iTunes App Trick

Apple’s purchase of streaming music service Lala reportedly represents a shift in the company’s iTunes strategy. The aim: Make iTunes more Web friendly.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple is looking to give consumers more ways to access and manage iTunes without a download of the software.

The larger questions: Does Apple need to rethink the iTunes model? Is Apple missing a shift to Web listening habits? Can iTunes, the largest music service around, be getting tired?

Those questions can be answered with one word: Yes.

Streaming is coming around. And it’s even possible that subscription services will gain popularity. If Apple were to simply copy Microsoft’s Zune Pass subscription model it would have a hit. Apple is a no-show on subscriptions and streaming. Meanwhile, everyone has an iPod so there aren’t massive growth gains for iTunes ahead. In addition, iTunes has become rather bloated.

In other words, I’d welcome a more Web savvy iTunes. My usage beyond managing a music library has dropped off. I buy music at Amazon’s MP3 store more often than not. And streaming services are also very handy and garnering more of my consumption time.

Apple obviously sees these trends developing and sees Lala as a way to get in front of those changes. Business model transitions are often tricky and it should be interesting to see how Apple tweaks iTunes.

Apple is promoting its new iTunes LP format with a free downloadable selection of 20 holiday songs from a variety of popular artists.

The free iTunes Holiday Sampler download includes a variety of artists from wide-ranging genres, such as Toby Keith, Weezer, Glasvegas, Barry Manilow, and comedian Stephen Colbert. The iTunes LP collects the songs from a variety of albums and compilations, with Christmas classics such as “The First Noel,” “Silent Night, “Twelve Days of Christmas, and “O Holy Night.”

First released in September, the unique iTunes LP format bundles an entire album with additional bonus content and accompanying graphics and design, all encased in an iTunes window. Apple reportedly created the format with the intent of spurring sales of entire albums, rather than just singles.

iTunes LP content, originally codenamed “Cocktail,” is a multi-party collaboration between Apple and large record labels EMI, Sony, Warner and Universal. LP albums add audio, video, pictures, liner notes and more, exclusively to full-album purchases.

The iTunes Holiday Sampler includes lyrics for some of the songs, and album art showcasing what record the song was originally a part of. The winter graphics include falling snowflakes in the background.

Apple updated its Apple TV software to version 3.0 in October, bringing support for iTunes LP, as well as the movie bonus material iTunes Extras. With the update, users can view and play back iTunes LP content on their HDTV via the Apple TV.

Developer Molinker has been kicked out of the iTunes store for posting too many positive reviews, reducing the size of the store by almost one per cent.

Molinker is a Chinese developer who, before the weekend, had more than a thousand applications listed on the iTunes store. Now they have none at all, after an e-mail to Apple’s Phil Schiller got the developer suspended from the store without explanation.

Not that a great deal of explanation is needed: many of Molinker’s applications were simply photo logs and copycat apps, but you wouldn’t have guessed from the reviews, as a reader of iPhoneography pointed out:

42 of 44 US reviews are poorly written & [the reviewers] have only written reviews for either All Molinker photography apps… or the same 2 apps.

The company even managed to get one of its apps on the front page as a Staff Favourite, despite it having 205 5-star reviews, 91 1-star reviews and nothing in between: suggesting that it polarised opinion, to say the least.

iPhoneography’s author managed to get a message to Mr. Schiller who got back to him a week later saying “this developer’s apps have been removed from the App Store”. Sure enough, it’s as though the developer never existed.

Another blog, AppFreak, managed to get a statement out of Molinker who claimed bewilderment, and have been trying to get more information out of Apple:

We got email from Apple yesterday [Sunday 6th] which told us our contract is changed to pending status… we do not know what’s wrong so far.

The reviews of Molinker’s products certainly look suspicious, and it’s good to see that Apple is prepared to clear the shelves to such an extent. But it’s still slightly worrying that they were able to do so without notifying the company concerned, or offering any opportunity for appeal.