GigaOm is reporting that, contrary to speculation that Steve Jobs wanted to return us to a more analog time when we bought new albums and sank back for ours drinking in every liner note and detail, iTunes LP was actually the record labels’ idea:

I’m told by an industry source who preferred to remain anonymous that iTunes LP wasn’t Apple’s idea in the first place. Rather, it’s the result of the same renegotiations between Apple and the major record labels that yielded DRM-free songs and flexible pricing early last year, a concession by Cupertino to make a gesture in favor of album sales as consumers increasingly show a preference for digital singles.

It’s further said that Apple subsidized the first batch of iTunes LPs, whose production costs were an unbelievable $60,000. The more recent release of developer tools is seen as reducing that cost, and rumors persist of an iDVD-like replacement application from Apple that would work to make iTunes LP and iTunes Extra.

Either way, enthusiasm among artists and Apple itself seems to be low, though just over double the amount of iTunes LPs are available now than were at launch. GigaOm suggests artists are also interested in the App Store as a way to provide extra content to consumers, which might split focus for iTunes LP.

In terms of pushing the format forward, it’s now supported by Apple TV (stuttering though it may be), but there’s been no sign of support for the 75 million iPhone and iPod touch devices on the market. It will be supported by the iPad, however, though Apple hasn’t been pushing iTunes LP as a selling point so far.

Have you bought an iTunes LP? Are you interested in the format going forward?

iTunes LP was Record Labels’ Idea? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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theAppleBlog (via Ars) has put together a nicely detailed, step-by-step how-to for creating your very own — or your indie band’s own — iTunes LP.

The iTunes LP is the new format Apple has been pushing in iTunes. It’s more like a DVD than anything else. You have menus, music, photos, liner notes and videos. Since this is such a fresh format, not many albums are available in it yet. The good news is, you can make your own.

If you decide to give it a go, let us know how your iTunes LP turns out!

How-to Make an iTunes LP for Your Indie Band is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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If you been searching for some holiday music for your iPhone or iPod, iTunes has you covered with the iTunes Holiday Sampler by various artists. Oh, and not only is it free for one week, it’s an iTunes LP so you get all the goods including lyrics, images and artwork, and so on.

The good news is you will get a total of twenty tracks from artists like Weezer, David Archuleta, Toby Keith, Sarah McLachlan, etc… Now for the bad news, sadly if you are like Rene and outside of the U.S., this is not available to you. Don’t shoot us, we’re just the messenger.

UPDATE: Now available in the UK as well! [iTunes link]

UPDATE 2: In Canada, finally, but with only 7 songs. Bah humbug! [iTunes link]

To those of you who can download this, enjoy your free holiday music!

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

UPDATED: iTunes Offers Free Holiday Sampler by Various Artists to iPhone/iPod Owners is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Boy Genius has an unconfirmed source claiming that, as part of Apple’s rumored iLife 2010, long-ignored iDVD will finally see an update — and that update will be support for iTunes LP (and we’re assuming iTunes Extras) creation/authoring.

It certainly makes sense, not only to keep iDVD relevant (though would it need a name refresh as well?), but also since Apple recently made iTunes LP and iTunes Extra (and TuneKit) resources available to developers. A consumer/prosumer-friendly development environment, similar to GarageBand or iMovie, makes the kind of sense that does.

iLife 2010’s New iDVD to Include iTunes LP, iTunes Extra Creation? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Apple.com has published a new page with information on iTunes LP and iTunes Extras for Developers:

Here’s everything you need to know to create a rich, interactive experience around your music and movies. All right in iTunes.

It includes the latest version of Apple’s TuneKit (think WebKit HTML+CSS+Javascript with iTunes hooks), as well as templates, best practices, a development guide, and info on asset delivery and testing. It’s not all automagical yet, however:

Automatic, electronic submission of your iTunes LP or Extra is scheduled for the first quarter of 2010. Until then, the submission process is manual and limited. Please contact your label or studio rep for details and consideration. An existing iTunes contract is required. Your iTunes LP or iTunes Extras will be reviewed by the iTunes team for appropriateness of content and for technical quality.

Still, it’s nice to see the technology and supporting material made available, and the brouhaha from last month made farcical.

