To iTunes, with love — for retrieving my music collection

After the author's iPod and computer died, iTunes helped restore her MP3s. [Photo: threefingeredlord/Flickr]

In a stunning reversal of my life-long good luck, my newish Mac mini computer blew its hard drive last month. This followed on the heels of the fatal crash of the five-year old iPod that had served as my back-up for thousands of songs, bought from iTunes, that were on my now-dead computer.

Two strikes - am I out? Is it too late to buy the back-up copy of my music that iTunes has been offering me, for about $250?

I searched the iTunes site in vain for any remedy, and finally, without much hope, made a phone appointment to speak to Apple support. The rep called, exactly at the appointed time, and said that iTunes would reload my music, gratis, to another computer. (No, I never told them I worked at Consumer Reports; we’re explicitly forbidden from using our affiliation for personal gain.)

I didn’t quite believe her. But soon after I brought home a new computer, an iTunes rep, Sandra, working on Mountain time, began to retrieve my songs and sending them to me via e-mail. I was thrilled—and also secretly convinced my good fortune was the result of good karma from skipping illegal downloads and buying all the songs in a way that supported artists for their work.

Concert videos: A growing, cost-saving alternative to seeing shows live

Leonard Cohen live at Royal Albert Hall, London [Photo: Wonker]

Though I’m an ardent music fan, I expect to buy fewer tickets than usual during the imminent summer concert season. It’s not just the recession, middle-aged ennui, and the hassle of getting seats for some shows. I’m also driven by a boom in concert videos, including recent recordings by some artists I might otherwise have seen live this summer.

Watching performers at home is of course less exciting than seeing them in the flesh—though it also avoids the possibility of, say, the guy behind you singing along loudly with every song, as I once had to endure at a solo acoustic performance by Neil Young. And music-performance discs certainly vary in how well they approximate the concert experience. But the savings over buying a ticket can be substantial, and you can see a lot more  than you do from your seat at a large venue (especially if you’re a cheapskate like me who buys the least pricey seats).

I recently passed on seeing Leonard Cohen at Radio City Music Hall in New York, a stop on the folk legend’s comeback tour. The cost of seats even in the back rows topped $100, including hefty handling charges, and the view of the Canadian chansonnier from there was distant indeed. (You can see what I mean by clicking on “Third Mezzanine” on the Radio City seating plan, mousing over the back rows, and viewing the photos of the view from each section.)

Top gadgets for Mom

Image: Mike "Dakinewavamon" Kline/Flickr

Don’t think that electronics make good gifts only for guys. Women—especially Moms—love them too. A recent study from Retrevo.com found that while more men than women consider themselves tech savvy, more women were able to correctly identify what “MB” refers to (megabyte) and what "1080p" stands for in HDTV jargon (the highest level of high definition).

We picked some gadgets we thought our Moms might like and mention a recommended model or two. (Value was a key factor, given the economy.) For each, also check out our buying advice and Ratings (available to subscribers).

An e-book reader. An electronic book reader may appeal to moms who are voracious readers. Amazon's Kindle has an edge in convenience over the rival Sony Reader; the Kindle receives content wirelessly. However, a new Kindle is expected to be announced on Wednesday May 6, which could complicate your shopping.

A digital camera. Easier to use than ever, many digital cameras today come with presets that will let mom optimize her shots in different light settings. "Smart camera" features, like face detection (and sometimes smile detection) have tended to work well in the models we've tested. Most point-and-shoots also have an image stabilizer to minimize camera shake. If you buy a camera as a gift, be sure to throw in a memory card—the ones included with the camera usually have a paltry amount of space.

Recommended for Mom: The Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS ELPH, $150. This subcompact has many of the above features and fits neatly into a pocket or purse. Digital camera Ratings & Buying Advice: digital cameras

Amazon discounts top MP3s in UK, raises price in U.S.

Following iTunes’ lead, Amazon has raised the price for downloading some songs (i.e. the popular ones) from 99 cents to $1.29. A strange move, considering only yesterday it discounted the price of top-hit songs in the UK to £0.29, down from the normal £0.59.

Walmart has followed suit, raising the cost of popular songs to $1.24 each (up from 94 cents).

