originally start, would adding the audio a second time ignore the first clip with the silent audio track and jump to the second? One way to find out! Just do it!

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I selected my song from the ITunes library and, wonder of wonders, it grabbed the beginning of the second clip. Praise the Lord, Hallelujah! Then I adjusted the audio level for the music on the second clip, making sure that the music was at an appropriate audio level to compliment the people speaking in the video.

And, that was that! Looking at the written word, it all seems so simple and usually these problems are. However, it took a while to get past what I could easily do on my Mac where one can just move the audio to the correct placement.

Hopefully, Apple will issue an update to address this technical issue in the IMovie App. If one can shorten the video from the back end, one should be able to move the front end to any point in the movie. It should just work, right?

Mastered For ITunes: Arts And Technology Just Moved One Step Closer

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Pinch me! I am still here, right? Is this the best news since sliced bread?

A couple of days ago, Apple quietly (they’ve been doing that a lot lately) released an exciting advancement for digital music – Mastered For ITunes.

Over time, I have recorded three CDs and, each time, I was relegated to sitting behind the recording engineer while he tried to decipher exactly what I was looking for in my recorded music.

How I wanted to snatch the controls away from him! And, in a moment of weakness and frustration, he relented and let me do my thing at the control panel. But, truth be told, I was itching to leap over the hurdles and just take over the whole project.

Yet overall, after hooking up with an excellent mastering engineer, the final product was quite good even though the music still did not sound fully refined. The original recording equipment was not state of the art, so the mastering engineer had to work within its limitations.

And the digital experience didn’t help matters. The digital music product sounded very compressed (which, in fact it was), tinny and lacked the dynamic strength and sparkle of the original master.

Enter Mastered For ITunes.

Thanks to Apple’s relentless vision for excellence, now everyone’s future recorded products will be a true reflection of their personal vision. In other words, with Apple’s help, one will truly be master of their musical domain. ( had to grab this Seinfeld goodie before someone else thought of it)

Now I just need to find the time to upload some recorded product via Mastered For iTunes. Presently, I am immersed in IBooks Author, working on my first interactive book. But, since I will be in the vicinity of an Apple store very soon, I hope to get OneToOne assistance with both IBooks Author and Mastered For ITunes.

There is a great article from AllThingsDigital.Com that highlights legendary singer-songwriter Neil Young’s frustration at the quality of today’s digital music.

I came across this article via The New York Times, which succinctly summarized the higher level of quality that Apple is bringing to digital music via Mastered For ITunes.

There is also more detailed information about Mastered For ITunes at PCMag.Com and Tuaw.Com.

The Mastered For ITunes guidelines are a long but necessary read, almost fascinating actually if you like this kind of stuff. I wiled away most of my Saturday afternoon just trying to figure out all the terminology. Keep the ‘ole brain going, right?

I won’t pretend to understand every little detail but I do understand the bottom line. Digital music will now reflect the original master, as long as the mastering engineer works within Apple’s framework for excellence. How exciting is that?

I smell another Grammy for Apple. Do you?

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