Now, all we need is for Apple to show some iTunes LP and iTunes Extras love to the iPhone. Where’s that iPhone 3.2 already?!

Anyone planning to get TuneKit’ty with it? Let us know how it works for your content!

[Apple.com via feed://www.9to5mac.com/feedburner.xml">9to5mac]

Apple Publishes iTunes LP and iTunes Extras for Developers is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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It still baffles us how iTunes LP and iTunes Extras content — which was introduced in the seemingly Apple TV-ideal 720p format — wasn’t compatible with the new Apple TV 3.0 software to begin with. In fact, we’ve gotten Wall-E with iTunes Extras to play on our Apple TV already. But according to Apple, it’s now really for real compatible…

With the latest versions of iTunes (9.0.2) and Apple TV software (3.0), you can now use iTunes Extras on your Apple TV. We have updated iTunes Extras that were included with the movie Wall-E so that they can now be viewed on Apple TV in addition to your Mac or PC. It is available for you to download now, free of charge.

So begins an email Apple sent out to iTunes LP and iTunes Extras purchasers today, which follows up with download and update instructions. (And even a knowledge base article — Updating iTunes Extras and iTunes LP content for your Apple TV).

We’re downloading that new version of Wall-E now and will report back on what, if anything, looks different (any chance of a better UI for Extras?)

Still, we’re left to wonder — where’s the love for iPhone users, Apple? Could it be you’re prepping a new interface for them for iPhone 3.2? We’ll wait — if it’s worth it!

iTunes LP and iTunes Extras Now Apple TV 3.0 Ready — Still No Love for iPhone is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Following up on allegations made by an indie label that Apple charges $10,000 for an iTunes LP and wouldn’t even allow indie labels access to the program, an iTunes spokesperson responded to Music Week with the following statement:

“There is no production fee charged by Apple. We’re releasing the open specs for iTunes LP soon, allowing both major and indie labels to create their own.”

Fake crisis averted?

[via 9to5mac via Distorted-Loop]

Apple: There’s No $10,000 iTunes LP Charge is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Is Apple charging the big record labels $10,000 to create iTunes LP packages for them, and outright refusing to make the service available to the indies? That’s the allegation Gizmodo brought forward, based on a conversation with one such indie, who heard it from their labels digital distribution manager, who claims to have heard it from their iTunes rep.

Enter internet brouhaha. Some sites are calling the $10,000 fee exorbitant, and the lockout of indies untenable. Other sites are pointing out how much good quality interactive web development costs, and highlighting that Apple has only rolled out 12 iTunes LP’s so far.

Here’s the thing: when Apple announced iTunes LP, despite the fact that they’re using the fairly open WebKit framework to make it, they didn’t announce the specific TuneKit implementation as an open format, they didn’t announce an SDK, and they didn’t say they were offering it to every artist immediately.

It looks to us like this is just a case of Apple being Apple. iTunes LP is an experiment, clearly near-and-dear to them from Steve Jobs on down, and they’re starting with a few, select albums and trying to provide as premium and experience as possible. That kind of development work isn’t cheap, especially when you want to keep the numbers low at first, and it also means it isn’t open to everyone. Heck, it only even works on iTunes on your Windows or Mac PC at this point!

If they’re still nailing down the format specs, creating the development tools, and getting to set to roll out versions that will work with iPods, iPhones, and mythical, still unreleased Apple TV and iTablet devices, then this makes the kind of sense that does. And we’re guessing, when the dust settles and all the above is in place, Apple will open up iTunes LP and roll the format out wide, even to indies, because it will do what Apple really intends iTunes to do — help sell Apple hardware.

Regarding iTunes LP Costing Labels $10,000 is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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iTunes Extras was easy to see as a DVD extras competitor, offering a similar feature set to what’s already on the market, and users are already familiar with using. iTunes LP, on the other hand, harkened back to a time decades ago when vinyl albums and turn-tables were how people experienced music — something decidedly not familiar to modern MP3 and iTunes music listeners.

