Our history of iTunes continues, picking up with major updates introduced in version 4 and making it all the way to the present day. We discuss awkward definitions of podcasting, ill-fated products and features, and serious controversy in icon design.
Audio note: We're sorry that Ed's audio for this episode was improperly recorded and is of lower quality than usual. We'd like to thank the following people for helping us clean up the recording so we could still release this episode.
- Jason Snell, host of shows on The Incomparable and Relay FM
- Luca Zorzi, host of shows on EasyPodcast
- Mark Bizilj, host of Bitni Pogovori
Links for this episode:
iTunes 4
- April 2003 Special Event keynote
- iTunes Music Store
- the lousy competition
- songs priced at 99¢
- Apple Corps v. Apple Computer
- infrastructure for launching a store/service
- AAC format
- Apple movie trailers site
- Amazon's 1-Click patent
- music store sales milestones
- Rendezvous
- 4.1: "Hell freezes over" with Windows port
- 4.5: iMix, Party Shuffle
- 4.9: Podcasting, support for Motorola ROKR
iTunes 5
- it's not version 4.10!
- new interface (became system-wide in OS X Leopard)
- Smart Shuffle
- it's less random!
- Radiolab on randomness
iTunes 6
- TV shows and videos added to iTMS
iTunes 7
- gapless playback
- "album list" view
- Cover Flow
- two-way sync to iPod
- movies on iTMS
- Steve Jobs: "Thoughts on Music"
- 7.2: iTunes Plus format with no DRM
- 7.3: iPhone activation
iTunes 8
- Genius
- iTMS: variable pricing, 100% DRM-free, and HD video
