If your iTunes account is linked to your PayPal account, you had better check things out today. A bunch of accounts all around the country linked to PayPal have been hacked with as much as thousands of dollars in charges made.

A new rumor has surfaced again focusing on the long rumored Verizon iPhone. This rumor says that the kinks are still being worked out for the largest network around to get the iPhone and that the main thing is trying to decide if 2011 or 2012 is the goal for launch.

Sister site SlashGear has a column where the case for the EVO 4G versus iPhone 4 is made. If you are trying to decide between the new iPhone 4 and the Evo 4G this story is worth a read.

Apple announced late last week that the widely reported issues with the iPhone 4 and its reception were due in part to a bad formula. Apple says the reason the iPhone 4 shows less bars when held is due in part to a formula that shows more bars than the iPhone 4 really has.

Why use appsto.re URL’s? According to them:

• They contain the name of your app, making people more likely to click.
• They take people straight to iTunes, increasing the chance people will buy your app.
• They are short! So they are easy to share on twitter or where ever.

However, a TechCrunch reader tells us that iPhone apps already have short URLs, e.g. http://itunes.com/apps/scavenge.

[via TechCrunch]

The blogger wrote:

This revelation, (again at least to me) comes by way of an advertisement in the new ad supported version of the app Twitterfon released on 5/15/09. Three ads, stumbled upon by a geeky friend of mine who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of the powerful arms of the Apple legal department, scrolling across the top of the app were for ‘iTunes Movies’, ‘iTunes TV’ and ‘iTunes Movie Rentals’.

Unsubstantiated rumor? I don’t know, though on-device downloads would be nice. Currently, the only way to get video on an iPhone is by downloading it via iTunes on your computer and syncing with your device.

[via Open Salon]

That’s because the addition of 3G will make the device exponentially faster when transferring data. Also, 3G will increase call quality. An article in the New York Time suggests that Apple is in talks with major record labels about the service. It seems all is not well in the negotiations though, as the labels are all wanting more than 70 cents per song.

According to the article Apple is planning a big launch in June. Apple also is looking to add more songs to its listing of ring tones. Apple is also looking to bring call tones to the iPhone, which may be worth even more than a traditional ring tone according to the report. It is assumed if a deal is struck it will be introduced at Apple’s WWDC event on June 9th.

[Via AppleInsider]

“If you look at studies about MP3 players, especially leading MP3 players and what portion of that content is pirated, and think about how that content gets onto that device, it has to go through a gatekeeping piece of software, which would be a convenient place to put some antipiracy measures.  One of the big issues for NBC is piracy. We are financially harmed every day by piracy. It results in us not being able to invest as much money in the next generation of film and TV products” George Kliavkoff, chief digital officer, NBC

While NBC Universal’s film arm distributes through iTunes, currently the only legal way for users to view TV content online is via the Hulu service.  Described as a YouTube for professionally produced video – together with the anti-piracy measures such producers demand – Hulu currently lacks any download or mobile device use.  Since iTunes is the largest music retailer in the US, Kliavkoff’s comments seem obviously aimed at Apple.

NBC and Apple have disagreed over the way wholesale and retail pricing is arrived at.  NBC are looking to set their own wholesale price, from which point they say retailers are free to mark it up, to make profit, or mark it down and use it as a loss-leader.  However Apple are apparently trying to set both the price they sell content at and the price they buy it, passing the loss-leader mark-down on to NBC.  The network pulled its TV shows from iTunes in December last year.

Engadget Mobile also reported seeing the contact search in the enterprise version of the firmware 2.0.  They’ve discovered that the little drawer button which did nothing in the “regular old” firmware” is actually a meeting invitation folder, which displays the number of requests just like the SMS and mail icons.  The AppStore and iTune store icons seem to be missing from the Enterprise firmware.

Anyone else find anything new related to the iPhone OS 2.0 5A240d build?  Click comment and share with the community.  Thanks!

So why is this important, if you can’t see the difference?  As Ars Technica explain, it’s all about optimising your video library for playback on multiple devices:

“[It] can be [useful] if you want the same files to be playable the mobile device and on the computer screen or TV. If you are interested in experimenting yourself, don’t forget to stick to baseline H.264 encoding and remember that these files will not play on older generation iPods”Iljitsch van Beijnum, Ars Technica

The upside is that movies bought from the iTunes store are actually being delivered in higher resolution than you might expect, given Apple’s quoted compatibility for the iPhone; Iljitsch found his copy of Punch-Drunk Love came in at 853 x 366, which would look far better through, say, an Apple TV than a 640 x 480 version might.

[via Gizmodo]

“It’s an open question at this point how amenable Apple will be to offering products or applications that could conceivably interfere with its own iTunes revenue stream.  The real interesting test case will be Amazon.  Here’s a music vendor selling songs that are clearly compatible with the iPhone. Unlike with Rhapsody or Napster, there’s no DRM you need to make work” Ross Rubin, analyst, NPD Group

Meanwhile, the possibilities for music streaming services such as Pandora or Last.fm are also unclear.  SeeqPod, which advertises itself as a “playable search” client, has been offering an iPhone-formatted version of their streaming music service since shortly after the handset first became available, but there is no word on whether they’ll be allowed to develop a standalone app rather than rely on users navigating to them in Safari. 

