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Commerce Weekly: Google Wallet vs Isis is coming soon

Mobile wallets are in their infancy, yet pundits are already handicapping future showdowns. Also, in-app purchases show increasing promise as mobile revenue streams. (Commerce Weekly is produced as part of a partnership between O'Reilly and PayPal.)

Commerce Weekly: Target doesn't want to be the showroom for online retailers

Target asks vendors for exclusive products so online retailers can't sweep in with lower prices. Also, Apple's monster earnings included strong iTunes growth. (Commerce Weekly is produced as part of a partnership between O'Reilly and PayPal.)

An iTunes model for data

iTunes and other digital markets create value not just through content, but through the convenience of the distribution channel and the flexibility to buy only what you need. Factual CEO Gil Elbaz says a similar model could work for data.

Windows Phone apps are more expensive than iPhone apps

The Windows Marketplace for Mobile now has about 1,400 apps spread across 16 categories. In this short post I'll provide some basic statistics and compare it with the grandaddy of app stores: the U.S. iTunes store.

iPad Albums Via Publish Services

In the previous article, Creating iPad Albums With Lightroom, I talked about using Matt Kloskowski's export presets to create albums for your iPad. This method is accessible by both Lightroom 2 and Lightroom 3 users. However, if you have moved on to Lightroom 3 you can take advantage of one of its great new features--Publish Services. (Thanks to John Beardsworth whose comment on the previous article motivated me to get this article out of draft sooner rather than later!) A lot of the attention Publish Services has gotten revolves around the link between Lightroom and online services such as Flickr, Zenfolio, SmugMug, etc.. But the other side of this feature is the ability to create links between Lightroom and your drives. And it is this aspect we will exploit here.

App Inventor and the culture wars

Google's new App Inventor gets to the heart of the cultural difference between Apple and Google. If you haven't seen it yet, App Inventor is an experimental new SDK for the Android platform. What's different about App Inventor is that there's practically no coding per se; it's an entirely visual language. Its heritage goes back to Logo, but more directly,...

Popular iPhone games stay highly-ranked only for a few weeks

With 40,000+ Games to choose from, the list of Top 100 free and paid games are frequently scanned by iPhone gamers. In this short post, I'll share some basic statistics on popular games sold through the U.S. iTunes app store.

Four short links: 22 December 2009

Trading Shares in Milliseconds (Technology Review) -- With the rise of automation, the bulk of U.S. stock trading has moved from the once-crowded floor of Manhattan's New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to silent server farms run by exchanges and broker-dealers across the country: the proportion of all trades that the NYSE handles has shrunk from 80 percent in 2005...

'Twas the Holiday Season in the Digital Age

'Twas a night during the holidays, when all through the house Everyone was connecting and using their mouse. The screens were alight and holding their stares, While holiday music from iTunes loudly blared.

Three Paradoxes of the Internet Age - Part Two

Individual perception of increased choice can occur while the overall choice pool is getting smaller This gem from Whimsley makes the point - with extensive statistical modeling supporting the argument - that our algorithm-obsessed, long tail merchants are actually depleting the overall choice pool despite the fact that as individuals we may be experiencing a sense of more choice through...

Analysis of Apple's "It's Only Rock and Roll" iPod event

Apple's "It's Only Rock and Roll" iPod event yesterday had the feel of a paint-by-the numbers session. All tactics and little magic. Here's why...

iTunes Ate My Apps ... and How I Got 'em Back

Today I upgraded from iTunes 8 to 9, and when the new version launched, all my podcasts and iPhone apps were gone. Somehow I managed to wipe them from my iPod Touch as well, but getting them back was easier than I thought.

iTunes DJ AppleScript: Fade to Next Track

A radio DJ who runs her set from iTunes asked me if I could modify one of my fade-out AppleScripts. She wanted to end a song on demand and make iTunes crossfade into the next song on the playlist. I...

A Virtual "New" Tab for Movies in iTunes 8

In the comments to my blog post on adding custom genre artwork to iTunes 8, one reader asks if there is a way to add a "New" tab to the grid view for Movies. I am not aware of a hidden iTunes preference to enable such a tab, but its functionality -- list all movies I haven't watched yet -- can be achieved in other ways.

Networked Printers and Speakers with AirPort WiFi

The current AirPort base station combined with iTunes, Apple TV, the iPhone, a handful of printers, and powered speakers have enabled me to configure an "upstairs/downstairs" network complete with printing and remote-controlled music streaming. Here's an overview.

The Best of O'Reilly - Now Available in Podcast Form

This week's episode includes excerpts of interviews with our JRuby authors and climatologist Andrew Weaver, as well as news of the SCO lawsuit and this week's quiz question. Now, for your listening pleasure, we present "O'Reilly Week in Review", a roundup of the best content from the site, as well as good-natured pokes at the industry and a trivia quiz that can score you your choice of books from the vast O'Reilly catalog.

CoverScout Gets Major Overhaul for New Release

One member of the "Trio of Album Artwork Utilities for iTunes" that I wrote about three weeks ago was CoverScout. Because there were some minor "misunderstandings" between this software and iTunes 8, I was expecting an update that would fix these issues, and that update came out last Friday. Little did I know, however, that the developers were working on a new major release of the software, as well!

A Trio of Album Artwork Utilities for iTunes

Whether it's List view, Grid view, or Cover Flow -- finally, with iTunes 8, album cover art is available in whichever view you look at your digital music collection. High time to fill the remaining cover art gaps in your library, if you haven't done so yet. There are numerous software tools available to help you with this task, and this blog post will present three rather different, yet equally noteworthy representatives of that software genre.

Custom Genre Artwork for iTunes 8

When browsing your media library by genre in the new Grid View that debuted with the recently released iTunes 8, each genre folder is adorned by gorgeous genre artwork -- as long as you stick to iTunes's default genre names. When using custom genres, or if you're unhappy with the Apple-designed artwork, however, there's a way to add your own custom artwork to iTunes 8.

iTunes Surround Sound

Did you know you can enjoy six-channel sound from iTunes? All you need is a decoder, six amplified speakers, and this squirrely software trick.

Disc is Dead

No, not Disco, Disc. Disc is dead. The existing iTunes movies and video model may be flawed but digital distribution is the way of the future. If the rumor mill is right, tomorrow Apple will reinvent this space