The reason that the 1080p versions of the iTunes Store videos can be a good deal better without doubling the file size—or worse—can be found in the tech specs of the new AppleTV and the new iPad. The AppleTV now supports H.264 compression for 1920x1080 resolution video at 30 frames per second using High or Main Profile up to level 4.0, the iPad and the iPhone 4S the same up to level 4.1. The profile indicates what kind of decompression algorithms the H.264 decoder has on board—the "High" profile obviously has some tricks up its sleeve that the "Main" or "Baseline" profiles known to previous devices don't support. The level value indicates how many blocks or bits per second a device can handle.

The A4 SoC that Apple used in the iPhone 4 and the second generation AppleTV as well as the A5 in the iPad 2 can handle Main Profile level 3.1, which is good enough for 1280x720 video at 30 frames per second. The original AppleTV can only handle 720p at 24 frames, and earlier devices are limited to SD video. This means that the increased 1080p resolution breaks compatibility with everything older than the iPhone 4S anyway, so Apple is free to use the high profile, resulting in better compression for a given quality level. The files are larger, but not that much larger. Whether the increased resolution comes with extra visual fidelity, however—and thus worth the extra download time—will vary from movie to movie and show to show.

In an age when Apple has become the top music retailer without selling a single physical disc, audio engineers are increasingly creating specially mastered versions of songs and albums designed to counteract the audio degradation caused by compression. Though audiophiles typically scoff at paying for compressed audio, preferring vinyl or high-end digital formats such as DVD-A, mastering engineers are doing their best to create digital masters that can pass through Apple's iTunes algorithms with minimal sonic corruption.

To highlight work done to improve the sound of compressed music files, Apple recently launched a "Mastered for iTunes" section on the iTunes Store. It now also provides a set of recommendations for engineers to follow when preparing master files for submission to the iTunes Store. To qualify for the "Mastered for iTunes" label, Apple says that files should be submitted in the highest resolution format possible, and remastered content should sound significantly better than the original.

How does this work? Ars spoke with Masterdisk Chief Engineer Andy VanDette, who recently completed a project remastering the bulk of Rush's back catalogue. As part of the process, VanDette created special versions of each song specifically for uploading to the iTunes Store. He described the often lengthy, trial-and-error process of trying to make iTunes tracks sound as close as possible to polished CD remasters.

So you’ve bought iTunes Match, which gives you access to shiny new 256kbps AAC versions of your audio files. But by default your iTunes library is still packed with your old files. So how best to upgrade all of those old files, in place, to the new versions?

Here’s how to do it—keeping in mind that you can only do this after you've completely turned iTunes Match on:

Make a Smart Playlist Create a Smart Playlist with the following attributes:

Bit Rate is less than 256kbps
Media Kind is Music
Any of the following are true: (to create this conditional, option-click on the plus button in the Smart Playlist window) iCloud status is Matched, iCloud status is Purchased

If you’ve ever had to restore an iOS device from its iTunes backup—for example, if you’ve upgraded to a new phone, or if Apple has replaced an iPhone that was having problems—there’s a good chance you’ve come across one of the most frustrating bugs in the iTunes/iOS 4 system: Much of your painstakingly created Home-screen organization is wiped out. Specifically, most of your third-party apps are no longer on the screens where you placed them, and while a few of your folders may remain, even those are missing most of their original contents (which are instead scattered across various screens).

I was at work the other week, doing a repetitive task of the sort that provides an opportunity to listen to music. I’d recently purchased an album and had stored it in the iTunes library on my home computer, but had not yet loaded the new songs onto my iPhone. There had to be a way to make iTunes at home share its music to my work computer so that I could listen to the new music. A few internet searches turned up some interesting information as well as a solution.

Maybe you can't appreciate this now, but the summer of 2003 was the biggest turning point that independent music has ever had. Until that point, almost no big business would sell independent music. (That's why I had to start CD Baby, because nobody would sell my music.)

By iTunes saying they wanted everything, then their competitors needing to keep up, we were in! Since the summer of 2003, every musician everywhere can sell all their music in almost every outlet online. Do you realize how amazing that is?

But there was one problem.

iTunes wasn't getting back to us.

Yahoo, Rhapsody, Napster and the rest were all up and running. But iTunes wasn't returning our signed contract.

Här finns länkar som öppnar ljudet utanför Sveriges Radios webbradio. Vi erbjuder alla våra kanaler i AAC (32, 96 och 192 kbps) och MP3 (192 kbps). Länkarna finns i två typer av spellistor, M3U och PLS, eftersom olika spelare har olika behov.

Enkelt beskrivet bör du som inte vet med dig att just din spelare föredrar PLS testa M3U i första hand, då M3U fungerar i de flesta spelare!

VLC och Itunes klarar MP3 och AAC, i både M3U och PLS. Windows Media Player kan spela upp MP3 från M3U-spellistor. Enklaste sättet att höra vad som fungerar är att prova!

For the latest release of Consume, we wanted to include two buttons: one that linked to all our apps on the App Store, and another that let users easily write a review on iTunes.
These both seem like common things iPhone developers would want to do, so we decided to share the results of our research. Some of the information contained below is obvious for experienced iTunes users, while other links are rarer.

Kottke tipsar om en smart spellista för iTunes.

Hur man får last.fm-strömmar i iTunes. Se även kommentarerna!

Att Apple numera säljer avsnitt av tv-serier på iTMS är en revolution inom tv-världen. Enligt Blog Maverik kan detta vara räddningen för kabel-tv ("Network TV").

Ett intressant alternativ till iTunes volymjusteringsfunktion.

Mac Observer sammanfattar en intressant intervju med Steve Jobs om Apple och vägen fram till OS X. Här får vi bland annat veta att det var när Adobe tackade nej till samarbete som Apple valde att göra egna program för digital video.