Apple’s own SDK guidelines seem purposefully to stand in the way of rival music software.  The well-popularised “no background processes” clause would render an iPhone (or iPod Touch) running non-iTunes music apps useless, since the playback would not be allowed to continue while other functionality was used.  In fact, the guidelines for third-party software would seem to suggest that no music app could satisfy Apple’s demands for a seamless user experience:

“It’s important to make sure that users do not experience any negative effects because of this reality. In other words, users should not feel that leaving your iPhone application and returning to it later is any more difficult than switching among applications on a computer” Apple SDK documentation

Since plugins for Safari or iTunes are similarly out of bounds, that limits functionality-increasing additions such as Last.fm’s music suggestion widget.

Apple has so far limited developer sign-ups, ostensibly because of the sheer number of interested parties, but it would be interesting to hear how many of those accepted into the iPhone Developers Programme are considering coding potential rivals to the company’s music download business.

More worrying, Apple is apparently contravening Russian law by failing to offer the MacBook Air with Cyrillic lettering on the keyboard, nor a Russian-localised iPod Touch.

“The whole press conference by itself seems to be pretty much useless, because it went about the movie rentals, Apple TV update, iPod touch update, etc – all great stuff, but with one little problem. iTunes Store doesn’t exist in Russia, and Apple doesn’t have plans to bring one here. And it makes all these news completely obsolete and useless” Alex Patsay, alexmac.net

Most bizarrely, when one journalist asked an Apple rep how he could pay to update his iPod Touch to the latest 1.1.3 firmware, since Russia lacks the iTunes Store, he was told “buy a new iPod touch with 1.1.3 firmware - it will have these applications already installed”

Patsay seems, if anything, concerned for Apple and their success in Russia – his worry is that buyers will travel to bordering Finland and buy cheaper Apple hardware there to bring back, thus causing Apple Russia to miss out on profits.  But if the whole debacle is even partly true, then I can’t help but think that Apple might deserve to fall flat on its face.

[via The Inquirer]

Mr Zucker appears to have patched up relations with Apple after a pricing dispute last year led NBC to pull its shows from the iTunes digital media store. “We’ve said all along that we admire Apple, that we want to be in business with Apple,” he said. “We’re great fans of Steve Jobs.” Financial Times

The suspicion is now that NBC used the disagreement in part as a negotiating tactic, attempting to pressure Apple into relinquishing control of media prices into their own hands.  Steve Jobs’ recent announcement of partnerships with the major movie studios, however, may have suggested to NBC that the company was not as dependent on their TV downloads as assumed; while NBC’s content did make up 1,500hrs of media and it was Apple’s largest digital video partner, movie downloads and rentals have been received with far greater excitement.

[via TechCrunch]

Both new and vintage titles will apparently be available, and analysts believe the upgrade will be used to springboard higher sales of the Apple TV set-top box.  In fact, some predict an upgrade to that device too; Bear Stearns & Co. analyst Andrew Neff suggested that the Cupertino-based firm would announce the next-gen software version for the unit, which streams media from networked Macs to display on a connected TV.

The news comes as Apple has been pressured into reducing the price of UK iTunes music downloads, to ensure parity with European prices.

[via Engadget]

Instead, content from Bravo, mun2, NBC, NBC News, CNBC, NBC Sports, Sci Fi, Sleuth, Telemundo or USA Network are available on NBC’s own ad-supported download service, NBC Direct, which currently lacks a Mac-version of the software (one is expected next year).

[via iLounge]

This case is about the music being sold at the iTunes store being tied to the iPod and about how music from other online stores can’t be put on the iPod, which is incorrect. So Mr. Black, do your research, there are now several places where you can buy DRM-free tracks that you can put on any MP3 player, including iTunes, and the best part, they now no longer charge extra for DRM-free tracks from the iTunes store.

So, good luck in your future endeavors Mr. Black, but I am sure Apple covered their ass a little better than you might think, in fact I’d be willing to wager that if you are suing due to music purchased prior to iTunes selling DRM-Free tracks that Apples nice little iTunes Plus upgrade service should take care of that. And there is probably some fine print protecting Apple even if you should choose not to use that tool.

Apple Hit with Yet Another Lawsuit: iPods Illegally Tied to iTunes [via wired]

A current bone of contention that is as of yet unresolved is whether tracks previously bought can be “upgraded” to DRM-free, as used to be the case by paying the difference between the two types.  Since this difference has now been removed, and barring any price drop of standard songs, it will remain to be seen whether free upgrades of tracks now available unencrypted for the same price will be permitted.

In an interesting twist, EMI label head Alain Levy used the Apple announcement to disclose that he was in talks with Cupertino regarding bringing in flexible pricing for iTunes tracks, in such a way that popular songs could potentially rise to $1.29 while infrequently downloaded music would fall accordingly.  Apple is yet to comment, although any such plan would be, as Levy recognises, implemented in the course of 12 months rather than immediately.

[via Apple-Touch]