Why then — aside from Steve Jobs’ nostalgia, did Apple expend resources on iTunes LP? TNL.net, like us, saw the 720p resolution and immediately thought of the Apple TV — and TV in general. (We also thought of the rumored iTablet). Going further, however, they posit this might be the first step in a grander game. Could Apple be seeking to replicate the success of the App Store — tens of thousands of mostly independent developers creating mostly low cost, high volume content — for iTunes music and video? Could they be gearing up to give music and video creators the same easy distribution channel, and 30/70 split, they’ve given App developers?

The components all seem to be there and it seems to me that it won’t be long before Apple starts pushing the idea that we are all content producers (an old idea at Apple, which was at the source of their creating the iLife suite) and we can all make some money at producing that content. Having done so, Apple would not only have control of the music industry but could also assert itself in the TV and movie space.

Dr. Horrible was an experiment by Joss Whedon during the writers strike, and one that we enjoyed thoroughly. Could we see a world where the Dr. Horribles aren’t the experiment, but the norm? (And will they bring endless “cat on piano” videos — fart apps of the media space, the lot of them — along for the ride?)

Alex Lindsay from the PixelCorps has likewise been saying for a years that Apple now has everything in place, from Final Cut Pro on the backend through to Macs, Apple TVs, and iPods and iPhones on the front to offer a totally integrated media ecosystem with lower barriers of entry than have traditionally been in place.

Will Apple pull that trigger? Do we want them to?

iTunes LP and iTunes Extra First Step by Apple Towards User-Generated Media Store? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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More than 2 years post-iPhone launch, no news on Flash ever coming to the iPhone, yet Apple is pressing ahead with technologies like H.264 video (YouTube App’s been using it since day one), HTML 5 and CSS animation (iPhone Safari supported them first), HTTP Live Streaming, and now WebGL for hardware accelerated 3D-graphics, and TuneKit, the framework behind the new iTunes LP rich media content.

Read on to find out what they are, how they work, and why they might make plugins like Flash increasingly unnecessary…

Says developer blog Wolfire:

WebGL is basically an initiative to bring 3D graphics into web browsers natively, without having to download any plugins. This is achieved by adding a few things to HTML5, namely, defining a JavaScript binding to OpenGL ES 2.0 and letting you draw things into a 3D context of the canvas element.

This would bring 3D-gaming (or any 3D application) right into the browser with hardware acceleration, with no plugin like Flash needed to hog your memory, heat up your processor, or crash the browser. (Browsers can do all of those things well enough without the extra help). In addition to WebKit (which is the foundation of Apple’s Safari, Google’s Chrome, Palm’s Web, BlackBerry’s just-purchased Torch Mobile, and some Nokia devices), Firefox and Opera are also supporting it. Internet Explorer? Shrug.

TuneKit is the foundation behind iTunes 9’s new iTunes LP and iTunes Extras formats, according to AppleInsider:

Similar to Apple’s use of the SproutCore JavaScript framework to build its MobileMe web apps, TuneKit provides media developers with a familiar JavaScript framework for creating interactive bonus materials. TuneKit, like SproutCore, proves that a proprietary middleware runtime plugin such as Adobe Flash or Microsoft Silverlight is simply unnecessary to deliver this kind of interactive media content, thanks in part to rapid advances in JavaScript rendering engine optimization.

Like TiPb, they couldn’t help but notice the 720p nature of the current iTunes LP and iTunes Extras formats seem destined for the Apple TV, and we’re keeping the oft-rumored iTablet on that list as well.

Adobe Flash on the other hand, still hasn’t produced an optimized version for Mac OS X, never mind iPhone OS X, according to Apple is the number one cause of browser crashes, continues to experience security threats (though Javascript is no angel here either), and is under increasing privacy scrutiny due to Flash cookies. (If you’ve never checked, here’s the page on Adobe’s site that shows which websites are storing information about you in the Flash plugin).

Since, at the end of the day, users don’t care about Flash or WebKit/browser technology, they just want their videos and games, things like WebGL and TuneKit could very well replace large amounts of Flash (and competing formats like SilverLight) on the web, especially the mobile web.

And personally I’m fine with that. A series of cutting edge, specific, highly optimized technologies are sometimes better than aging, overextended architectures anyway (feel free to insert iTunes jokes here).

WebGL and TuneKit, Not Flash, the Future for iPhone? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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