TidBITS#702/20-Oct-03
=====================
This week we unveil a completely new publishing project, the Take
Control series of electronic books, written by some of the leading
Macintosh authors. We also look in depth at Apple's music-related
announcements, including iTunes for Windows, marketing deals with
AOL and Pepsi, and iPod improvements and gadgets. Also, DealBITS
returns with a Business Card Composer deal! In the news, Apple
reports a $44 million Q4 profit and DragThing 5.0 arrives.
Topics:
MailBITS/20-Oct-03
DealBITS Drawing: Business Card Composer
iTunes Music Store Expands to Windows, Audible, Indies
Do You Want to Take Control?
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/20-Oct-03
<http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-702.html>
<ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/issues/2003/TidBITS#702_20-Oct-03.etx>
Copyright 2003 TidBITS: Reuse governed by Creative Commons license
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MailBITS/20-Oct-03
------------------
**Apple Posts $44 Million Fourth Quarter Profit** -- Apple
Computer reported a $44 million profit on $1.715 billion in
revenue for its fourth fiscal quarter of 2003. Gross margins
for the quarter were at 26.6 percent, and international
customers accounted for only 38 percent of the revenue. Although
approximately $15 million of the quarter's revenues were due
to one-time events like stock repurchases and investment gains,
Apple shipped 787,000 Macs during the quarter (only part of which
included sales of Apple's new 15-inch PowerBooks and Power Mac G5
systems) as well as 336,000 iPods. Company representatives
estimate revenues for the next quarter - which includes the
much-anticipated holiday buying season - will increase to
approximately $1.9 billion. [GD]
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/oct/15results.html>
**DragThing 5.0 Does Its Thing, Again** -- TLA Systems has
released version 5.0 of the launcher utility DragThing, adding
Panther support (while keeping it compatible with Jaguar). There
are also many interface improvements, carried out in programmer
James Thomson's usual style: thorough, careful, clean, and
user-configurable to the nth degree. A new Window dock lists
application windows, making DragThing an even better Dock
replacement than before. Contextual menus are much more
powerful; particularly noteworthy is that documents dropped
onto an application's icon in a DragThing dock are remembered
in, and can be opened later from, that application's contextual
menu. Drag Thing 5 is a $12 upgrade for existing users, and $30
otherwise. A free 2.8 MB download provides two weeks of trial
time before disabling some features. [MAN]
<http://www.dragthing.com/english/about.html>
<http://www.dragthing.com/english/whatsnew.shtml>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06805>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06939>
DealBITS Drawing: Business Card Composer
----------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
When I think about creating business cards, two problems come to
mind. Most annoying is the waste of hundreds of unused cards every
time I change my phone number or address, all thanks to large
minimum orders from most printing houses. Also perturbing is
the effort of creating a decent-looking business card using
traditional graphics software - I can do it, but it's more work
than should be necessary. A solution to both of these problems
comes from BeLight Software's Business Card Composer, an elegant
Mac OS X program that helps you design attractive business cards
and print them on standard business card stock in consumer inkjet
printers.
<http://www.belightsoft.com/composer/>
In this week's DealBITS drawing, you can enter to win one of
three electronic copies of Business Card Composer, each worth
$40. Entrants who aren't among our three lucky winners will receive
a discount on Business Card Composer. Enter at the DealBITS page
linked below, and be sure to read and agree to the drawing rules
on that page. Rest assured that all information gathered is
covered by our comprehensive privacy policy. One note: be careful
with your spam filters, since you must be able to receive email
from my address to learn if you've won.
<http://www.tidbits.com/dealbits/belight.html>
<http://www.tidbits.com/about/privacy.html>
We'll announce the winner in next week's issue of TidBITS, and
we'll also individually notify everyone who enters.
iTunes Music Store Expands to Windows, Audible, Indies
------------------------------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Last week, Apple launched what the company calls the "second
generation" of the iTunes Music Store with a slew of related
announcements, including iTunes for Windows, a new version of
iTunes for the Mac, several new marketing alliances for the
iTunes Music Store, and a useful update to the iPod.
