Topic: Sony: “Publishers Are Being Held To Ransom By Apple”

[sam]

There’s much to be said in favor of a successor to iTunes. Not just the application itself, though I’d love to see it disappear, but the whole service. Things move fast, and although Apple moved faster than the music industry, it now finds itself in a distressingly similar, and vulnerable, position. Sony seems to think the iron is hot, and consequently is preparing to strike; SCE CEO Michael Ephraim is quoted by The Age as saying, “Publishers are being held to ransom by Apple and they are looking for other delivery systems, and we are waiting to see what the next three to five years will hold.”

http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/11/sony-publishers-are-being-held-to-ransom-by-apple/

[Rik]

I'd like to see the demise of iTunes, but I suspect Apple will retain the stranglehold for its own hardware.

[Simon]

It does it's job, for me, but there's lots of things with it that could be easier.

[Rik]

And better done. The number of times I've ripped an album for the iPod and iTunes has split it into two or three different albums.

[Simon]

Really?  That's never happened to me.  I make a point of ensuring sure live albums, in particular, run in the correct sequence, and are gapless.

[Rik]

I've had it happen a lot, particularly with compilations. I suspect the Gracenotes database favours American releases, so doesn't always recognise compilations from the UK market.

[Simon]

I wish it was easier to re-sequence albums, particularly home made compilations.  I have an album of my Queen remixes, and it's a pain to add one track, as you have to then re-sequence all the rest, and they don't always auto sort by track number.

[Rik]

Just one of many niggles. Album artwork is another.

[Simon]

Oh, I don't have a problem with that.  I just nab the cover from Google Images.

[Rik]

Tell me more...

[Simon]

What do you want to know?

[Rik]

How do you (a) find the image and (b) attach it to iTunes.

[Simon]

OK, well just search for the artist and album: Queen A Night At The Opera, click on Images, then download one of the covers.

In iTunes, select all the tracks from your album, then right click one > Get Info.  You should see the screen below, then double click in the box (which will be blank) where the Queen logo on mine is.  You can then navigate to your downloaded image, and insert it.  Click OK, and you're done.

[Rik]

Thanks. I'd never noticed that option. 

[Simon]

Took me a while.  I've found that you can do most things in iTunes, but it isn't always very straightforward.