iTunes

Apple wants to offer rentals for movies that just came out in theaters

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 7, 2016

Bloomberg is reporting that Apple is in discussions with Hollywood studios about eventually offering home rentals for new movies two weeks after they've hit the silver screen, but at a price.

New flicks are usually available for purchase on the iTunes Store 90 days after theatrical releases, followed by rentals two to four weeks later.

Movie studios are now said to be discussing rentals two weeks after they open in theaters though encryption is among the concerns in these talks, the article notes.

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Apple announces December 23-27 iTunes Connect holiday shutdown

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 29, 2016

Apple on Tuesday announced that its annual holiday shutdown of iTunes Connect will be taking place between December 23 and December 27, 2016. iTunes Connect is a service developers and iTunes partners use to submit their apps and other content to Apple's content stores. In other words, no new apps or app updates shall surface on the App Store and Mac App Store between December 23-27.

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iTunes carrier billing now available to customers in Norway and Belgium

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 29, 2016

Following a recent introduction of iTunes carrier billing in Japan, Taiwan and Switzerland, this useful feature is now available to customers in Norway and Belgium, as first noted by MacRumors on Tuesday.

With carrier billing, customers can buy media on the iTunes Store, subscribe to Apple Music and purchase apps on the App Store without a credit or debit card because purchases are added to a customer’s mobile phone bill from their carrier.

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“Siri, what do my pets do when I’m not home?”

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 29, 2017

It seems Apple has partnered with Universal Pictures to promote “The Secret Life of Pets” by updating Siri's backend with a bunch of responses related to the animated movie. The company's official iTunes USA Facebook page promotes Siri partnership with a nicely done teaser video.

We also spotted a dedicated “Siri, what do my pets do when I'm not home?” banner which briefly appeared in the iTunes Movies app on the Apple TV.

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How to convert CAF files to MP3 or AAC

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated September 10, 2018

From time to time, you might come across an audio file format known as .caf (Core Audio Format), which was originally created by Apple to put an end to file size barriers set by other audio file types.

Unfortunately, not every audio player or device works with .caf files, so it might do you good to know how to convert them to another audio file type using the software that comes with your Mac. In this tutorial, we'll show you how to convert .caf files to more commonly-used audio files such as AAC or MP3 with Garageband.

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Apple to unify its separate cloud services teams to improve Siri, Maps, iTunes, iCloud & more

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 6, 2016

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman is reporting today that Apple is in the process of unifying its separate cloud services team in an effort to foster tighter collaboration between them, better compete with Google and Amazon in the cloud space and improve Siri, Maps, iTunes, iCloud and other services.

Eddy Cue, Apple's boss of Internet Software and Services, will oversee the effort to move cloud service engineering teams to a single campus as Apple continues shifting its cloud to its own infrastructure.

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Apple to start offering ‘Spoken Editions’ of news articles via iTunes

Cody Lee ∙ September 23, 2016

You'll soon be able to listen to news articles in iTunes, reports TechCrunch. The outlet says that in the near future, you'll be able to browse through a new category of podcasts that will allow you to listen to news stories from your favorite publishers.

These new podcasts will be labeled "Spoken Edition" in iTunes, and the format will be short-form programs that offer listeners an audio version of a publisher's articles. So you could essentially listen to the news while commuting or working out.

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