Apple has teamed up with the Bank of America to help boost donations to its RED campaign in the fight against AIDS. The collaborative effort, which has also drafted in the musical tones of Irish rock band U2, sees the Bank of America pledging one dollar for every download of U2's new song "Invisible" on iTunes, and since the song is free from Apple's online music store, it should help the charity pick up some much-needed capital in the fight against one of the world's deadliest diseases.
In a world where we can manage our iPhones and iPads from the cloud and need never plug them into a computer thanks to iCloud, it's easy to forget that actually iTunes exists for the very same purpose. We know that we don't all use it here at Redmond Pie, and at least one writer doesn't even have an iTunes library to call his own. Music streaming services like Spotify and Rdio make iTunes even more redundant, so when Apple released iTunes 11.1.4 today it took some work to get excited about it.
Apple has signaled the approaching end of the year by publishing its "Best of 2013" page on the iTunes Store. The dedicated page on iTunes concentrates on digital products which the company offers for users to purchase and download, including iOS apps, music, podcasts, books and movies. As well as listing the most successful consumer downloads of the year, Apple also outlined their own choices in each category by having an Editors’ Pick for things like app and album of the year.
Beyoncé's new, self-titled fifth studio album has shattered sales records on Apple's iTunes Store by shifting a mammoth 828,773 copies in its first three days. With 617,213 copies sold in the U.S. alone, the album is already well on its way to becoming the singer's fifth solo album to pass the million sales criteria for Platinum certification in the States, and considering that at present, it's only available on iTunes, it's a great achievement.
Apple has today updated their iTunes software to version 11.1.3. The latest iTunes release from the Cupertino giant is an attempt to fix a number of niggling and ongoing bugs that were introduced as part of the last iteration of the software. Version 11.1.3 follows hot on the heels of the refresh to version 4.0 of Apple's Remote app for iOS that has been refactored to work in perfect sync with iTunes 11.1.
Although Apple's vast array of iTunes Store content is now consumed and accessed predominantly through mobile devices, the iTunes app is still an integral part of the entire infrastructure. It saw some drastic changes with version 10, which has since been fine tuned into a more functional version 11, and today, iTunes 11.1.1 has been released for both Windows and Mac. Aside from a few bug fixes, there really isn't all that much else to write home about, but it's certainly good to see Apple pushing the remedial update now, rather than merely waiting for a more noteworthy release to bundle it into.
You can now download iTunes 11.1 for both Windows PCs and OS X running Macs. You can find all of the important details, as well as download information, right after the break!
As the tech world preoccupies itself with soon-to-be-announced iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S, Apple has just begun rolling out its annual discounts to students preparing to go back to school. The promotion, which runs every year, sees some of the most popular charting albums reduced in price, and while it's not exactly educational, it does enable those with presumably less disposable cash to indulge in some new music.
Apple's often ignored Apple Store app for iOS will get an update this coming Tuesday, with Apple's current push on trying to get people to buy its hardware from its own stores apparently the crux of the update. Links to content on Apple's app and book stores will also be front and center.
Apple officially announced iTunes Radio for iOS 7 at WWDC this week, but as is the case with most fledgling features and applications, it's limited only to those residing within the confinements of the United States. The good news is, however, that those living elsewhere can also get in on iOS 7 beta’s iTunes Radio right now, provided they have, or can create, a U.S. iTunes account. Details after the break!