The takeaway: What's going on here? iTunes, the Hertz of online music, raises prices, offering an opening to the Avis, Amazon, and the #2 player responds by also raising prices? One analyst sees the hike as rooted in Apple's longstanding resistance to variable pricing, even as record companies pressured them to sell hotter songs for more. Now that Apple has relented, says analyst Matt Rosoff on his cnet blog, Amazon is "probably responding to price increases by the record labels, which were made possible by Apple's capitulation." He adds: "I can't imagine Amazon's excited about raising prices in a recession."

Another explanation for the hikes by both iTunes and Amazon: Record companies are trying to push back against the trend to people cherry-picking individual tracks, rather than buying the entire album. Note that prices for buying entire albums from both online stores remain unchanged, at $10 or less— typically a considerable discount from buying all the tracks individually.

iTunes varies prices; Amazon MP3s also changing prices?

As announced earlier this year at Macworld, iTunes has introduced variable pricing to its online music store, making good on a promise it made back in January. While many songs will remain at the standard 99-cent price, others are being boosted to $1.29. There are also some 69-cent songs, though some bloggers have lamented they can find very few of these.

Meantime, Amazon has also begun varying music prices at its British online store, with some songs now selling for 29 pence, about 40% down from the standard 50 pence. No signs yet of a similar shift at the North American store, which still charges a standard 99 cents per song.

The takeaway: The dearth of low-priced iTunes downloads may make Amazon worth a closer look for many music fans—especially if their North American store follows their U.K. one by cutting prices. As it is, even before iTunes price changes, Amazon was second in sales to Apple's iTunes store. And now, a new study from NPD showed Amazon is surprisingly popular—especially with older MP3 buyers. One reason may be the option Amazon offers to older music buyers who still buy CDs to comparison shop for discs and downloads on one site. Also, Amazon, too, offers select songs for less than their standard 99-cent rate.

iPod Shuffle review: Cool but compromised

The new iPod Shuffle succeeds in its leading innovation: It recites song and playlist information to you clearly and intelligibly. But the new pint-sized Apple music player is compromised in some other ways.

Having now used the new $79 device, which launched this week, here's my take on its strengths and weaknesses:

Pluses:

The voice feature works fine. This is key, since the new VoiceOver technology aims to compensate for the Shuffle's lack of a screen—its leading drawback.

A gentle squeeze on the remote—mounted on the cord for the right earbud—prompts the music to fade and a voice to announce the name of the song and artist; the song then returns to normal volume. I found the voice to be pleasant and intelligible. That's in spite of the fact I was using the device synced to a PC, in which the voice is a bit more mechanical-sounding than when the Shuffle is synced to a Mac—as this Apple demo demonstrates.

Accessing playlists is a bit less convenient, I found. To do so, you continue squeezing the remote as it begins to recite voice information. The Shuffle then begins naming the playlists you've loaded onto the device. I found the pause between each announcement a bit trying, and changing lists to be slower than on players with a screen.

Apple revamps the iPod Shuffle

Apple has announced a new version of the iPod Shuffle that seeks to overcome the biggest drawback to the company’s pint-sized player: The lack of a screen to display information on what’s playing. The fix?  The new Shuffle, available now for $79, will read that information to you.

Squeeze a remote found on the cord for the right earbud, Apple says, and a synthetic VoiceOver feature will read the name of the song that’s playing, and the artist. And where the old Shuffle allowed for only a single playlist, the new one allows multiple lists; you select among them also using the remote. VoiceOver will speak in 14 different languages, including Mandarin, Swedish, and Greek.

At 4 gigabytes (GB), enough to hold about 1,000 songs, the new Shuffle doubles the capacity of the old 2 GB Shuffle. The 1GB, $49 version will remain available but will seemingly be unchanged; that is, it won’t talk to you.

The 4GB Shuffle is also about half the size of the old models, at 1.8 in. x 0.7 in. x 0.3 in., and is also lighter (at 3.8 oz. vs. 5 oz. for the predecessors).

We'll try out the Shuffle’s new features soonest, to report back on the degree to which they compensate for what have always been significant snags to Apple’s pint-sized iPod. In the meantime, check out our Ratings of iPods and other MP3 players (available to subscribers), including the older Shuffle that remains available.