**iTunes for Windows** -- Most important of the announcements is
undoubtedly the release of iTunes for Windows, which opens up
the iTunes Music Store to oodles of Windows users and takes over
as the primary interface to PC-connected iPods. Without a close
examination (installing and testing PC software isn't high on our
list of priorities in busy weeks), it sounds as though iTunes for
Windows is extremely similar to iTunes for the Mac. iTunes 4.1 for
Windows requires Windows 2000 or XP running on a PC with at least
a 500 MHz Pentium-class processor and 128 MB of RAM. It also needs
QuickTime 6.4, which is included in the iTunes for Windows
download, accounting for part of its 19.1 MB.
<http://www.apple.com/itunes/>
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/oct/16itms.html>
When we covered the announcement of iTunes for Windows last week,
we said, "Look for perky press releases from Apple in the coming
weeks that gloat about the number of downloads from Windows
users." We called it - Apple today announced that more than one
million copies of iTunes for Windows were downloaded in the first
three and a half days after it was released. Also in that time,
iTunes users purchased more than one million songs. There's some
pent up demand on the part of Windows users - when Apple first
released the iTunes Music Store, it took a full seven days to
reach the one million song mark.
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/oct/20itunes.html>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07337>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbser=1240>
**iTunes for the Mac** -- Also released simultaneously last week
via Software Update were QuickTime 6.4 and iTunes 4.1 for Mac
OS X. iTunes 4.1 enables you to synchronize On-The-Go playlists
or voice notes that you create on your iPod with iTunes, can burn
large playlists to multiple CDs or DVDs if necessary, lets you
drag links from iTunes to Web browsers or email programs (you can
also Control-click links and choose Copy iTunes Music Store URL),
and lets you buy Audible spoken word content from the iTunes Music
Store. iTunes 4.1 is a 6.2 MB download and QuickTime 6.4 is a 19.8
download.
<http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/>
<http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/>
**iTunes Music Store Changes** -- The new link copying
capabilities of iTunes reveal some interesting implications
of the iTunes Music Store. First off, every song in the iTunes
Music Store now has a unique identifier, much like an ISBN number
for books. We're guessing it's an ISRC (International Standard
Recording Code) code, which are specific to individual recordings
(even of the same song). ISRC codes are free, although they aren't
necessarily trivial to acquire. In the U.S., they're available
via the RIAA (yes, _that_ RIAA, the Recording Industry Association
of America, bringers of litigation against twelve year-olds).
Internationally, the a good place to start is the IFPI
(International Federation of the Phonographic Industry).
<http://www.riaa.org/issues/audio/isrc_faq.asp>
<http://www.ifpi.org/isrc/>
Second, Apple has created a Web-based tool for searching Apple's
music offerings, and which generates HTML that you can use to link
directly to any song in the iTunes Music Store. Unfortunately,
Apple has said the financial margins are too thin for the company
to offer any sort of an affiliate program, which would be an ideal
use for this type of linking; but people will still no doubt be
interested in adding song and album lists to their Web pages or
weblogs that go directly to the iTunes Music Store.
<http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/itmsLinkMaker>
Along with these changes to support deep linking, notice that
the iTunes Music Store now supports gift certificates and monthly
allowances for song purchases, and that iTunes displays album
notes, sometimes including reviews, for many albums. We echoed
the comments of many iTunes Music Store users with respect to all
three issues back when the iTunes Music Store first launched, so
it's nice to see these changes.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07175>
Apple is now claiming that by the end of October, the iTunes Music
Store will have 400,000 songs provided by the five major labels
and more than 200 independent music labels. That's twice as many
songs as were available initially in the iTunes Music Store. It's
also the first public word from Apple about offering music from
independent labels, though it has been known that Apple has been
working with independent labels for several months. We're a bit
surprised that Apple isn't saying more about the addition of the
independents, unless Apple is either planning another announcement
soon or downplaying the addition to avoid harming the relationship
with the major labels.
**Audible** -- Apple also announced the addition to the iTunes
Music Store of more than 5,000 titles of Audible's spoken word
content: audio books, radio shows, audio editions of magazines,
speeches, lectures, and more. Audio books seem to be either the
same price or $1 cheaper than the same titles on Audible's Web
site (for non-subscribers of Audible's $15 and $20 monthly plans,
which are likely still a better deal for those who listen to two
or more audio books each month).
<http://www.audible.com/>
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/oct/16audible.html>
The ease of use of the iTunes Music Store may significantly
increase the attraction of Audible's spoken word content. It's
easy to see, for instance, quickly purchasing an audio book to
play in your iPod on a long car trip - just the effort of doing
that through Audible's generic Web interface before might have
been a significant barrier.
**AOL, Sugared Water to Promote iTMS** -- On the marketing side of
the equation, Apple announced two substantial initiatives designed
to keep the iTunes Music Store leading the pack of legal online
music distribution services. Apple's agreement with AOL will give
an estimated 25 million AOL users in the United States single-
click registration to the iTunes Music Store by integrating the
entire iTunes catalog into AOL's existing music site, AOL Music.
Under the agreement, by the end of 2003 AOL users will be able to
preview and purchase music from the iTunes Music Store just as any
other registered iTunes user. Apple wins by radically expanding
the potential customer base for the iTunes Music Store, and AOL
wins by hitching its online music offerings to the most successful
commercial digital music distribution system around, rather than
having to compete against it.
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/oct/16aol.html>
In addition, Apple is teaming with Pepsi - once famously
characterized by Steve Jobs (when trying to convince John Sculley
to become Apple's CEO) as a provider of "sugared water" - to give
away up to 100 million songs via the iTunes Music Store. Beginning
01-Feb-04 with a Super Bowl advertisement, winning codes will be
randomly seeded in the bottle caps of 100 million one-liter and
twenty-ounce bottles of the company's Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, and
Sierra Mist soft drinks. Consumers will be able to enter a winning
code into the iTunes Music Store and choose any 99 cent song from
the iTunes Music Store catalog. (Complete details aren't available
yet, but don't be surprised if this promotion is limited to U.S.
residents.)
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/oct/16pepsi.html>
Of course, to redeem a winning bottle cap, the consumer must
have appropriate iTunes and QuickTime software installed on a
Mac or Windows system, thus putting the iTunes software in front
of millions of sugar-crazed eyeballs which might never have
considered iTunes otherwise. Although it may seem odd to give away
as many as 100 million songs when to date the iTunes Music store
has sold only 14 million tracks, you can bet Apple and Pepsi
realize not all 100 million codes will be successfully redeemed,
and that Apple will only have to pay distributors and music
publishers for successfully redeemed codes. There's no limit on
the number of codes someone can redeem, so we'll probably see a
market springing up to find and redeem caps that would otherwise
have gone unused.
In all, the initiative could be a tremendous boost for the
iTunes service, and Apple CEO Steve Jobs is correct when he
states, "Pepsi has marketed their products through music for
generations, and this is going to be another one that is
remembered for decades" - we just hope it isn't remembered
the same way we remember Michael Jackson's hair catching on fire.
**iPod 2.1 Update and Belkin Accessories** -- Alongside these
iTunes and iTunes Music Store announcements, Apple has updated the
software for recent iPods (those equipped with a dock connector).
iPod Software 2.1, available from Software Update, now transfers
the On-The-Go playlist to iTunes, no longer turns the backlight
off after a few seconds while you're using the iPod's controls,
changes the battery meter to a solid bar from a set of five
indicator levels, and improves scrolling through large playlists.
For Windows users, the update enables playback of AAC-encoded
music files, such as those purchased from the iTunes Music Store.
The update also adds a Music Quiz game: the iPod plays a selection
of music from your library, and you need to choose the correct
song from a list of five titles.
<http://www.apple.com/ipod/>
More interestingly, the iPod Software 2.1 also supports two new
Belkin accessories, also announced last week. The $50 Belkin iPod
Voice Recorder plugs into the top of the iPod and enables you to
record hours of voice memos, interviews, and lectures using an
omnidirectional microphone. The device includes a 16 mm speaker
for playback, requires no extra software, and synchronizes voice
notes to iTunes when the iPod is connected to a Mac or Windows
computer.
<http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?productLearnMore=T7419LL/A>
Of more utility to travelers is the $100 Belkin Media Reader
for iPod, a device that plugs into the iPod's dock connector port
and accepts a variety of storage cards used in digital cameras:
Compact Flash (Type 1 and 2), Smart Media, Secure Digital (SD),
Sony Memory Stick, and MultiMedia Card (MMC). You can use the
Belkin Media Reader to store digital photos on the iPod for later
transfer to a computer. iPhoto recognizes the iPod as a photo
storage device and can import the pictures into your photo
library. With the Belkin Media Reader for iPod, you'll be able
to take just your digital camera and iPod on vacation, without
having to worry about lugging your laptop along just to download
photos. Of course, you can't view the photos on the iPod itself;
perhaps a future iPod with a color screen will make that possible.