—Mike Gikas

Sirius XM: What to do given the recent news

Last week, recently merged Sirius XM mailed some of its subscribers with a "special opportunity" to avoid a price hike on their second satellite radio receivers by prepaying for one, two, or three years of service at the old rates, in advance of the March 11 date when rates will change. This week, in turn, came more news on the woes of the company, including a further drop in its stock price, which is trading at 6 cents today, and a possible bankruptcy filing next week.

Here are some of the questions raised by the offer and the recent news, followed by our advice on what to do in response:

Is the price hike even kosher? Wasn't holding the line on price increases a condition of the companies' merger?

Yes—on service to the first radio in your subscription. Because the imminent price hike is to additional radios, it's allowed, at least under the letter of the merger agreement. After March 11, the cost to Sirius XM subscribers for each additional receiver goes up to $9 per radio from $7. And listening to Sirius XM over the Internet, which used to be free, will now cost $3 extra a month, for all subscribers.

What if the company indeed goes into bankruptcy?

It depends on the type of bankruptcy they might declare. If Sirius XM does file for bankruptcy, it's anticipated to be a reorganization under Chapter 11, in which the company is expected to continue to provide service. Of course, it's possible that the company might at some point file for Chapter 7 liquidation, in which programming and customer service would likely come to an abrupt halt.

Macworld: The iTunes Music Store gets a refresh

As of Tuesday, on the basis of a new arrangement with the major labels, iTunes moved to a 3-tiered pricing structure ($0.69, $0.99, and $1.29), with 80 percent of its 10 million tracks (at 256 kbits) available DRM-free and the other 20 percent to follow by the end of the quarter.

iTunes is still the number one channel for online music sales in the world, continuing to beat Amazon and Walmart. It has sold over 6 billion songs and has 75 million unique credit-card customers. Recently it offered an "iTunes Plus" section, where the tracks were DRM-free, but usually at a higher price.

I'm sure a lot of people in the larger universe applaud the new pricing structure and dumping of DRM. It just didn't hit the peak applause meter inside Moscone. But then, one has to first grasp the concept of DRM before the meaning of the announcement becomes clear.

People with iPods who download music regularly get it. Casual iTunes users (and maybe more than a few Macworld attendees) who play vintage 'Stones CDs at home may not. But digital customers have been clamoring for DRM-free, tiered-pricing for years (like they already get at Amazon), so this comes as welcome news. Plus, if it restores interest in iTunes for Limewire users and others who operate outside the music industry’s reach, the RIAA might be happier, too.

That's it for the major Keynote announcements.

Of course, it wouldn't be a Macworld Keynote without a musical guest to close the show. For this last time it was grand old crooner Tony Bennett, singing "The Best is Yet to Come", and his classic "I Left My Heart in San Francisco."

After the Keynote, I got a look at some of HP's new products and took in events sponsored by VMWare and Microsoft's Mac Business Unit.

More on those to come.

—Thomas A. Olson

Macworld: A closer look at the new iLife

They may not have been as earth-shaking as the iPhone, but the new products Apple announced Tuesday offer lots of goodies.

Here are the details on iLife '09:

The big hits of this upgrade were iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand.

Previous versions of iPhoto let you create libraries of images based on Events. The new version adds Faces and Places.

New face recognition technology lets you tag images by a subject's face, and create custom directories on that basis. When new images are imported, iPhoto will scan the faces in the image and ask you if that is in fact your child, spouse or best friend, and if so, tag and file the image accordingly.

iPhoto '09 also offers "GPS geotagging" that lets you sort images by Place (the location at which they were taken). Using Google mapping technology, a map is displayed with "pins" in it, representing the places one has visited. Click on the pin to access those pics from last winter's Aspen trip. iPhoto now includes a database of thousands of locations, including satellite images.

There's also one-button support for Facebook and Flickr that's totally interactive. You and a Facebook friend may be sharing an image with someone in it that you don't know, but your friend does. If your friend adds that identifying information, it will route itself back to your iPhoto library and autoupdate.

There are also new slideshow themes, the face recognition can auto-center faces in the slideshow, new music and timing functions, and the Book feature includes the new map-generation technology. Slideshows can be exported to iPhone and played using a 99-cent app.