<http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?
productLearnMore=T7418LL/A>
**The New Standard** -- With these changes, Apple has cemented the
position of the iTunes Music Store as the leading online music
service. It's cross-platform, simple to use, doesn't rely on
egregious copy protection, and has Apple's marketing muscle behind
it. If any serious competition is going to appear, it will have
to kick in soon.
PayBITS: Interesting news and analysis? Help us continue to
bring you the latest Apple news by contributing to TidBITS!
<http://www.tidbits.com/about/support/contributors.html>
Read more about PayBITS: <http://www.tidbits.com/paybits/>
Do You Want to Take Control?
----------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
It's been a long time since I've been this excited. This week
we're unveiling a completely new publishing project called
Take Control, which is a series of electronic books written
by leading Macintosh authors. With Take Control, we're creating
a new publishing model for the 21st century that integrates the
best practices of online, magazine, and book publishing to bring
you the timeliest, most focused, most cost-effective, and highest
quality technical documentation possible.
To make Take Control possible, we combined my years of publishing
experience and numerous contacts, Tonya's editing and project
management skills, and the expert knowledge and writing abilities
of some of the best authors in the Macintosh world. Our initial
group of authors includes such familiar names as Jeff Carlson,
Glenn Fleishman, Dan Frakes, Joe Kissell, Kirk McElhearn, Matt
Neuburg, and Todd Stauffer, along with Tonya and myself.
Let me explain what the Take Control series will do for you.
**Why Take Control?** At some point or another, we've all felt as
though we've lost control of our computers, as though we're at sea
in a rough and increasingly complex world. Perhaps the fault lies
with a poorly designed interface, bad documentation, a bug in a
program, or even low-level disk corruption. But for most of us,
identifying the source of the problem isn't nearly as important
as getting our work done.
That's where the Take Control ebooks come in. We want to help you
regain control in the fastest, most cost-effective way possible.
We'll be publishing practical Take Control ebooks on specific
topics, starting with Mac OS X 10.3 Panther (if that's not a topic
people will want to take control of, I don't know what is!) and
expanding our coverage from there.
Our first title will be the essential "Take Control of Upgrading
to Panther," written by Joe Kissell to help you start off on the
right foot with Mac OS X 10.3. Should you rely on the standard
upgrade, or does Archive and Install make more sense for you?
What if you're upgrading from Mac OS 9? What if you want to revert
back to Jaguar? Joe answers all these questions and many more,
providing the kind of expert advice you need _before_ you slide
the Panther CDs into your Mac. Next up will be "Take Control
of Customizing Panther," written by TidBITS Contributing Editor
Matt Neuburg. Matt picks up where Joe leaves off, showing you
a selection of the best ways you can customize the Panther
experience so your Mac looks and works the way you want, so
you're in control of the Mac, rather than the other way around.
We plan to release these titles shortly after Panther's launch on
24-Oct-03; send email to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> to sign up for
a low-volume announcement mailing list that will alert you to new
titles (confirmation is required to keep spam and worms from
subscribing). You can also visit the in-progress Take Control
Web page to learn more about individual titles.
<http://www.tidbits.com/takecontrol/>
**Size, Cost, and Focus** -- Take Control ebooks occupy the sweet
spot between magazine articles and books. Magazine articles are
generally quite short, starting at about 500 words for reviews
and 1,500 words for features. Magazines aren't necessarily cheap,
ranging from about $3 per issue for a year's subscription up to
$8 for a newsstand copy, and you can never assume that any given
issue will contain the information you need. On the other end of
the spectrum, you'll seldom find a book under 100 pages due to
binding, handling, and perceived value issues. Even the smallest
computer books cost $13 to $15. Most books are well over 100
pages, with some tomes pushing 1,000 pages. Many people find such
books too long and full of information they don't need, and they
dislike paying for, storing, and later disposing of the entire
thing just for a few choice bits.
We're aiming right between magazine articles and books. Take
Control ebooks will start at about 5,000 words (the size of an
average TidBITS issue) and increase in length as necessary to
cover the topic at hand. But each Take Control title will focus
tightly on a single topic, so you can be sure it contains just
what you need to know, written and edited by experts. As I've been
saying to authors, a Take Control ebook should tell you something
you don't know and can't figure out with a three-word search in
Google. As far as cost goes, our introductory pricing is simple
and affordable: $5 per ebook. We're confident that every Take
Control ebook will provide far more than $5 of value.
We're publishing in PDF format because it currently offers the
best features for ebooks. It's easy to read a Take Control ebook
on screen, because we've carefully designed the layout to be
highly legible, and we've employed all the PDF niceties such as
bookmarks, internal links, and live links to Web sites. Also, our
PDFs are completely searchable. For those who prefer to read on
paper, our design prints well on both inkjet and laser printers.
With Adobe Reader for Palm OS software, you can even read a Take
Control PDF on a Palm OS handheld. If you have a low opinion of
PDF, we encourage you to refine that to having a low opinion of
the lousy PDF files that most people generate. And with Panther's
new version of Preview, reading PDF files on the Mac should get
even better.
<http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readerforpalm.html>
We won't be applying any copy prevention technologies to Take
Control ebooks. Aside from the fact that we're philosophically
opposed to such measures, we strongly believe that if you treat
your customers like decent, honest people, they'll reward that
trust in kind.
The other advantage of an electronic format is that it will be
easy to update an ebook to address minor program updates, newly
discovered information, or small mistakes. Small updates will be
free to those who purchased the initial version of a Take Control
title; you'll just have to download a new copy. Here's how the
Take Control model ends up benefiting readers:
* Timely information from top authors
* Just what you need to know, nothing more
* Instant gratification from buying online
* Less expensive than books or newsstand magazines
* Unprotected PDF files are compatible with many platforms
* Looks good on screen and when printed
* Free updates for minor changes
**Authors Take Control** -- We like to pull back the covers on our
projects so you know what's going on behind the scenes. So, here's
how the Take Control series works for authors.
Our ideas for the Take Control series stem in large part from
years of experience writing for book and magazine publishers.
Since the best books and articles I've written have been for
publishers with whom I had good working relationships, we
designed the Take Control project around authors from the
beginning, and our initial group of authors have helped
greatly in refining the details.
The main attraction for authors is that Take Control ebooks have
an excellent risk/reward ratio. The risk is entirely bundled up
in the amount of work necessary to write the ebook, but for a
professional author who is expert in a field, a Take Control
ebook shouldn't take more than a couple of weeks from start
to finish. On the reward side of the equation, we split the
profits equally with authors; it's a straight 50:50 split after
transaction fees, which we're minimizing with a new back-end
approach made possible by our friends at Kagi. So, the advantages
for authors work out to:
* Excellent risk/reward ratio
* Quick turnaround time
* No earning limits for a popular title
* Easy updates to modify details
* Fast, collaborative publishing process
* Strong author community
The upshot is that we believe we'll be able to convince even more
top authors to write Take Control ebooks, and that will result
in even more Take Control goodness for readers. (Interested
in writing for the Take Control series? If you have writing
experience and are an expert in your field, drop me a note.)
**A Few Days of Patience** -- We wanted to announce Take Control
before Panther shipped so you'd know about Joe's "Take Control of
Upgrading to Panther" ebook before next week's issue of TidBITS
(which arrives after Panther ships on 24-Oct-03). But that does
mean waiting for a few days, so in the meantime, please sign
up for the Take Control Announcements list by sending email
to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> and feel free to ask questions on
TidBITS Talk. Now if only we had a few more hours in the days
between now and October 24th...
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/20-Oct-03
------------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
**Sender pays solution to spam** --Would a system that charges
spammers per message be effective in reducing the amount of
unsolicited commercial email we receive? And what effect would
it have on legitimate mailings, such as free weekly electronic
newsletters? (3 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2087>
**CA spam law article errata** -- Brady Johnson, who wrote last
week's article on California's anti-spam laws, makes a correction
and explores a few issues raised by readers. (1 message)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2086>
**If the CA law won't help** -- More discussion of anti-spam
measures, including ways of shifting the economic burden of
spam, and discerning which messages in fact qualify as spam.
(5 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2085>
$$
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